For many readers of the Nicomachean Ethics it is surprising how highly Aristotle values a capability which he calls epieikeia or to epieikes, an expression usually rendered by ‘equity’. In the short chapter EN 5.10, he characterizes it as a perfect moral competence which overrides even justice. At first glance, one might suppose that Aristotle does nothing more in this passage than report several traditional commonplaces (endoxa). But on a close reading, there can be no doubt that his account is strongly affirmative. The reason he gives us for this affirmation is that while to epieikes is itself a form of justice, at the same time it goes beyond justice, since it enables the person who possesses it to improve written law when it is in need of correction or when written law is incomplete. Thus to epieikes, he says, can even be used as an equivalent of ‘good’ (anti tou agathou), for what is more equitable (epieikesteron) is always the better. What is called equitable, Aristotle continues, is a form of justice, but it is even superior to justice (1137b1–2 and 8–11). According to Aristotle, the riddle of how equity can simultaneously transgress justice and be a form of justice finds a simple solution: to epieikes is the second part of justice which supplements the first part, or the law. Both are species of a unique genus justice, but to epieikes is the better one of them (1137b11–13).