Aristotle's Views on Friendship

Critically assess Aristotle’s view on Friendship

In modern philosophy, extensive discussions on friendship have become extremely rare due to the world we live in today where individualism takes the centre stage. Although we still value friendship to aid us in living a fulfilled and virtuous life, it carries far more importance for Aristotle. For him, Philia (generally known as friendship but can range from simple association to a feeling as powerful as love) is absolutely vital in achieving a “self-contained, fully realised life” (Rorty 1978:354) rather than merely assisting us in reaching this state of well-being. The Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics are dedicated to this topic and in them Aristotle categorises friendship into three types. The first is a friendship based on utility, where both people gain some benefit from the other. The second is based on pleasure, where both people are attracted to one another because of their wit or good looks for example. These types are the most vulnerable to collapsing if the original factors that brought the two together changes (for example, the completion of a business relationship). The third and most important category is a friendship based on goodness. For Aristotle, a true friend places more significance on loving than being loved and has a strong desire to aid and assist the other person through genuine goodwill (Eunoia) These are the ingredients needed to maintain a lifelong true friendship. Generally, the main difficulties in Aristotle’s views on friendship lay in the relationship between these three types and its close connection to the community and the individual.

The initial reaction for many readers is an interest in why Aristotle places such significance on friendship in the first place. One might imagine a community of good willed citizens that occasionally engage with one another in various activities and conclude that any one of them could have reached a state of well-being or have lived a...