Reflecting Ideas on Friendship and Virtues in The Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
The Nichomachean Ethics is arguably the most important work on ethics in western culture and one of the greatest works of Aristotle, the famous philosopher who was really much more of a scientist than a philosopher. In this lengthy book, which is actually a compilations of notes by his students, he indulges in the discussion of happiness, virtue, ethics, politics, and really anything else describing the way in which human beings functioned together in the society of a Greek city-state of early Antiquity. The part I found most interesting were on ‘virtues’ and ‘friendship’ and thought I’d reflect on the parts I found most profound.
Happiness is the activity of a rational soul in accordance with virtue, writes Aristotle in the Nicomachean Ethics. Activity means living. Rational soul means a human being. And virtue means human excellence. So happiness means a human living excellently.
How does one live excellently? One learns to be good at the things that are human and these are called ‘virtues’. Aristotle discusses many virtues, but four are primary: courage, temperance, justice and practical wisdom.
Courage is how we deal with pain and disappointment. Courage is an example of the “golden mean”. Courage is the mean between cowardice and rashness.
Temperance is how we deal with pleasure. Temperance is the mean between gluttony and abstinence.
Justice is how we deal with human relationships. Essentially, it means to give every person their due, which will be defined by their relationship to you.
Practical wisdom is the knowledge to understand how to discern the moderate path or the mean and how to moderate passions in order to think clearly and make good decisions.
But my favorite thing about the Ethics is that Aristotle devotes many pages to a discussion of friendship, which is fundamental to happiness. Friendship is clearly necessary and splendid, but people disagree on its precise nature. Friendship consists of a mutual feeling of goodwill between two people.
There are three kinds of friendship. The first is friendship based on utility, where both people derive some benefit from each other. The second is friendship based on pleasure, where both people are drawn to the other’s wit, good looks, or other pleasant qualities. The third is friendship based on goodness, where both people admire the other’s goodness and help one another strive for goodness.
The first two kinds of friendship are only accidental, because in these cases friends are motivated by their own utility and pleasure, not by anything essential to the nature of the friend. Both of these kinds of friendship are short-lived because one’s needs and pleasures are apt to change over time.
Goodness is an enduring quality, so friendships based on goodness tend to be long lasting. This friendship encompasses the other two, as good friends are useful to one another and please one another. Such friendship is rare and takes time to develop, but it is the best. Bad people can be friends for reasons of pleasure or utility, but only good people can be friends for each other’s sake.
Overall, according to Aristotle, friendships consist of equal exchanges, whether of utility, pleasantness, or goodness. When there is too great a gap between people, friendship is impossible, and often two friends will grow apart if one becomes far more virtuous than the other. Most people prefer being loved to loving, since they desire flattery and honor. The true mark of friendship, though, is that it consists more of loving than of being loved. Friendships endure when each friend loves the other according to the other’s merit.
I would recommend this book only to those particularly interested in philosophical, political and ethical theory, and even then you might not be able read it on your own without constantly fogging out. So figure out a way to get through it with patience and attention. I would suggest just opening the book and reading the parts that sound interesting to you. I personally favored parts on the forms of government, and ofcourse virtues and friends. Share your thoughts and let me know what you think about Aristotle’s ideas on friendship and how true they hold in our contemporary society.
