Philosophy 454 - Paper 3

Aristotle and Friendship

1. Aristotle considers friendship to be important because he believes that it is
necessary for our lives for a number of reasons. We need friends during times of need
because it is friends that can help us during those times by keeping us from error when
we are young and learning and by caring for us when we are old and frail and helping us
when we are destitute (EN VIII.1.1155a11-15). But we also need friends even when we
are prosperous and not in need of aid because when we are prosperous then we have a
desire and need to share this prosperity with others through beneficences, which are most
appropriately displayed towards one's friends (EN VIII.1.1155a5-10). Furthermore,
Aristotle hints that friendship is necessary even for holding human societies together in
the first place because it is related to the concord which such societies need to remain
unified and that for this reason, it is also an object of political craft (EN
VIII.1.1155a24-25). From this, it is clear that Aristotle has in mind the kind of
relationships which develop between particular people who are personally aware of one
another and connected with one another (rather than the relationship which a person
might share with society in general) and who, through these connections, give aid or
beneficences to one another for a variety of reasons in such a way that these people do
not feel they are simply making transactions akin to those in commerce or other fields
regulated by justice.
2. Aristotle eventually goes on to state that it is a common belief that a necessary
feature of friendship is that a person wishes good things for his friend: "To a friend,
however, it is said, you must wish goods for his own sake" (EN VIII.1.1155b30-33).


However, even if this is true, this, by itself, cannot be a sufficient condition for friendship
because, in order for a relationship to be a friendship, there must also be a reciprocal
element to it such that the person one wishes goodwill towards also wishes that goodwill
back. Furthermore, it must also be the case that the two people wishing goodwill towards
one another are aware that the other is wishing goodwill towards him. Hence, for these
reasons, you cannot be friends with your car because you cannot wish that good things
happen to your car for its own sake but rather only insofar as those good things would
ultimately benefit you; furthermore, your car is incapable of reciprocating or even being
aware of your feelings. Likewise, a star of your favorite team or a celebrity whom you've
never met before also cannot be aware of your feelings of goodwill toward them.
3. Aristotle himself believed that there are three types of friends, corresponding to
the three reasons for which something can be loved: either because it is good or because
it is pleasurable (fine) or because it is useful (EN VIII.2.1155b17-23). For Aristotle, love
of another person forms the linchpin of a friendship, but the type of love that is at play,
i.e. the reason for why a person loves another person, determines what kind of friendship
this friendship is. If two people love one another for their utility towards one another,
then they do not really love one another for the sake of that other person but rather they
love the utility which they gain from one another and hence they value one another as the
means to that end. Hence, in such a relationship, the individual does not really wish
goods to his friend "for his own sake" but rather he wishes goodwill towards his friend
ultimately for his own self (EN VIII.3.1156a9-20). The same is true for two friends who
love one another because they find one another pleasurable; it is this pleasure which the
one finds most important, and he loves and honors his friend insofar as that friend


provides such pleasure (EN VIII.3.1156a9-20).
However, in the third kind of friendship, two friends love one another because
they view one another as good and they love the good. In such a friendship, the two
friends are virtuous characters and hence good people and they are led by their love for
what is good to love one another. Therefore, in this kind of friendship, the two friends
really do love one another and wish good things for one another for the sake of the person
being loved rather than ultimately for one's own sake (EN VIII.3.1156b6-14).
4. Aristotle believed that friends are necessary for happiness because he believed
that humans are by their nature political animals who yearn for community and
companionship (EN IX.9.1169B16-24). If it is the case that by our very nature, we are
social creatures, then this would mean that in order for us to fulfill our function or telos of
living according to our most fully realized nature, we must have companionship. Hence,
friendship is a necessary part of realizing our natural ends, which is necessary for
achieving our full potential as the creatures that we are and the happiness that comes with
such fulfillment. But if this is the case, then this means that having friends are a necessary
part of achieving happiness. Furthermore, on Aristotle's eudaimonistic account, we need
to exercise the virtues in order to fulfill our objective, natural function of exercising our
rationality and it is only by realizing this end, our final cause, that we can achieve true
happiness as the creatures that we are. But part of what it means to exercise the virtues is
benefiting one's friends because the virtuous person more readily gives benefits than he
receives them and it is finer for him to benefit his friends than it is for him to benefit
strangers (EN IX.9.1169B9-15). Hence, once again, friends are necessary for happiness.
4. Returning to the different types of happiness, Aristotle believed that friendship


which results from love of utility and friendship which results from love of pleasure
should be counted as genuine friendships despite the fact that in these friendships, the
friends do not truly love one another and wish one another goodwill for the sake of the
friend himself but rather for his own sake. This would seem to contradict the common
attitude about what constitutes friendship which Aristotle notes in EN VIII 3 but Aristotle
seems to reason that these types of friendships should still be counted as such because
people commonly include amongst their friends those that they love because of their
ability to provide them with utility or pleasure: "Hence, we must presumably also say that
such people are friends, but say that there are more species of friendship than one" ((EN
VIII.4.1157a25-32). Nevertheless, Aristotle clearly counts friendship that results from
love of the good as the best form of friendship and even seems to regard the other two
kinds as derivative upon it.























Citation

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. Terence Irwin. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing
Company, Inc. 1999. Print