Bare-bones just for commentaries
- There are three types of friendship, distinguished by their objects of love.
- Friendships of pleasure; friendships of utility; friendships of character.
- Only the last kind involves individuals valuing their friends’ essential features.
- And this is restricted to virtuous people.
- He thinks it’s more choiceworthy to be loving than loved – similar to emphasis throughout on active vs passive (e.g. generosity, bravery).
- Aristotle thinks there are four defining features of friendship between X and Y. (It’s unclear if these apply only to virtue-friendships, or also partly other types):
- X and Y wish goods to one another for each other’s own sake
- X and Y wish one another to live for each other’s own sake
- X and Y spend time together and make the same choices as each other
- X and Y share each other’s distresses and pleasures.
- It looks like the decent person exhibits all the marks of virtue-friendship towards themself. But this might lead us to wonder whether they are objectionably selfish.
- The resolution: distinguish between (i) reproachable vs (ii) genuine self-love.
- (i) is when you award yourself the largest share of money, honour, and bodily pleasures, gratifying the non-rational part of the soul.
- (ii) is when you award yourself “the greater share of what is fine”, gratifying the rational part.
- Aristotle argues that the genuine self-lover loves themself more than the reproachable one, because he identifies us with our rational part.
- “just as a city and every composite system seems to be above all its most controlling part, the same is true of a human being; hence someone loves himself most if he likes and gratifies this part”.
- But this is a somewhat shaky identification, and the argument relies on it.
- But this looks like it might collapse the distinction between egoism and altruism too quickly.
- (Similar to elsewhere in the Ethics, where he argues that in doing the excellent action we reliably secure for ourself the best things.)
- The resolution: distinguish between (i) reproachable vs (ii) genuine self-love.
- On the other hand, Aristotle thinks the base or vicious agent does not stand in any of the relations of friendship with themself.
- He says they have no friendly feeling for themselves because they have nothing lovable about them.
- But that seems like a false inference.
- And they don’t share their own enjoyments or distresses because their soul is in conflict & full of regret.
- But this is at odds with the characterisation of the akrates as the person who distinctively feels regret (& hence improvable), unlike the vicious agent.
- One resolution: the regret of vicious people at IX.4 might be about consequences for themselves (their life going badly) rather than moral regret about having acted wrongly.
- He says they have no friendly feeling for themselves because they have nothing lovable about them.
- Another puzzle: why does the eudaimon need friends, if the life of eudaimonia is self-sufficient?
- One argument: they’re among the necessary background conditions.
- This is because humans are a “naturally political animal” (I.7 1097b8-11)
- And Aristotle thinks friendship is “the greatest external good” (IX.9, 1169b10); “nobody would choose to have all other goods and yet be alone”
- Friends might also provide us with epistemic access to the goodness of our own life, because it’s easier to observe actions in others than ourselves.
- But this is a little strange, since surely (a) the virtuous person has no need to develop their virtue, and (b) they would be prudent enough to be able to properly observe and take pleasure in their own right actions.
- And the shared activities of friendship might partly constitute eudaimonia.
- One argument: they’re among the necessary background conditions.