Nicomachean Ethics - Books VIII and IX: Friendship and Partnership

Books VIII and IX: Friendship and Partnership

Book II Chapter 6 discussed a virtue like friendship. Aristotle now says that friendship (philia) itself is a virtue, or involves virtue. It is not only important for living well, as a means, but is also a noble or beautiful end in itself which receives praise in its own right, and being a good friend is sometimes thought to being linked to being a good person.

The treatment of friendship in the Nicomachean Ethics is longer than that of any other topic, and comes just before the conclusion of the whole inquiry. Books VIII and IX are continuous, but the break makes the first book focus on friendship as a small version of the political community, in which a bond stronger than justice holds people together, while the second treats it as an expansion of the self, through which all one's powers can approach their highest development. Friendship thus provides a bridge between the virtues of character and those of intellect.

— Sachs (2002) p.209

Aristotle says speculations for example about whether love comes from attractions between like things are not germane to this discussion and he divides aims of friendships or love into three types, each of them giving feelings of good will which go in two directions: that of utility or usefulness, that of pleasure, and that which pursues good. Two are inferior to the other because of the motive; friendships of utility and pleasure do not regard friends as people but what they can give in return.

Friendships of utility are relationships formed without regard to the other person at all. With these friendships are classed family ties of hospitality with foreigners, types of friendships Aristotle associates with older people. Such friends are often not very interested in being together, and the relationships are easily broken off when they cease to be useful.

At the next level, friendships of pleasure are based on fleeting emotions and are associated with young people. However, while such friends do like to be together, such friendships also end easily whenever people no longer enjoy the shared activity, or can no longer participate in it together.

Friendships based upon what is good are the perfect form of friendship, where both friends enjoy each other's virtue. As long as both friends keep similarly virtuous characters, the relationship will endure and be pleasant and useful and good for both parties, since the motive behind it is care for the friend themselves, and not something else. Such relationships are rare, because good people are rare, and bad people do not take pleasure in each other.

Aristotle suggests that although the word friend is used in these different ways, it is perhaps best to say that friendships of pleasure and usefulness are only analogous to real friendships. It is sometimes possible that at least in the case of people who are friends for pleasure familiarity will lead to a better type of friendship, as the friends learn to admire each other's characters.

Book IX and the last sections of Book VIII turn to the question of how friends and partners generally should reward each other and treat each other, whether it be in money or honor or pleasure. This can sometimes be complex because parties may not be equals. Aristotle notes that the type of friendship most likely to be hurt by complaints of unfairness is that of utility and reminds that "the objects and the personal relationships with which friendship is concerned appear to be the same as those which are the sphere of justice". And it is the transactions of friends by utility which sometimes require the use of written laws. Furthermore, all associations and friendships are part of the greater community, the polis, and different relationships can be compared to the different types of constitution, according to the same classification system Aristotle explains in his Politics (Monarchy, Tyranny, Aristocracy, Oligarchy, Timocracy, and Democracy).