Friendship

• Features of friendship

  Parties involved must care about each other for their own sakes not just simply instrumentally
• What is feature 1 of the features of friendship

  Mutual special concern
• what does it mean to “care about a person for their own sake”?

  • caring about them in spite of change
  • caring about them in an enduring way, over a long period
  • caring about someone because of the qualities they have which they regard as central to their identity
  • caring about someone enough to criticise them when it’s warranted
• what are friends?


  our friends are people we know, not just in the sense of being acquainted with them but in the sense of having knowledge and understanding of them that others do not have, or, at least, that only some others have
• what is feature 2 of the features of friendship

  special knowledge of each other
• How does the form of disclosure change through friendships

  • Regular disclosure through conversation vs. incidental snippets of disclosure whilst engaging in other activities
  • self disclosure through shared experiences
  • jokes you might tell with friends but not others
• What is feature 3 of the features of friendship?


  Distinctive forms of responsiveness/interaction
• Aristotle’s typology of friendships

  1. friendships based on utility
  2. friendships of pleasure
  3. friendships of virtue/goodness
• friendships based on utility

  • caring for the friend instrumentally
  • only friends due to usefulness of relationship
• friendships based on pleasure

  • friends because of the enjoyment that is gotten from it
  • another way of caring for a friend instrumentally
• friendships based on virtue/goodness

  • Ideal kind of friendship
  • long lasting
  • requires good character
  • takes a long time to develop
  • rare form of friendship
  • involves caring about the good of a friend for their sake
• Aristotles idea


  “No one would chose to live without friends, even if he had all the other goods”
• Necessity of friends:

  Necessarily, if a person lacks friends then that person is not leaving a good life
• better with friends:


  necessarily, if a person has at least one friend, then that person has a better life than they would if they lacked friends
• Intrinsic value 


  Valuable for its own sake or as an end?
• Moral problems for friendships

  1. The effect of interaction with my friends on my character
  2. Obligations from friendship
  3. spreading me too thin
  4. incompatibility of preference for friends, and morality as such