These three categories of friendship seem very problematic; the two imperfect categories do not appear to conform in any way to Aristotle’s previous definition of a friendship reliant on a reciprocal good will for another’s sake, while the friendship conceived as perfect between the good seems unattainable, due to inevitable flaws in human character. The first problem requires my immediate consideration. Aristotle says that utility and pleasure friendships only exist in that they resemble his central character friendship. However while he seems to portray both as existent on an entirely selfish motive, there is clearly still space for reciprocity and good will. Indeed the emphasis on the selfishness and transience of such friendships need not be considered as entirely reliable but as a manner to distinguish the reasons for their subjugation beneath the central character friendship. Reciprocity is required within these inferior friendships, so that one could be seen as acting well to one’s utility or pleasure friend so that his own benefit may continue to be reaped. However Cooper rightly observes a flaw in such an interpretation, since “although it is possible to wish someone well both for one’s own sake (because his success will bring advantages or enjoyments to oneself) and for his, it does seem incoherent to suggest that someone might wish well to someone else for that person’s sake in order to secure his own interests or enjoyments.” However it is not necessary to exclude these forms of friendship from Aristotle’s account. Aristotle writes, “If then it was rightly said above that a true friend wishes his friend’s good for that friend’s own sake, the friend would have to remain himself whatever that may be; so that he will really only wish him the greatest goods compatible with him remaining a human being.” (1159a8-11). This concept as applied to character friends can be extended to utility and pleasure friends as well, in that they “in accordance with their more restricted conceptions of other persons as their friends, will want their friends’ prosperity only within the limits imposed by the existence and continuance of those special properties of pleasantness and advantageousness as possessors of which they are their friends.” These inferior relationships therefore need not be declassified but can submit to Aristotle’s account of friendship, since there does exist in them a concern for a friend’s well being for his sake. This can be extended to respond to my second problem from above, regarding who could participate in character friendship. Aristotle appeared to imply that these friendships were the sole preserve of the good. Could the imperfect human, neither entirely good nor entirely bad, be part of such a friendship? However this is not necessary, Aristotle’s character friendship belonged to ordinary decent people, not some conception of the ideal. Indeed the admittance of a considerable degree of unselfish concern for other persons in utility and pleasure friendship indicate that ordinary people possessed the type of characters required by his character friendship.
Aristotle’s account of the different types of friendship, in the Nicomachaean Ethics can therefore be seen to fit with his earlier definitions. While utility and pleasure friendships are not perfect, they are not precluded in his theory from being friendships. However it is with the nature of character friendship and its position in the good life that I will now be concerned. Sherman writes, “to have intimate friends and family is to have interwoven in one’s life, in an ubiquitous way, persons toward whom and with whom one can most fully and continuously express one’s goodness.” In a friendship between X and Y:
i) X wishes and does goods to Y, for Y’s sake
ii) X wishes Y to live and to exist, for Y’s sake
iii) X spends time with Y
iv) X makes the same choices as Y
v) X shares Y’s distress and enjoyment.
(1166a 1-9)
According to Aristotle, these five features are analogous to a good person’ relationship to himself (cf. 1166a 10-30): The good person wishes to flourish and do well (i); he desires his own survival (ii); he spends time with himself - and not just with others (iii); he is in control of his own decisions, not divided (iv); and finally, he consistently finds pleasure and pain in the same things, having an enduring virtuous disposition (v). Essentially, Aristotle sees this friendship in some way equivalent to self-love, or friendship with oneself. An immediate objection to this theory is that friendship is essentially other-orientated, and therefore becomes meaningless in relation to oneself: after all, how can you have an attraction to yourself? Is Aristotle not advocating a kind of self-interest equivalent to egoism? Aristotle rules out the possibility of reading his self-love as common greed or egoism, since he clearly distinguishes between good and bad forms of self-love. True self-love, he argues, springs from a "life guided by reason [not feelings]", and a "desire for what is fine [not merely advantageous]" (1169a 5-7). This is the kind of self-love that befits a complete friendship. The friend is therefore conceived as the second self. Aristotle in the Rhetoric writes, “individuals feel shame whenever they have acts or deeds which bring some disrespect, either their own, or those of their ancestors, or those of other persons with whom they bear some close relation.” (1385a1-3). The implication clearly is that the activities of one’s friend can be considered to equate to one’s own activity.
Aristotle believed that it was easier for the good man in trying to study good actions to consider another other than oneself. As Sherman writes, “Supposition is that character friends realize to a different degree (and in a different manner) particular virtues. Each is inspired to develop himself more completely as he sees admirable qualities, not fully realized in himself, manifest in another who he esteems.” This interpretation is subtly different from the view that the friend as the “second self” offers a mirror for the friend to observe his foibles and faults in a more objectified manner. While this latter interpretation seems difficult, since the nature of humans’ (implied by the theory itself) is to be blind to their own faults and there is no reason to believe that one would not be equally blind in observing the faults of an intimate friend. Furthermore it is difficult to conceive how a friend might be able to discern what is good or bad from observing another person with the same characteristics as themselves. Sherman’s interpretation makes more sense, in that it involves the consideration of a nature actually different to oneself. However it still relies on the difficult idea of an intuitive kinship with another person. “Plainly the argument only works if one can justifiably have more initial confidence in these feelings than in one’s own unaided attempts to judge the quality of one’s life and character.” Aristotle’s conception of friendship here seems exceptionally exclusive. One can only have a limited number of friendships and these required devotion of energy and time. Indeed he attempts to attribute to it a similarity with the ultimate friendship, the relationship between mother and child. The sense of belonging and exclusivity of parent/child friendships is a characteristic also of the character friendship, for friends influence and mould others (1172a12).
Aristotle’s definition of friendship as reliant on a mutual goodwill, separated from the more general Greek view of friendship, in that it admits the lesser friendships of utility and pleasure does not seem exceptional or exclusive. However his consideration of character friendship and its role in the good life is troubling given its exclusivity. While I do not disagree with Aristotle that social relations are important, the intimate relationship which he envisages as necessary for the good life seems to extend friendship to an overly intimate level.
J. Cooper “Aristotle on friendship” in A. Rorty ed. Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics p.309-10
N. Sherman “Aristotle on friendship and the shared life” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 47 p.595
. Cooper “Aristotle on friendship” in A. Rorty ed. Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics p.322