On Friendship,
Bk. VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics [ref. 1154-1163]
The topic of "friendship and what it means is an important
one in discussion of the history of homosociality, an important
aspect of modern understandings of homosexuality. Aristotle's
discussion was central to much later thought.
1
AFTER what we have said, a discussion of friendship
would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue,
and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without
friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods;
even rich men and those in possession of office and of dominating
power are thought to need friends most of all; for what is the
use of such prosperity without the opportunity of beneficence,
which is exercised chiefly and in its most laudable form towards
friends? Or how can prosperity be guarded and preserved without
friends? The greater it is, the more exposed is it to risk. And
in poverty and in other misfortunes men think friends are the
only refuge. It helps the young, too, to keep from error; it aids
older people by ministering to their needs and supplementing our
course for them and because all men share in them; thus because
they alone are familiar, men think there are no others.
It is evident also that if pleasure, i.e. the activity
of our faculties, is not a good, it will not be the case that
the happy man lives a pleasant life; for to what end should he
need pleasure, if it is not a good but the happy man may even
live a painful life? For pain is neither an evil nor a good, if
pleasure is not; why then should he avoid it? Therefore, too,
the life of the good man will not be pleasanter than that of any
one else, if his activities are not more pleasant.
[The etext available is mutilated from her
to the beginning of #3]
2
(G) With regard to the bodily pleasures, those who
say that some pleasures are very much to be chosen, viz. the noble
pleasures, but not the bodily pleasures, i.e. those with which
the self-indulgent man is concerned, must consider why, then,
the contrary pains are bad. For the contrary of bad is good. Are
the necessary pleasures good in the sense in which even that which
is not bad is good? Or are they good up to a point? Is it that
where you have states and processes of which there cannot be too
much, there cannot be too much of the corresponding pleasure,
and that where there can be too much of the one there can be too
much of the other also? Now there can be too much of bodily goods,
and the bad man is bad by virtue of pursuing the excess, not by
virtue of pursuing the necessary pleasures (for all men enjoy
in some way or other both dainty foods and wines and sexual intercourse,
but not all men do so as they ought). The contrary is the case
with pain; for he does not avoid the excess of it, he avoids it
altogether; and this is peculiar to him, for the alternative to
excess of pleasure is not pain, except to the man who pursues
this excess.
Since we should state not only the truth, but also
the cause of error-for this contributes towards producing conviction,
since when a reasonable explanation is given of why the false
view appears true, this tends to produce belief in the true view-therefore
we must state why the bodily pleasures appear the more worthy
of choice. (a) Firstly, then, it is because they expel pain; owing
to the excesses of pain that men experience, they pursue excessive
and in general bodily pleasure as being a cure for the pain. Now
curative agencies produce intense feeling-which is the reason
why they are pursued-because they show up against the contrary
pain. (Indeed pleasure is thought not to be good for these two
reasons, as has been said, viz. that (a) some of them are activities
belonging to a bad nature-either congenital, as in the case of
a brute, or due to habit, i.e. those of bad men; while (b) others
are meant to cure a defective nature, and it is better to be in
a healthy state than to be getting into it, but these arise during
the process of being made perfect and are therefore only incidentally
good.) (b) Further, they are pursued because of their violence
by those who cannot enjoy other pleasures. (At all events they
go out of their way to manufacture thirsts somehow for themselves.
When these are harmless, the practice is irreproachable; when
they are hurtful, it is bad.) For they have nothing else to enjoy,
and, besides, a neutral state is painful to many people because
of their nature. For the animal nature is always in travail, as
the students of natural science also testify, saying that sight
and hearing are painful; but we have become used to this, as they
maintain. Similarly, while, in youth, people are, owing to the
growth that is going on, in a situation like that of drunken men,
and youth is pleasant, on the other hand people of excitable nature
always need relief; for even their body is ever in torment owing
to its special composition, and they are always under the influence
of violent desire; but pain is driven out both by the contrary
pleasure, and by any chance pleasure if it be strong; and for
these reasons they become self-indulgent and bad. But the pleasures
that do not involir mutual feelings? To be friends, then, the
must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well
to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.
3
Now these reasons differ from each other in kind;
so, therefore, do the corresponding forms of love and friendship.
There are therefore three kinds of friendship, equal in number
to the things that are lovable; for with respect to each there
is a mutual and recognized love, and those who love each other
wish well to each other in that respect in which they love one
another. Now those who love each other for their utility do not
love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which
they get from each other. So too with those who love for the sake
of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted
people, but because they find them pleasant. Therefore those who
love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good
for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do
so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in
so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is
useful or pleasant. And thus these friendships are only incidental;
for it is not as being the man he is that the loved person is
loved, but as providing some good or pleasure. Such friendships,
then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like
themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful
the other ceases to love him.
Now the useful is not permanent but is always changing.
Thus when the motive of the friendship is done away, the friendship
is dissolved, inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question.
This kind of friendship seems to exist chiefly between old people
(for at that age people pursue not the pleasant but the useful)
and, of those who are in their prime or young, between those who
pursue utility. And such people do not live much with each other
either; for sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant;
therefore they do not need such companionship unless they are
useful to each other; for they are pleasant to each other only
in so far as they rouse in each other hopes of something good
to come. Among such friendships people also class the friendship
of a host and guest. On the other hand the friendship of young
people seems to aim at pleasure; for they live under the guidance
of emotion, and pursue above all what is pleasant to themselves
and what is immediately before them; but with increasing age their
pleasures become different. This is why they quickly become friends
and quickly cease to be so; their friendship changes with the
object that is found pleasant, and such pleasure alters quickly.
Young people are amorous too; for the greater part of the friendship
of love depends on emotion and aims at pleasure; this is why they
fall in love and quickly fall out of love, changing often within
a single day. But these people do wish to spend their days and
lives together; for it is thus that they attain the purpose of
their friendship.
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who
are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each
other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish
well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for
they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore
their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is
an enduring thing. And each is good without qualification and
to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification
and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good
are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since
to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable,
and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship
is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all
the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is
for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure either in
the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly
feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship
of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of
the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this
kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both
friends, and that which is good without qualification is also
without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable
qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in
their best form between such men.
But it is natural that such friendships should be
infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires
time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each
other till they have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit
each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found
lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks
of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends
unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for
friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.
4
This kind of friendship, then, is perfect both in
respect of duration and in all other respects, and in it each
gets from each in all respects the same as, or something like
what, he gives; which is what ought to happen between friends.
Friendship for the sake of pleasure bears a resemblance to this
kind; for good people too are pleasant to each other. So too does
friendship for the sake of utility; for the good are also useful
to each other. Among men of these inferior sorts too, friendships
are most permanent when the friends get the same thing from each
other (e.g. pleasure), and not only that but also from the same
source, as happens between readywitted people, not as happens
between lover and beloved. For these do not take pleasure in the
same things, but the one in seeing the beloved and the other in
receiving attentions from his lover; and when the bloom of youth
is passing the friendship sometimes passes too (for the one finds
no pleasure in the sight of the other, and the other gets no attentions
from the first); but many lovers on the other hand are constant,
if familiarity has led them to love each other's characters, these
being alike. But those who exchange not pleasure but utility in
their amour are both less truly friends and less constant. Those
who are friends for the sake of utility part when the advantage
is at an end; for they were lovers not of each other but of profit.
For the sake of pleasure or utility, then, even
bad men may be friends of each other, or good men of bad, or one
who is neither good nor bad may be a friend to any sort of person,
but for their own sake clearly only good men can be friends; for
bad men do not delight in each other unless some advantage come
of the relation.
The friendship of the good too and this alone is
proof against slander; for it is not easy to trust any one talk
about a man who has long been tested by oneself; and it is among
good men that trust and the feeling that 'he would never wrong
me' and all the other things that are demanded in true friendship
are found. In the other kinds of friendship, however, there is
nothing to prevent these evils arising. For men apply the name
of friends even to those whose motive is utility, in which sense
states are said to be friendly (for the alliances of states seem
to aim at advantage), and to those who love each other for the
sake of pleasure, in which sense children are called friends.
Therefore we too ought perhaps to call such people friends, and
say that there are several kinds of friendship-firstly and in
the proper sense that of good men qua good, and by analogy the
other kinds; for it is in virtue of something good and something
akin to what is found in true friendship that they are friends,
since even the pleasant is good for the lovers of pleasure. But
these two kinds of friendship are not often united, nor do the
same people become friends for the sake of utility and of pleasure;
for things that are only incidentally connected are not often
coupled together.
Friendship being divided into these kinds, bad men
will be friends for the sake of pleasure or of utility, being
in this respect like each other, but good men will be friends
for their own sake, i.e. in virtue of their goodness. These, then,
are friends without qualification; the others are friends incidentally
and through a resemblance to these.
5
As in regard to the virtues some men are called
good in respect of a state of character, others in respect of
an activity, so too in the case of friendship; for those who live
together delight in each other and confer benefits on each other,
but those who are asleep or locally separated are not performing,
but are disposed to perform, the activities of friendship; distance
does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity
of it. But if the absence is lasting, it seems actually to make
men forget their friendship; hence the saying 'out of sight, out
of mind'. Neither old people nor sour people seem to make friends
easily; for there is little that is pleasant in them, and no one
can spend his days with one whose company is painful, or not pleasant,
since nature seems above all to avoid the painful and to aim at
the pleasant. Those, however, who approve of each other but do
not live together seem to be well-disposed rather than actual
friends. For there is nothing so characteristic of friends as
living together (since while it people who are in need that desire
benefits, even those who are supremely happy desire to spend their
days together; for solitude suits such people least of all); but
people cannot live together if they are not pleasant and do not
enjoy the same things, as friends who are companions seem to do.
The truest friendship, then, is that of the good,
as we have frequently said; for that which is without qualification
good or pleasant seems to be lovable and desirable, and for each
person that which is good or pleasant to him; and the good man
is lovable and desirable to the good man for both these reasons.
Now it looks as if love were a feeling, friendship a state of
character; for love may be felt just as much towards lifeless
things, but mutual love involves choice and choice springs from
a state of character; and men wish well to those whom they love,
for their sake, not as a result of feeling but as a result of
a state of character. And in loving a friend men love what is
good for themselves; for the good man in becoming a friend becomes
a good to his friend. Each, then, both loves what is good for
himself, and makes an equal return in goodwill and in pleasantness;
for friendship is said to be equality, and both of these are found
most in the friendship of the good.
6
Between sour and elderly people friendship arises
less readily, inasmuch as they are less good-tempered and enjoy
companionship less; for these are thou to be the greatest marks
of friendship productive of it. This is why, while men become
friends quickly, old men do not; it is because men do not become
friends with those in whom they do not delight; and similarly
sour people do not quickly make friends either. But such men may
bear goodwill to each other; for they wish one another well and
aid one another in need; but they are hardly friends because they
do not spend their days together nor delight in each other, and
these are thought the greatest marks of friendship.
One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense
of having friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one
cannot be in love with many people at once (for love is a sort
of excess of feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be
felt towards one person); and it is not easy for many people at
the same time to please the same person very greatly, or perhaps
even to be good in his eyes. One must, too, acquire some experience
of the other person and become familiar with him, and that is
very hard. But with a view to utility or pleasure it is possible
that many people should please one; for many people are useful
or pleasant, and these services take little time.
Of these two kinds that which is for the sake of
pleasure is the more like friendship, when both parties get the
same things from each other and delight in each other or in the
things, as in the friendships of the young; for generosity is
more found in such friendships. Friendship based on utility is
for the commercially minded. People who are supremely happy, too,
have no need of useful friends, but do need pleasant friends;
for they wish to live with some one and, though they can endure
for a short time what is painful, no one could put up with it
continuously, nor even with the Good itself if it were painful
to him; this is why they look out for friends who are pleasant.
Perhaps they should look out for friends who, being pleasant,
are also good, and good for them too; for so they will have all
the characteristics that friends should have.
People in positions of authority seem to have friends
who fall into distinct classes; some people are useful to them
and others are pleasant, but the same people are rarely both;
for they seek neither those whose pleasantness is accompanied
by virtue nor those whose utility is with a view to noble objects,
but in their desire for pleasure they seek for ready-witted people,
and their other friends they choose as being clever at doing what
they are told, and these characteristics are rarely combined.
Now we have said that the good man is at the same time pleasant
and useful; but such a man does not become the friend of one who
surpasses him in station, unless he is surpassed also in virtue;
if this is not so, he does not establish equality by being proportionally
exceeded in both respects. But people who surpass him in both
respects are not so easy to find.
However that may be, the aforesaid friendships involve
equality; for the friends get the same things from one another
and wish the same things for one another, or exchange one thing
for another, e.g. pleasure for utility; we have said, however,
that they are both less truly friendships and less permanent.
But it is from their likeness and their unlikeness
to the same thing that they are thought both to be and not to
be friendships. It is by their likeness to the friendship of virtue
that they seem to be friendships (for one of them involves pleasure
and the other utility, and these characteristics belong to the
friendship of virtue as well); while it is because the friendship
of virtue is proof against slander and permanent, while these
quickly change (besides differing from the former in many other
respects), that they appear not to be friendships; i.e. it is
because of their unlikeness to the friendship of virtue.
7
But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that
which involves an inequality between the parties, e.g. that of
father to son and in general of elder to younger, that of man
to wife and in general that of ruler to subject. And these friendships
differ also from each other; for it is not the same that exists
between parents and children and between rulers and subjects,
nor is even that of father to son the same as that of son to father,
nor that of husband to wife the same as that of wife to husband.
For the virtue and the function of each of these is different,
and so are the reasons for which they love; the love and the friendship
are therefore different also. Each party, then, neither gets the
same from the other, nor ought to seek it; but when children render
to parents what they ought to render to those who brought them
into the world, and parents render what they should to their children,
the friendship of such persons will be abiding and excellent.
In all friendships implying inequality the love also should be
proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he loves,
and so should the more useful, and similarly in each of the other
cases; for when the love is in proportion to the merit of the
parties, then in a sense arises equality, which is certainly held
to be characteristic of friendship.
But equality does not seem to take the same form
in acts of justice and in friendship; for in acts of justice what
is equal in the primary sense is that which is in proportion to
merit, while quantitative equality is secondary, but in friendship
quantitative equality is primary and proportion to merit secondary.
This becomes clear if there is a great interval in respect of
virtue or vice or wealth or anything else between the parties;
for then they are no longer friends, and do not even expect to
be so. And this is most manifest in the case of the gods; for
they surpass us most decisively in all good things. But it is
clear also in the case of kings; for with them, too, men who are
much their inferiors do not expect to be friends; nor do men of
no account expect to be friends with the best or wisest men. In
such cases it is not possible to define exactly up to what point
friends can remain friends; for much can be taken away and friendship
remain, but when one party is removed to a great distance, as
God is, the possibility of friendship ceases. This is in fact
the origin of the question whether friends really wish for their
friends the greatest goods, e.g. that of being gods; since in
that case their friends will no longer be friends to them, and
therefore will not be good things for them (for friends are good
things). The answer is that if we were right in saying that friend
wishes good to friend for his sake, his friend must remain the
sort of being he is, whatever that may be; therefore it is for
him oily so long as he remains a man that he will wish the greatest
goods. But perhaps not all the greatest goods; for it is for himself
most of all that each man wishes what is good.
8
Most people seem, owing to ambition, to wish to
be loved rather than to love; which is why most men love flattery;
for the flatterer is a friend in an inferior position, or pretends
to be such and to love more than he is loved; and being loved
seems to be akin to being honoured, and this is what most people
aim at. But it seems to be not for its own sake that people choose
honour, but incidentally. For most people enjoy being honoured
by those in positions of authority because of their hopes (for
they think that if they want anything they will get it from them;
and therefore they delight in honour as a token of favour to come);
while those who desire honour from good men, and men who know,
are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves; they
delight in honour, therefore, because they believe in their own
goodness on the strength of the judgement of those who speak about
them. In being loved, on the other hand, people delight for its
own sake; whence it would seem to be better than being honoured,
and friendship to be desirable in itself. But it seems to lie
in loving rather than in being loved, as is indicated by the delight
mothers take in loving; for some mothers hand over their children
to be brought up, and so long as they know their fate they love
them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they cannot have
both), but seem to be satisfied if they see them prospering; and
they themselves love their children even if these owing to their
ignorance give them nothing of a mother's due. Now since friendship
depends more on loving, and it is those who love their friends
that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue
of friends, so that it is only those in whom this is found in
due measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship
that endures.
It is in this way more than any other that even
unequals can be friends; they can be equalized. Now equality and
likeness are friendship, and especially the likeness of those
who are like in virtue; for being steadfast in themselves they
hold fast to each other, and neither ask nor give base services,
but (one may say) even prevent them; for it is characteristic
of good men neither to go wrong themselves nor to let their friends
do so. But wicked men have no steadfastness (for they do not remain
even like to themselves), but become friends for a short time
because they delight in each other's wickedness. Friends who are
useful or pleasant last longer; i.e. as long as they provide each
other with enjoyments or advantages. Friendship for utility's
sake seems to be that which most easily exists between contraries,
e.g. between poor and rich, between ignorant and learned; for
what a man actually lacks he aims at, and one gives something
else in return. But under this head, too, might bring lover and
beloved, beautiful and ugly. This is why lovers sometimes seem
ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they love; if they
are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be justified, but
when they have nothing lovable about them it is ridiculous. Perhaps,
however, contrary does not even aim at contrary by its own nature,
but only incidentally, the desire being for what is intermediate;
for that is what is good, e.g. it is good for the dry not to become
wet but to come to the intermediate state, and similarly with
the hot and in all other cases. These subjects we may dismiss;
for they are indeed somewhat foreign to our inquiry.
9
Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at
the outset of our discussion, to be concerned with the same objects
and exhibited between the same persons. For in every community
there is thought to be some form of justice, and friendship too;
at least men address as friends their fellow-voyagers and fellowsoldiers,
and so too those associated with them in any other kind of community.
And the extent of their association is the extent of their friendship,
as it is the extent to which justice exists between them. And
the proverb 'what friends have is common property' expresses the
truth; for friendship depends on community. Now brothers and comrades
have all things in common, but the others to whom we have referred
have definite things in common-some more things, others fewer;
for of friendships, too, some are more and others less truly friendships.
And the claims of justice differ too; the duties of parents to
children, and those of brothers to each other are not the same,
nor those of comrades and those of fellow-citizens, and so, too,
with the other kinds of friendship. There is a difference, therefore,
also between the acts that are unjust towards each of these classes
of associates, and the injustice increases by being exhibited
towards those who are friends in a fuller sense; e.g. it is a
more terrible thing to defraud a comrade than a fellow-citizen,
more terrible not to help a brother than a stranger, and more
terrible to wound a father than any one else. And the demands
of justice also seem to increase with the intensity of the friendship,
which implies that friendship and justice exist between the same
persons and have an equal extension.
Now all forms of community are like parts of the
political community; for men journey together with a view to some
particular advantage, and to provide something that they need
for the purposes of life; and it is for the sake of advantage
that the political community too seems both to have come together
originally and to endure, for this is what legislators aim at,
and they call just that which is to the common advantage. Now
the other communities aim at advantage bit by bit, e.g. sailors
at what is advantageous on a voyage with a view to making money
or something of the kind, fellow-soldiers at what is advantageous
in war, whether it is wealth or victory or the taking of a city
that they seek, and members of tribes and demes act similarly
(Some communities seem to arise for the sake or pleasure, viz.
religious guilds and social clubs; for these exist respectively
for the sake of offering sacrifice and of companionship. But all
these seem to fall under the political community; for it aims
not at present advantage but at what is advantageous for life
as a whole), offering sacrifices and arranging gatherings for
the purpose, and assigning honours to the gods, and providing
pleasant relaxations for themselves. For the ancient sacrifices
and gatherings seem to take place after the harvest as a sort
of firstfruits, because it was at these seasons that people had
most leisure. All the communities, then, seem to be parts of the
political community; and the particular kinds friendship will
correspond to the particular kinds of community.
10
There are three kinds of constitution, and an equal
number of deviation-forms--perversions, as it were, of them. The
constitutions are monarchy, aristocracy, and thirdly that which
is based on a property qualification, which it seems appropriate
to call timocratic, though most people are wont to call it polity.
The best of these is monarchy, the worst timocracy. The deviation
from monarchy is tyrany; for both are forms of one-man rule, but
there is the greatest difference between them; the tyrant looks
to his own advantage, the king to that of his subjects. For a
man is not a king unless he is sufficient to himself and excels
his subjects in all good things; and such a man needs nothing
further; therefore he will not look to his own interests but to
those of his subjects; for a king who is not like that would be
a mere titular king. Now tyranny is the very contrary of this;
the tyrant pursues his own good. And it is clearer in the case
of tyranny that it is the worst deviation-form; but it is the
contrary of the best that is worst. Monarchy passes over into
tyranny; for tyranny is the evil form of one-man rule and the
bad king becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy passes over into oligarchy
by the badness of the rulers, who distribute contrary to equity
what belongs to the city-all or most of the good things to themselves,
and office always to the same people, paying most regard to wealth;
thus the rulers are few and are bad men instead of the most worthy.
Timocracy passes over into democracy; for these are coterminous,
since it is the ideal even of timocracy to be the rule of the
majority, and all who have the property qualification count as
equal. Democracy is the least bad of the deviations; for in its
case the form of constitution is but a slight deviation. These
then are the changes to which constitutions are most subject;
for these are the smallest and easiest transitions.
One may find resemblances to the constitutions and,
as it were, patterns of them even in households. For the association
of a father with his sons bears the form of monarchy, since the
father cares for his children; and this is why Homer calls Zeus
'father'; it is the ideal of monarchy to be paternal rule. But
among the Persians the rule of the father is tyrannical; they
use their sons as slaves. Tyrannical too is the rule of a master
over slaves; for it is the advantage of the master that is brought
about in it. Now this seems to be a correct form of government,
but the Persian type is perverted; for the modes of rule appropriate
to different relations are diverse. The association of man and
wife seems to be aristocratic; for the man rules in accordance
with his worth, and in those matters in which a man should rule,
but the matters that befit a woman he hands over to her. If the
man rules in everything the relation passes over into oligarchy;
for in doing so he is not acting in accordance with their respective
worth, and not ruling in virtue of his superiority. Sometimes,
however, women rule, because they are heiresses; so their rule
is not in virtue of excellence but due to wealth and power, as
in oligarchies. The association of brothers is like timocracy;
for they are equal, except in so far as they differ in age; hence
if they differ much in age, the friendship is no longer of the
fraternal type. Democracy is found chiefly in masterless dwellings
(for here every one is on an equality), and in those in which
the ruler is weak and every one has licence to do as he pleases.
11
Each of the constitutions may be seen to involve
friendship just in so far as it involves justice. The friendship
between a king and his subjects depends on an excess of benefits
conferred; for he confers benefits on his subjects if being a
good man he cares for them with a view to their well-being, as
a shepherd does for his sheep (whence Homer called Agamemnon 'shepherd
of the peoples'). Such too is the friendship of a father, though
this exceeds the other in the greatness of the benefits conferred;
for he is responsible for the existence of his children, which
is thought the greatest good, and for their nurture and upbringing.
These things are ascribed to ancestors as well.
Further, by nature a father tends to rule over his sons, ancestors
over descendants, a king over his subjects. These friendships
imply superiority of one party over the other, which is why ancestors
are honoured. The justice therefore that exists between persons
so related is not the same on both sides but is in every case
proportioned to merit; for that is true of the friendship as well.
The friendship of man and wife, again, is the same that is found
in an aristocracy; for it is in accordance with virtue the better
gets more of what is good, and each gets what befits him; and
so, too, with the justice in these relations. The friendship of
brothers is like that of comrades; for they are equal and of like
age, and such persons are for the most part like in their feelings
and their character. Like this, too, is the friendship appropriate
to timocratic government; for in such a constitution the ideal
is for the citizens to be equal and fair; therefore rule is taken
in turn, and on equal terms; and the friendship appropriate here
will correspond.
But in the deviation-forms, as justice hardly exists,
so too does friendship. It exists least in the worst form; in
tyranny there is little or no friendship. For where there is nothing
common to ruler and ruled, there is not friendship either, since
there is not justice; e.g. between craftsman and tool, soul and
body, master and slave; the latter in each case is benefited by
that which uses it, but there is no friendship nor justice towards
lifeless things. But neither is there friendship towards a horse
or an ox, nor to a slave qua slave. For there is nothing common
to the two parties; the slave is a living tool and the tool a
lifeless slave. Qua slave then, one cannot be friends with him.
But qua man one can; for there seems to be some justice between
any man and any other who can share in a system of law or be a
party to an agreement; therefore there can also be friendship
with him in so far as he is a man. Therefore while in tyrannies
friendship and justice hardly exist, in democracies they exist
more fully; for where the citizens are equal they have much in
common.
12
Every form of friendship, then, involves association,
as has been said. One might, however, mark off from the rest both
the friendship of kindred and that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens,
fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like are more like
mere friendships of association; for they seem to rest on a sort
of compact. With them we might class the friendship of host and
guest. The friendship of kinsmen itself, while it seems to be
of many kinds, appears to depend in every case on parental friendship;
for parents love their children as being a part of themselves,
and children their parents as being something originating from
them. Now (1) parents know their offspring better than there children
know that they are their children, and (2) the originator feels
his offspring to be his own more than the offspring do their begetter;
for the product belongs to the producer (e.g. a tooth or hair
or anything else to him whose it is), but the producer does not
belong to the product, or belongs in a less degree. And (3) the
length of time produces the same result; parents love their children
as soon as these are born, but children love their parents only
after time has elapsed and they have acquired understanding or
the power of discrimination by the senses. From these considerations
it is also plain why mothers love more than fathers do. Parents,
then, love their children as themselves (for their issue are by
virtue of their separate existence a sort of other selves), while
children love their parents as being born of them, and brothers
love each other as being born of the same parents; for their identity
with them makes them identical with each other (which is the reason
why people talk of 'the same blood', 'the same stock', and so
on). They are, therefore, in a sense the same thing, though in
separate individuals. Two things that contribute greatly to friendship
are a common upbringing and similarity of age; for 'two of an
age take to each other', and people brought up together tend to
be comrades; whence the friendship of brothers is akin to that
of comrades. And cousins and other kinsmen are bound up together
by derivation from brothers, viz. by being derived from the same
parents. They come to be closer together or farther apart by virtue
of the nearness or distance of the original ancestor.
The friendship of children to parents, and of men
to gods, is a relation to them as to something good and superior;
for they have conferred the greatest benefits, since they are
the causes of their being and of their nourishment, and of their
education from their birth; and this kind of friendship possesses
pleasantness and utility also, more than that of strangers, inasmuch
as their life is lived more in common. The friendship of brothers
has the characteristics found in that of comrades (and especially
when these are good), and in general between people who are like
each other, inasmuch as they belong more to each other and start
with a love for each other from their very birth, and inasmuch
as those born of the same parents and brought up together and
similarly educated are more akin in character; and the test of
time has been applied most fully and convincingly in their case.
Between other kinsmen friendly relations are found
in due proportion. Between man and wife friendship seems to exist
by nature; for man is naturally inclined to form couples-even
more than to form cities, inasmuch as the household is earlier
and more necessary than the city, and reproduction is more common
to man with the animals. With the other animals the union extends
only to this point, but human beings live together not only for
the sake of reproduction but also for the various purposes of
life; for from the start the functions are divided, and those
of man and woman are different; so they help each other by throwing
their peculiar gifts into the common stock. It is for these reasons
that both utility and pleasure seem to be found in this kind of
friendship. But this friendship may be based also on virtue, if
the parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they will
delight in the fact. And children seem to be a bond of union (which
is the reason why childless people part more easily); for children
are a good common to both and what is common holds them together.
How man and wife and in general friend and friend
ought mutually to behave seems to be the same question as how
it is just for them to behave; for a man does not seem to have
the same duties to a friend, a stranger, a comrade, and a schoolfellow.
13
There are three kinds of friendship, as we said
at the outset of our inquiry, and in respect of each some are
friends on an equality and others by virtue of a superiority (for
not only can equally good men become friends but a better man
can make friends with a worse, and similarly in friendships of
pleasure or utility the friends may be equal or unequal in the
benefits they confer). This being so, equals must effect the required
equalization on a basis of equality in love and in all other respects,
while unequals must render what is in proportion to their superiority
or inferiority. Complaints and reproaches arise either only or
chiefly in the friendship of utility, and this is only to be expected.
For those who are friends on the ground of virtue are anxious
to do well by each other (since that is a mark of virtue and of
friendship), and between men who are emulating each other in this
there cannot be complaints or quarrels; no one is offended by
a man who loves him and does well by him-if he is a person of
nice feeling he takes his revenge by doing well by the other.
And the man who excels the other in the services he renders will
not complain of his friend, since he gets what he aims at; for
each man desires what is good. Nor do complaints arise much even
in friendships of pleasure; for both get at the same time what
they desire, if they enjoy spending their time together; and even
a man who complained of another for not affording him pleasure
would seem ridiculous, since it is in his power not to spend his
days with him.
But the friendship of utility is full of complaints;
for as they use each other for their own interests they always
want to get the better of the bargain, and think they have got
less than they should, and blame their partners because they do
not get all they 'want and deserve'; and those who do well by
others cannot help them as much as those whom they benefit want.
Now it seems that, as justice is of two kinds, one
unwritten and the other legal, one kind of friendship of utility
is moral and the other legal. And so complaints arise most of
all when men do not dissolve the relation in the spirit of the
same type of friendship in which they contracted it. The legal
type is that which is on fixed terms; its purely commercial variety
is on the basis of immediate payment, while the more liberal variety
allows time but stipulates for a definite quid pro quo. In this
variety the debt is clear and not ambiguous, but in the postponement
it contains an element of friendliness; and so some states do
not allow suits arising out of such agreements, but think men
who have bargained on a basis of credit ought to accept the consequences.
The moral type is not on fixed terms; it makes a gift, or does
whatever it does, as to a friend; but one expects to receive as
much or more, as having not given but lent; and if a man is worse
off when the relation is dissolved than he was when it was contracted
he will complain. This happens because all or most men, while
they wish for what is noble, choose what is advantageous; now
it is noble to do well by another without a view to repayment,
but it is the receiving of benefits that is advantageous. Therefore
if we can we should return the equivalent of what we have received
(for we must not make a man our friend against his will; we must
recognize that we were mistaken at the first and took a benefit
from a person we should not have taken it from-since it was not
from a friend, nor from one who did it just for the sake of acting
so-and we must settle up just as if we had been benefited on fixed
terms). Indeed, one would agree to repay if one could (if one
could not, even the giver would not have expected one to do so);
therefore if it is possible we must repay. But at the outset we
must consider the man by whom we are being benefited and on what
terms he is acting, in order that we may accept the benefit on
these terms, or else decline it.
It is disputable whether we ought to measure a service
by its utility to the receiver and make the return with a view
to that, or by the benevolence of the giver. For those who have
received say they have received from their benefactors what meant
little to the latter and what they might have got from others-minimizing
the service; while the givers, on the contrary, say it was the
biggest thing they had, and what could not have been got from
others, and that it was given in times of danger or similar need.
Now if the friendship is one that aims at utility, surely the
advantage to the receiver is the measure. For it is he that asks
for the service, and the other man helps him on the assumption
that he will receive the equivalent; so the assistance has been
precisely as great as the advantage to the receiver, and therefore
he must return as much as he has received, or even more (for that
would be nobler). In friendships based on virtue on the other
hand, complaints do not arise, but the purpose of the doer is
a sort of measure; for in purpose lies the essential element of
virtue and character.
14
Differences arise also in friendships based on superiority;
for each expects to get more out of them, but when this happens
the friendship is dissolved. Not only does the better man think
he ought to get more, since more should be assigned to a good
man, but the more useful similarly expects this; they say a useless
man should not get as much as they should, since it becomes an
act of public service and not a friendship if the proceeds of
the friendship do not answer to the worth of the benefits conferred.
For they think that, as in a commercial partnership those who
put more in get more out, so it should be in friendship. But the
man who is in a state of need and inferiority makes the opposite
claim; they think it is the part of a good friend to help those
who are in need; what, they say, is the use of being the friend
of a good man or a powerful man, if one is to get nothing out
of it?
At all events it seems that each party is justified
in his claim, and that each should get more out of the friendship
than the other-not more of the same thing, however, but the superior
more honour and the inferior more gain; for honour is the prize
of virtue and of beneficence, while gain is the assistance required
by inferiority.
It seems to be so in constitutional arrangements
also; the man who contributes nothing good to the common stock
is not honoured; for what belongs to the public is given to the
man who benefits the public, and honour does belong to the public.
It is not possible to get wealth from the common stock and at
the same time honour. For no one puts up with the smaller share
in all things; therefore to the man who loses in wealth they assign
honour and to the man who is willing to be paid, wealth, since
the proportion to merit equalizes the parties and preserves the
friendship, as we have said. This then is also the way in which
we should associate with unequals; the man who is benefited in
respect of wealth or virtue must give honour in return, repaying
what he can. For friendship asks a man to do what he can, not
what is proportional to the merits of the case; since that cannot
always be done, e.g. in honours paid to the gods or to parents;
for no one could ever return to them the equivalent of what he
gets, but the man who serves them to the utmost of his power is
thought to be a good man. This is why it would not seem open to
a man to disown his father (though a father may disown his son);
being in debt, he should repay, but there is nothing by doing
which a son will have done the equivalent of what he has received,
so that he is always in debt. But creditors can remit a debt;
and a father can therefore do so too. At the same time it is thought
that presumably no one would repudiate a son who was not far gone
in wickedness; for apart from the natural friendship of father
and son it is human nature not to reject a son's assistance. But
the son, if he is wicked, will naturally avoid aiding his father,
or not be zealous about it; for most people wish to get benefits,
but avoid doing them, as a thing unprofitable.-So much for these
questions.
Source.
From:
Aristotle: On Friendship, Bk. VIII of the Nicomachean Ethics [ref. 1154-1163] Written ca. 350 B.C. Translated by W. D. Ross
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