Neera K. Badhwar Code No.:L028 FRIENDSHIP Philosophical interest in friendship has revived after a long eclipse.

This is largely due to a renewed interest in ancient moral philosophy, in the role of emotion in morality, and in the ethical dimensions of personal relations in general. Some of the main questions raised by philosophers are the following: Is friendship only an instrumental value, i.e., only a means to other values, or also an intrinsic value - a value in its own right? Is friendship a mark of psychological and moral self-sufficiency, or of deficiency? How does friendship-love differ from the unconditional love of agape, and how - if at all - is it related to justice? Can the particularist, partialist perspective of friendship be reconciled with the universalist, impartialist perspective of morality? Is friendship morally neutral, or does friendship at its best require a good character? These questions are discussed here with reference to the following philosophical traditions: 1 2 3 4 Ancient Philosophy Medieval Christian Philosophy Modern Philosophy Twentieth Century Philosophy

The article traces the logical connections among views of the nature, value, and morality of friendship, as well as the historical connections among views expressed in the different periods.

Ancient Philosophy Ancient moral philosophy devoted considerable attention to understanding

friendship (philia) and passionate love (eros) (see LOVE). In its widest sense, `philia'

2 covers both amicable relations among casual acquaintances, and intimate, loving relationships within and without the family. Plato's Lysis is the first serious philosophical treatment of friendship, and sets the stage for subsequent treatments. The dialogue is largely inconclusive, but some of the claims made in it reemerge in Plato's later dialogues: we love people, like other objects of love, because of some lack in ourselves, and we love them only insofar as they are useful in pursuing our final end or eudaimonia, achieved with knowledge of Goodness (see PLATO, EUDAIMONIA). Thus, the notion of friendship as an enduring and reciprocal love between equals, and as a mark of self-sufficiency rather than deficiency, remains absent from Plato's account. These lacunae are made good in Aristotle's writings. A flourishing (eudaimon) human life, a life that is complete and self-sufficient (lacking in nothing), includes friendship - reciprocal affection and goodwill - because human flourishing is essentially relational. People can be loved for their pleasure- or utility-value, or for their good character; accordingly, there are pleasure-friendships, utility-friendships and character-friendships. Character-friendships include pleasure and utility, because good character is both pleasurable and useful. Here friends love (philein) each other for who they are, their character, and `not coincidentally' (NE 1156b11-12); hence, they wish each other `to be' and to flourish for their own sakes (1166a3-20). Character-friendship requires virtuous activity, and a choice (prohairesis) of `another self' (EE 1236b3-6, 1237a30ff, NE 1170b6-7). Such a choice presupposes genuine self-love, which only virtuous people possess; hence, only they can choose another self (see ARISTOTLE, VIRTUE). Moreover, virtue is best exercized in pleasurable and beneficial activities with and towards friends, so it is virtuous people who most want friends. A much-discussed problem in Aristotle's account is that he first makes non-

3 instrumental concern - goodwill - a distinguishing feature of all friendships (1155b291156a5), but subsequently restricts it to character-friendships (1156b10-11,

1167a11-14). He does not attempt to reconcile these claims; nor does he explain why we cannot have goodwill towards utility- or pleasure-friends, given his belief that we can towards strangers. So perhaps we should take Aristotle to mean simply that active and enduring goodwill is found only in character-friendships.

Aristotle also discusses friendship in the wider sense of relations of mutual goodwill and justice among people, including strangers. The general claim is that friendship, justice and community are coextensive, and so all humans capable of community, including slaves, have a sort of friendship with each other (1159b25-30, 1161b6). This belies the widespread view that Aristotle's ethics is parochial. Also noteworthy is Aristotle's insistence that the claims of justice increase with the closeness of the friendship, a claim that runs contrary to many contemporary depictions of friendship as being `beyond justice.' The Aristotelian idea that non-instrumental concern is essential to friendship is central to Hellenistic accounts of friendship, though sometimes uneasily so. Thus, Epicurus recognizes friendship as an intrinsic good which necessarily involves loving our friends as we love ourselves, yet insists that every act of friendship must aim at our eudaimonia. But this insistence, conjoined with his conception of eudaimonia as a static end-state of unhindered pleasure (ataraxia, tranquillity), rather than as pleasurable activity (see EPICURUS, PLEASURE), makes friendship simply

instrumental to eudaimonia, and so not an intrinsic good. Another problem arises from Epicurus' conception of eudaimonia as invulnerable and up to us (par' hemas). Eudaimonia is achieved through a rational control of the strength and range of one's desires, a control that makes it relatively immune to chance. But what if the desire

4 that one's friend live and flourish is frustrated? Epicurus must either insist that we can and should eliminate such desires in the interests of eudaimonia, thereby rendering his conception of friendship rather shallow, or acknowledge that eudaimonia is not entirely par' hemas or invulnerable. Cicero's (106-43 BC) De Amicitia is largely responsible for transmitting Aristotle's conception of friendship to Christian philosophers, notably St Augustine (354-430) and Aelred of Rievaulx (1109-1166); it thus admirably exemplifies his aim of using rhetoric to disseminate philosophical ideas. Cicero builds on Aristotle's account, but with distinctive emphases. Thus, the internal component of selfsufficiency -- a sense of security and self-confidence -- is stressed as a necessary condition of friendship, and the centrality of mutual respect in perfect friendship, only implicit in Aristotle, is made explicit. Further, rationality is emphasized by the admonition to base friendship on careful observation and occasional testing of a person's character, and continual self-scrutiny. 2 Medieval Christian Philosophy Friendship raises new questions and problems in the context of the Christian conception of perfect love, agape or charity (see AGAPE/CHARITY/CARITAS). For agape is universal and unconditional, directed at saint and sinner alike, whereas friendship is preferential and conditional on the friend's goodness. Does not the exclusiveness of friendship, then, contradict the inclusiveness of agape? Augustine's answer is `no', so long as we recognize that friendship is a gift of divine agape, and use it - like all earthly loves - as a means to perfect love for God, the only love to be enjoyed for its own sake. To love persons as ends is to seek infinite satisfaction in them, and this is idolatory, a violation of the commandment of total devotion to God. As in Plato, so in Augustine, personal love ultimately seeks, and finds satisfaction in, a good that transcends any earthly good.

5 Not all Christian philosophers, however, see personal love as a mere means to a divine end. Like Augustine, Aelred believes that only Christians can have true (`spiritual') friendship, because true friendship requires agreement on both human and divine affairs and a mutual wish for both temporal and eternal happiness. However, Aelred agrees with Cicero that friendship is its own `fruition and reward' (SF 1:45). For spiritual friendship combines the joys of intimate, trusting, mutual openness with justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance, which are forms of charity. And, since God is charity, `"he that abides in friendship, abides in God, and God in him"' (1:70). Likewise, the Aristotelian Thomas Aquinas (c 1224-74) sees the true friend as one who is loved `simply and for itself', not `from any extrinsic cause' (ST I-II, q.26:a.4, q.28:a.2). So exalted is friendship in Aquinas' eyes, that it even serves as a model for charity-love of God. Thus, charity involves communication with God the friend, a communication that enables us to achieve our `ultimate end' of becoming more like God (SCG III-I,3,c.19). What remains unexplained is how friendship can have value for God, given that his perfect self-sufficiency renders external goods superfluous. 3 Modern Philosophy Medieval Christian thinkers see agape as predicated on the good or God in everyone, even the sinner, and friendship as predicated on the friend's good character. Martin Luther (1483-1546), however, regards all conditional-on-goodness love as instrumental, and re-interprets agape as a spontaneous, gratuitous, unmotivated-by-goodness love. This turn has a profound influence on later philosophers, both secular and Christian, notably, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55). The Lutheran influence is curiously intermixed with the influence of ancient

6 accounts in Kant's discussion. Like Aristotle, Kant distinguishes friendships based on a shared moral attitude - perfect friendships - from lesser sorts and, like Cicero, he emphasizes equality and mutuality of love and respect in perfect friendship. Contrary to Aristotle, however, Kant denies emotions any intrinsic moral worth (see KANT, EMOTION). For emotions are subject to natural laws, whereas morality requires freedom or autonomy (self-governance). Hence, intrinsic moral worth accrues only to respect and `practical' love (agape's secular analog), which can be willed, and their object, the friend's `humanity' - the purely rational capacity for moral self-legislation that makes rational beings ends in themselves. Emotional love, and its object, the friend's good character, have, at best, instrumental moral worth. Further, Kant regards the desire for our friends' happiness as a mere means to our own. Hence, emotional love is inevitably instrumental selflove. Finally, the view that emotions are involuntary implies that it is morally inconsequential whether we love virtuous or vicious people. These counter-intuitive consequences raise the question whether Kant's view of emotion and emotional love - later echoed by Kierkegaard - can do justice to friendship. This question, and the utilitarian worry about how to justify the differential concern of friendship if morality requires impartial concern for all, dominate twentieth century discussions of friendship.

Twentieth Century Philosophy The Kantian view of emotion, and its contribution to philosophers' neglect of

friendship, is thoroughly discussed by Lawrence Blum in the first philosophical book on friendship since Aelred's. Blum argues that love and concern require thought and choice, are crucial to moral perception and motivation, and can be noninstrumentally (though conditionally and preferentially) directed at friends' good.

7 Hence, friendship-love is morally significant. The idea of the moral significance of friendship is also central to discussions of friendship inspired by Aristotle. Thus, several philosophers have emphasized the importance of friendship to self-knowledge and moral growth. Since friends share the same basic values, each gains greater self-awareness by observing the other's actions and responses, and since friends differ in important ways, each grows through emulation of the other's admirable qualities. Elizabeth Telfer's article, `Friendship,' addresses the utilitarian worry about justifying differential concern. Telfer's solution, anticipated by Henry Sidgwick, is that unequal concern is justified because we are more effective producers of utility (the good) when we concentrate our energies on the needs of the few we know best. However, if utilitarians must justify their friendships as instrumental means to utility, their moral commitments seem psychologically incompatible with friendship's commitments. The usual response to this is that utility-maximization is only a standard of right action, not its primary utilitarians motivation should cultivate (see the

UTILITARIANISM/CONSEQUENTIALISM).

Indeed,

dispositions of friendship, subject to the (background) proviso that if, overall, these dispositions failed to maximize utility, they would seek to change them. But this is just to say that utilitarians' motivations are, ultimately, shaped by instrumental considerations. So, even if they are psychologically compatible with friendship's dispositions, they seem logically inconsistent with them.

The theme of preferential concern is salient in feminist and communitarian writings (see FEMINISM, COMMUNITARIANISM/LIBERALISM). Feminists emphasize the "care perspective" as a moral perspective independent of justice, and friendship as a caring relationship that is particularly valuable because of its voluntariness, mutuality

8 and equality. But like most contemporary philosophers on friendship, including communitarians who oppose justice to friendship, most feminists also oppose the universalist, impartialist justice perspective to the particularist, partialist care perspective. Some, however, recognizing that there is no inherent tension between these perspectives, and deploring the frequent inequality of caring work in femalemale friendships, have argued for the reconciliation of the two perspectives, and for the importance of justice in friendship. But more needs saying. Our particularity cannot exist, or be understood, independently of our common humanity. Hence, caring for someone implies seeing her particularity as a distinctive expression of common aspirations and needs. Conversely, justice implies giving due weight to the particular expressions of people's commonalities. Sensitivity to these aspects requires both virtues, justice and care. Justice and care are, thus, mutually dependent, and equally important in friendship. Indeed, insofar as justice depends on perceptiveness and imaginative effort, and the rightful expectation of these is greater within friendship, friendship intensifies the claims of justice. As this brief overview suggests, friendship raises questions central to all areas of philosophy concerned with knowledge of human life. __________________________________________ See also: ETHICS AND FAMILY, ETHICS AND SEXUALITY, GENDER AND ETHICS (2120 words, excluding name, code no., title, the "See also" sentence, and this sentence.)

9 References and further reading * Aelred of Rievaulx (1148) Spiritual Friendship (SF), trans. Eugenia Laker,

s.s.n.d., Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1974. (The original title, De Spiritali Amicitia, shows the influence of Cicero's De Amicitia on Aelred.) * Aristotle (c.330 BC) Nicomachean Ethics (NE), trans. W.D. Ross, revised by J.O.

Urmson, in J. Barnes (ed.), The Complete Works of Aristotle, V. 2, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984. (In addition to the issues discussed in this entry, Books VIII-IX on friendship also discuss the justification of friendship, conflicts among friends, when friendships should be dissolved, civic friendship, and other topics.) * ______ () Eudemian Ethics (EE), trans. J. Solomon, ibid. (Usually regarded as an earlier work. Bk. VII.1-12 discusses friendship, pursuing some points at greater length than the NE.) ______ Magna Moralia, trans. St. G. Stock, ibid, and Rhetoric, trans. W.R. Roberts, ibid. (Bk. II.16 of Magna Moralia contains the famous image of the friend as a mirror of the self, and (Bk. II.4 of Rhetoric discusses friendship.) * Aquinas, T. (c.1259-64) Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG), Bk. III, Part I, trans. V.J.

Bourke, Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975. (At 3, c. 19 Aquinas expresses the view that our `ultimate end' is to become more like God.) * ------ (c.1269-72) Summa Theologica, First Complete American Edition (ST), trans. the Fathers of the English Dominican Province, Glencoe/McGraw Hill, 1947. (I-II, qq. 26-28 discuss love as an emotion, and q. 26, a. 4, distinguishes friendship based on friendship-love (friendship proper) from friendships based on love of concupiscence or desire (friendships of pleasure and utility). II-II, qq. 23-46 discuss charity as friendship with God.) * Augustine, A. (397-401) Confessions, trans. R. Warner, New York: New

American Library, 1963. (In IV, 4-12, Augustine describes his grief on the death of a

10 friend, and his later reflection that he had mistakenly loved his friend as an end in himself.) * ------ ( ) On Christian Doctrine (De doctrina Christiana), trans. D.W. Robertson, Jr., New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1958. (See I, iv, 4 and xxii, 20-21, for the view that all earthly loves, including neighbor-love, are instrumental or utility loves, and love of God alone an end love to be enjoyed for its own sake.) * Badhwar, N.K. (ed.) (1993) Friendship: A Philosophical Reader, Ithaca: Cornell

University Press. (Contains 15 contemporary articles, or excerpts from books, on the psychological, moral and political significance of friendship. The 36-page critical introduction expands on some of the material in this entry, and discusses related issues, e.g., the object of love in friendship. Contains a detailed index and extensive references in the introductory chapter to historical and contemporary literature.) * Blum, L. (1980) Friendship, Altruism, and Morality, London: Routledge & Kegan

Paul. Excerpt reprinted in Badhwar, op. cit. (The first book on friendship since Aelred's Spiritual Friendship, and probably the best-known single contemporary work on the topic.) * Cicero, M.T. (c.44 BC) De Amicitia, trans. W.A. Falconer, London: W.

Heinemann Ltd., Loeb Classical Library, (A somewhat unsystematic, but historically influential, dialogue on friendship. Gaius Laelius (b. 186 BC), who studied philosophy under the Stoics, is the main speaker.) * Cooper, J.M. (1980) `Aristotle on Friendship', in A.O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on

Aristotle's Ethics, Berkeley: Univ. of California Press: pp. 301-40. (A revised and condensed version of two previously published articles, `Aristotle on the Forms of Friendship' in The Review of Metaphysics 30, June 1977: pp. 618-48 and `Friendship and the Good in Aristotle' in The Philosophical Review 86, July 1977: pp. 290-315. Discusses the topics mentioned in the last paragraph of this entry. Very influential

11 treatment of Aristotle's conception of friendship.) * Friedman, M. (1993) What are Friends For?: Feminist Perspectives on Personal

Relationships and Moral Theory, Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (Part I on the partiality-impartiality debate, and Part II on care and justice, are on personal relations in general, Part III is on friendship. Discusses some of the material on feminism in section 4 of this entry.) * Kant, I. (1785) Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H.J. Paton in

The Moral Law, London: Hutchinson Univ. Library, 1948. (Pp. 389-401, 401n, present Kant's sharp dichotomy between the moral-rational and the natural-emotional realms, and his view that emotional love is instrumental self-love.) * ------ (1797) Tugendlehre (T), trans. M.J. Gregor, The Doctrine of Virtue, New York: Harper & Row, 1964. (`On the Intimate Union of Love and Respect in Friendship', pp. 469-73, contains the only extended discussion of friendship in Kant's developed philosophical works.) * Kierkegaard, S. (1846-47) Works of Love, trans. H. & E. Hong, New York:

Harper & Row, 1962. (Kierkegaard follows Luther in regarding friendship as essentially irreconcilable with agape, and echoes Kant in declaring that friendshiplove and eros `contain no ethical task', both because they are forms of self-love, and because, as natural inclinations, they cannot be willed or, therefore, commanded by God's law.) Lewis, C.S. (1960) The Four Loves, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Excerpt reprinted in Badhwar, op. cit. (Ch. 4 is an insightful celebration of friendship, as well as a warning against its pitfalls, such as total indifference to `outsiders'. Friendship is distinguished from Affection and Eros as the least natural of human loves, one of the highest achievements of the individual, and a guard against corrupt authority.)

12 * Mitsis, P. (1988) Epicurus' Ethical Theory: The Pleasures of Invulnerability,

Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (Ch. 3 expands the material on Epicurus in section 1 of this entry.) Nygren, A. Agape and Eros, trans. P. S. Watson, New York: Harper and Row, 1969. Excerpt reprinted in A. Soble (ed.) Agape, Eros and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love, New York: Paragon House, 1989. (Nygren follows Luther and Kierkegaard in declaring eros and friendship to be irreconcilable with agape.) Pakaluk, M. (ed.) (1991) Other Selves: Philosophers on Friendship, Indianpolis: Hackett Publishing Co., Inc. (A very useful introduction to historical writings on friendship by Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, Aelred, Aquinas, Montaigne, Bacon, Kant, Emerson, Kierkegaard and Telfer. Contains an 8-page general introduction and brief introductions to each selection. Selected bibliography.) Paton, H.J. (1956) `Kant on Friendship', Proceedings of the British Academy, The British Academy: pp. 45-66. Reprinted in Badhwar, op. cit. (A sympathetic treatment of Kant's view of friendship in the Tugendlehre. Includes Paton's translation of T468-74.) * Plato (370 BC) Lysis, trans. J. Wright, in The Collected Dialogues of Plato, ed. E.

Hamilton and H. Cairns, New York: Bollingen Foundation, 1961. (The only Platonic dialogue devoted entirely to friendship.) Price, A.W. (1989) Love and Friendship in Plato and Aristotle, Oxford: Clarendon Press. (A detailed, scholarly, investigation of these topics.) * Railton, P. (1984) `Alienation, Consequentialism, and the Demands of

Morality', Philosophy and Public Affairs, 13, 2: pp. 134-71. Reprinted in S. Scheffler (ed.), Consequentialism and its Critics, Oxford: Oxford University Press, and in Badhwar, op cit. (Expands on the idea in Section 4 of this entry that commitment to utilitarianism or consequentialism is psychologically compatible with personal

13 commitments.) * Sherman, N. (1989) The Fabric of Character, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Excerpt

reprinted in Badhwar, op cit. (Ch. 4 disusses the role of friendship in forming our characters, alluded to in the last paragraph of this entry.) Stocker, M. (1981) `Values and Purposes: The Limits of Teleology and the Ends of Friendship', Journal of Philosophy 78: 747-65. Reprinted in Badhwar, op cit. (Argues that no theory that analyzes or evaluates value or action entirely in terms of goals can fully understand friendship.) * Telfer, E. (1970-71) `Friendship', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,

supplement: pp. 223-41. (Marks the revival of friendship as an important philosophical topic in this century. Expands on some of the material in Section 4 of this entry.) Thomas, L. (1990) Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character,

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, chs. 4 and 5. Excerpt reprinted in Badhwar, op. cit. (Develops an account of friendship and its role in forming and maintaining a good character along Aristotelian lines.) Vlastos, G. (1973) `The Individual as An Object of Love in Plato', Platonic Studies, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 3-34. Reprinted in Soble, op. cit. (An influential article arguing that love in Plato is essentially utility-love.)