THE CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA
ARISTOTLE’S ACCOUNT OF FRIENDSHIP
By
Nathan D. March
Dr. McCoy
PHIL 313 Philosophy of Human Nature
18 November 2002
Aristotle’s account of friendship in Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics encompasses and surpasses all the other goods discussed previously in the Ethics, including the goods of external possessions, honor, moral virtue, and justice. To understand his claim that friendship is “most necessary” and “no one would choose to live without friends even if he had all the other goods,” (NE VIII:1.1) it must be understood within the larger context of his ethical treatise.
The Nicomachean Ethics seeks to determine what the good and best life for a person and a community is. Aristotle begins with the realization that what most people consider good is what is choiceworthy. They agree happiness is the highest of all the goods. (NE I:4.1) It is apparently good without qualification, complete and self-sufficient. ( NE I:7.20) To avoid suggesting the good life is relative, or a life of mere pleasure seeking, he defines a more complete account of happiness by investigating the unique characteristics of human activity. Since humans are rational agents, the best human activity is the activity of reason in accord with virtue. The truly excellent people not only desire what they find choiceworthy but also are capable of attaining it and find pleasure in it. Therefore the conditions for the possibility of the ultimate end of happiness require the human person to be complete, self-sufficient, and engaged in human activity by reason in accord with virtue such that he or she finds pleasure in it.
Friendship is evidently part of human nature since it occurs naturally within the family between parent and child. Aristotle says, “human beings most of all, have a natural friendship for each other.” (NE VIII:1.3) As a constituent element of human nature a person can only be complete unless he or she has friends. Aristotle proves this at the beginning of Book VIII by illustrating that the rich as well the poor need friends. In the case of the poor man, he finds refuge in friendship. For the rich man, his prosperity is only perfected by the benevolence offered to him in friendship. (NE VIII:1.1) Therefore for a person to achieve the end of happiness he or she must choose to be complete thus choosing friendship for the sake of happiness.
Friendship is defined as a virtue. (NE VIII:1.1) More specifically it is a state, or a virtue of character, separate from a capacity or feeling. Friendship is characterized by mutual loving, or “reciprocated goodwill”, such that two people have goodwill for each other, wish goods for the sake of the other, and are aware of the reciprocated goodwill between each other. (NE VIII:2.3-4) Through the virtue of friendship people love one another. To be a friend a person must not only know how to love and who to love and have loving impulses, but also direct his or her capacities and feelings towards the right objects of love so that he or she acts out of love for the right desires, for the right reasons, and on the right occasions. (NE intro xviii)
Thus not everything is loveable and properly an object of the love of friendship. Aristotle distinguishes three potential objects of love and subsequently three types of friendship. He states that people love what is either good or pleasant or useful. (NE VIII:2.1) The three corresponding types of friendship are friendship of utility, friendship of pleasure and friendship of virtue. In the case of love of utility or pleasure, the friend is not loved for his or her own sake, nor is the desire for the good of the other paramount. Therefore the only true form of friendship is friendship of virtue. The proof of this is the observable stability of virtuous friendships compared with the dissolvable nature of friendships of use or pleasure. Aristotle points out, “If someone is no longer pleasant or useful, the other stops loving him.” (NE VIII:3.3)
“Every friendship accords with some similarity.” (NE VIII:3.7) Thus for a friendship of virtue two people must be similar in virtue such that “they wish goods in the same way to each other insofar as they are good, and they are good in their own right.” (NE VIII:3.6) In this way an excellent person who perceives his or her own life as choiceworthy and pleasant will consider his or her friend as choiceworthy and pleasant as well. Since the friend is choiceworthy, the friendship is not coincidental like the friendships of use or pleasure, and the friendship lasts because the common desire for virtue is by nature enduring. What binds the friendship is the virtue of the two individuals, and so Aristotle notes, “all the features we have mentioned [previously in the Nicomachean Ethics, including the moral virtues] are found in this friendship because of the nature of the friends themselves.” (NE VIII:3.7)
Similar to justice, friendship demands equality. “Friends get the same and wish the same to each other.” (NE VIII:6.7) In a sense justice is complete virtue, and is thought to be the greatest of the virtues. (NE V:1.25) Yet, friendship seems to exceed even justice in that “if people are friends, they have no need of justice, but if they are just they need friendship.” (NE VIII:1.4) Though justice seems to be the foundation of civic laws, it is friendship that seems to hold cities together. Justice and friendship are different because the equality they require is not the same. “For in justice equality is equality primarily in worth and secondarily in quantity; but in friendship it is equality primarily in quantity and secondarily in worth.” (NE VIII:7.3) Thus friendship allows love between unequal partners, between a father and a son, or a king and his subject.
Unequal and equal partners can be friends because they are equalized in the act of loving their friends in accord with their worth. (NE VIII:8.4) In this respect friendship consists more in loving than being loved. An example of this is the mother who finds enjoyment in loving her child. Friendship is greater than honor because those who love honor seem to prefer, being loved to loving, and take honor as a sign of good treatment from their superiors. (NE VIII:8.1-2)
Aristotle suggests the defining features of friendship are derived from friendship toward oneself. (NE IX:4.1) Aristotle notes that the excellent person, “wishes goods, and apparent goods to himself, and achieves them in his actions, since it is proper to the good person to reach the good by his efforts.” (NE IX:4.3) Additionally, “such a person finds it pleasant to spend time with himself.” (NE IX:4:5) Since a friend is another self, it would stand that the other would be an apparent good, choiseworthy and pleasant in and of himself, and the self-sufficient person would not be complete but rather deficient until he or she was friends with the other. In this respect, friendship is a form of self-love, and “all the features of friendship extend from oneself to others.” (NE IX:8.2)
According to Aristotle, a friend is another self and hence can supply “what your own efforts can not supply.” (NE IX:9.1) A good person must be good, and do good things. In the case of a rich man, to be virtuous, he must necessarily be benevolent, and dependent on others. The rich man needs friends since “it is finer to benefit friends than to benefit strangers.” (NE IX:9.2) In this way, friends are beneficial and seem to be the greatest external good.
Additionally happiness requires the person to engage in activities that are pleasurable. A good person engages in good activities and is able to perceive his or her own actions as good, and therefore finds pleasure in them. Aristotle points out, “what is our own is pleasant; and we are able to observe our neighbors more than ourselves, and to observe their actions more than our own; it follows that a good person find pleasure in the actions of excellent people who are his friends.” (NE IX:9.5) Since a friend is another self, it follows that a friend’s actions are similar to one’s own actions and one finds pleasure in a friends actions as one would find pleasure in one’s own. In this respect a friend not only benefits a person by completing or increasing his or her activities, but he or she is like a mirror that makes oneself visible and becomes an opportunity for self-knowledge.
Finally, the happy life is characterized by continuous pleasant activity. (NE IX:9.6) Therefore it is proper for friends to “live together and share conversation and thought.” (NE IX:9.10) What is considered good for an individual’s personal happiness is also essential for the good of a community or city. A community whose aim is the good life necessarily is composed of friends. All communities are political and “friendship appears in each of the political systems.” (NE VIII:11.1) The best political community allows for the best sorts of friendship. According to Aristotle, the most excellent system is the aristocracy and the worst timocracy. (NE VIII:10.1)
Thus, Aristotle’s account of friendship encompasses and surpasses all the other goods discussed previously in the Ethics, including the goods of external possessions, honor, moral virtue, and justice. Having understood friendship as a constituent of human nature it is clear that for an individual to live a happy life he or she must have friends. A friend completes one’s life, perfects one’s activities, and is another self that brings pleasure to one’s life as well as self-knowledge. Although friendship is a form of self-love it finds its direction outwards and situated within a larger community of friends.