Friendship in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics: An essential component of the Good Life
by
David Thunder
Spring 1996
Friendship in Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics: An essential component of the Good Life
For Aristotle, ethics is essentially the art of living well. This can only be achieved by those who have friends, because friendship provides the ideal conditions for the successful pursuit of excellence. In this essay, I will try to explain why, according to Aristotle’s account of ‘the good life’ in his Nichomachean Ethics, human friendship is necessary in order to ‘live well’. I will begin by investigating what Aristotle means by the ethical life, and what he means by friendship. I will then show how true, or ‘complete’ friendship is an essential part of what Aristotle calls ‘the good life’.
Unlike Plato, whose starting point for ethical living was some abstract form of the Good, which one must strive for, Aristotle rooted ‘the Good’ in the changing, diverse reality of this world. Aristotle uses the dialectical method to reach his conclusions. This means that he makes general observations about common experiences and popular wisdom, and tried to explain them in the hope of discovering either their sound or their unsound origin. He assumes a basic human knowledge of good and evil; what constitutes a good and bad person respectively, for without this basic intuition, ethics would be impossible. He rejected the doctrine of the Forms as metaphysical entities in their own right. Aristotle simply saw no point in appealing to an inaccessible, ideal form of the Good:
One might be puzzled about what [the believers in Ideas] really mean in speaking of The So-and-So Itself, since Man Itself and man have one and the same account of man; for in so far as each is man, they will not differ at all (1096a34 - 1096b4). [1]
Ethics, for Aristotle, is grounded in human nature, that is, the essence of living human beings. The aim of human action is in all cases, happiness (though the means are not always agreed upon), which is something "complete and self-sufficient,...the end of the things pursued in action" (1097b 21-23). Happiness is therefore the supreme human good - that is, the ultimate purpose of all human actions (1097b 21-22). Happiness is not an abstract, timeless, Platonic form, but an activity, since if it were a mere state or capacity, it would be meaningless for living, breathing, moving human beings.
It might be argued that certain human actions do not aim directly at the attainment of this good, but at the attainment of an intermediary good such as virtue, or friendship. Aristotle replies by pointing out that whatever our immediate goal is, it is still aimed at, consciously or unconsciously, with a view to our own happiness or well-being.
Honour, pleasure, understanding and every virtue we certainly choose because of themselves, since we would choose each of them even if it had no further result, but we also choose them for the sake of happiness, supposing that through them we shall be happy (1097b2-6).
However, this ‘good’ has yet to be defined in clear terms, and this is what Aristotle does in Book I, Chapter 7. Unlike some modern existentialists such as Sartre, Aristotle presupposes a human nature, that is, certain characteristics that are essential to all human beings. It is on this basis that he can speak of ‘human beings’ in general. Aristotle’s basic premise is that if something has a function, its good depends on the successful actualisation of that function. He gives the example of the craftsman e.g. a flautist, whose function (qua craftsman) is to play the flute well, or do well whatever the function of his particular craft is. (1097b 24 - 29). The next step of the argument is that if human beings have a function, the human good must depend on the successful actualisation of the human function.
But what is that special function which can be said to pertain uniquely to human beings? Aristotle identifies the distinctively human phenomenon of action arising from reason as the function of the human being: "Now we take the human function to be a certain kind of life, and take this life to be the soul’s activity and actions that express reason." (1098a 11-14). The good person is taken to be that person who lives and acts in accordance with reason (as opposed to, say, feelings or whims). Such a person will aim at fine, right actions - human virtues - thus excelling as a human being. According to Sarah Broadie,
Aristotle’s supreme good is the well functioning of the human being qua human; functioning well is nothing other than ‘activity in accordance with virtue. [2]
I will now briefly sketch Aristotle’s concept of friendship with a view to discovering how the ethical life and friendship might be interdependent in an Aristotelian framework.
The Greek word for friendship, philia, denotes a wider concept than in modern English, implying "a mutual attraction between two human beings" [3], or "a general sociability, a desire to cooperate in shared activity of any sort, from the utilitarian business transaction to the close, personal relationships of true friends." [4] When studying Aristotle’s treatment of friendship in the Nichomachean Ethics, we must remind ourselves that the modern tendency only to consider close or social acquaintances as friends does not correspond to Aristotle’s philia, which encompassed just about any familiar acquaintance, including family and business associates.
In Book VIII, Chapter 3, Aristotle divides friendship into three species: friendships of good people, friendships based on utility and friendships based on pleasure. Friendships based on utility ("what can I get out of the other person, and how much must I give for it?") and/or pleasure ("I enjoy his wit", "She is pleasant to be with," etc.) alone, is described by Aristotle as incomplete, while friendships of good people, similar in virtue, are complete friendships. The reason friendships based on utility are incomplete, is that they are motivated by short-term considerations and are contingent on changeable circumstances (1156a 20-30). Similarly, friendships based on pleasure are contingent on feelings and accidental conditions (1156a 31 - 1156b 3). The friendship of good people is most enduring, and complete, because they "wish goods to each other for each other’s own sake" (1156b 9-10), in addition to being useful and pleasant to each other.
When Aristotle says that friendship is necessary for the ethical life, he is referring to complete, or virtuous friendship, since incomplete friendships are not essentially friendships of virtue. Therefore, it is worth dwelling for a moment on the features of complete friendships, as this might help us understand the necessity of friendship for the good life. 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, friendship is seen by Aristotle as 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. Richard Kraut insists that it is possible to act both for your own sake and for the sake of your friend. [5] David Ross offers a useful way to understand Aristotle’s concept of friendship as an extension of self-love:
When he speaks of men treating their friends as ‘other selves’ or as ‘part of themselves’, he is pointing to the fact that a man may so extend his interests that the welfare of another may become as direct an object of interest to him as his own welfare. [6]
In order to consistently identify one’s own welfare with that of another person for his or her own sake, and not merely for pleasure or utility, a person must be in concord with reason and with the other person, not just in thought but in action. This kind of stability can only be achieved by a person who has virtue, since virtue is enduring, and reliable.
[decent people]...are in concord with themselves and with each other, since they are practically of the same mind; for their wishes are stable, not flowing back and forth like a tidal strait...Base people, however, cannot be in concord, except to a small extent, just as they can be friends only to a small extent, for they are greedy for more benefits, and shirk labours and public services (1167b 5-12).
At this stage, we can perceive a tangible connection between friendship and ‘the good life’, in so far as virtue is an essential and abiding trait of complete friendship. However, Aristotle has not as yet demonstrated the reverse, i.e. that friendship is an essential component of a virtuous person’s life. On this point, Aristotle opens the debate in Chapter 9 of Book IX:
There is..a dispute about whether the happy person will need friends or not.
For it is said that blessedly happy and self-sufficient people have no need for friends. For they already have [all] the goods, and hence, being self-sufficient, need nothing added...(1169b 2-5)
However, Aristotle shows this argument to be disingenuous, since it fails to take account of human nature. In typically dialectic style, Aristotle starts with the general experience of the ‘many’ that "having friends seems to be the greatest external good."(1169b 9-10), and for this reason it would seem ‘absurd’ not to give the happy person friends. He then proceeds to justify this natural intuition. Since it is better to love than to be loved, to benefit than to be benefited (since both cases necessitate a virtuous action), we need friends in order to carry out these virtuous actions. Not least of all, good friends have a positive influence on the development of one’s character. This can be agreed by common experience. As Aristotle puts it,
...the friendship of decent people is decent, and increases the more often they meet. And they seem to become still better from their activities and their mutual correction (1172a 10-15).
Aristotle also appeals to human nature to show that people cannot be happy (or good, since happiness and goodness are, for Aristotle, inextricable) without friends, being ‘political’ and ‘tending by nature to live with others.’ (1169b 18-19). Let us recall that Aristotle began his enquiry into the human good by asking what the function of a human being was (Book I, Ch. 7, 1097b 24-25) Since the end of human life is to attain happiness, or excellent human activity, man’s nature, that is, the structure of his existence as a given, must be an important factor in the ethical life. Since man has a natural tendency to be with other people, part of his function or purpose must be precisely to be with other people well, or, in plain English, to get on well with others. Mulgan’s interpretation is that community life for Aristotle is at the very heart of the individual’s life.
The polis can exist without the individual, but the individual cannot exist without the polis...If men are separated from the polis, they cease to be men in the same way as a hand ceases to be a hand if cut off from the body...the function of man, the realisation of his essence, lies in the achievement of the good life which cannot be lived except in the polis. [7]
From an examination of Book I on the highest human good, and Book VIII and IX on friendship, I am left in no doubt that friendship is an intrinsic, necessary component of the ethical life as conceived by Aristotle. Aristotle’s account seems to fall squarely within the bounds of human experience, starting as it does with common human assumptions about the purpose of human life and moving towards an exposition of human nature and what constitutes the virtuous life. The many advantages afforded by friendship for character-building, beneficence, and altruism are not merely desirable, but indispensable for the person who wishes to live well qua person.
END
REFERENCES
[1] All quotations followed by a reference in brackets are from Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Unwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985). The references should be the same for all translations of the Nichomachean Ethics.
[2] Broadie, Sarah, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p.57
[3] Ross, David, Aristotle (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1971), p.30
[4] Mulgan, R.G., Aristotle’s Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p.14
[5] Kraut, Richard, Aristotle on the Human Good (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989), p.137
[6] Ross, David, Aristotle (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1971), p.23
[7] Mulgan, R.G., Aristotle’s Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977), p.31
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, translated by Terence Unwin (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1985)
Broadie, Sarah, Ethics with Aristotle (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991)
Kraut, Richard, Aristotle on the Human Good (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1989)
Mulgan, R.G., Aristotle’s Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)
Ross, David, Aristotle (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1971)