On friendship. Aristotelian themes and political associations
I am delighted to be able to speak among pupils and friends honoring the memory of
Prof. Jacques Phytilis. Although, much to my chagrin, I did not have the opportunity
of becoming either a pupil or a friend, I had the pleasure of meeting him on some
occasions. I still vividly recall his generous offer to serve as my guide at the Louvre, a
museum he felt very much at home. Unfortunately, I could not visit Paris while he
was there. But let us suppose we did in fact meet at the Louvre and did in fact stand in
front of Medusa's raft (and so many other great paintings) and did discover ideas and
sensitivities we shared in common and took a liking in each other. Could we have
ever been or become friends? Theoretically yes, and Professor Phytillis certainly had
all these enviable qualities and gifts of character and mind that made him such an
attractive and generous personality.
This is, of course, a speculative question and I will not attempt to answer it here.
Instead I would like to take this opportunity for raising some more general questions.
What does it take for somebody to become a friend of another person? When are we
friends, why are we friends and what is the value of friendship?
Of course, being friends does not necessarily coincide with the usage of the word.
When the end of a love affair is announced with the rhetorical exhoration "let us
remain friends", we can rest assured that in most cases this means "I don't want to be
with you any more" and it is not an invitation to a new edition of an old relationship.
Similarly, when two arch-enemies shake hands and address each other as friends this
should not be taken at its face value. It may well mark the end of a period of
belligerence and the beginning of peace, but not really friendship. Talk of friendship
is usually empty and friends certainly do not talk too much about friendship unless
their friendship is in a crisis.
I think that we would all agree that a life without friends would be an impoverished
kind of life. But why should we say this, why do we need friends and what kind of
friendships enrich our lives? Many intersting questions come up here. When exactly is
a friendship one of the enriching kind, can we perhaps live well without friends and
maybe, further, when we enter into a relationship with others as friends should we
care for those excluded? Leaning on Aristotle (and borrowing heavily from him) I
would like to sketch some answers to these questions and then try to see what kind of
importance friendship may or many not have for political life.
What is friendship? Aristotle gives a general characterization of friendhip that seems
very plausible and intuitively appealing. It is a relation of mutual liking between two
persons of a non-egoistic or instrumental kind. We care for our friend and wish him or
her good for her own sake, not our own. Indeed putting on a good face in order to
feign intimacy and maximize one's profits or pleasure or entertaining superficial
relations that help us carry the day in professional or social dealings can hardly be
acknowledged as instances of friendship. We all know that.
Aristotle who employs, interestingly enough, a much broader conception of friendship
than we do - he included relations of kinship as instances of friendship and regarded
friendship as relevant in the polis - distinguishes further among three types (τριών
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όντων δι' α φιλούσιν, δια το ηδύ, δια το χρήσιμον, δια την αρετήν, 1155b27) of
friendship depending on the essential motive for bonding. What do we seek by
forming friendships? We have friendships that are based on pleasure (we do not have
to take pleasure in its most extreme form or literal sense), friendships of advantage
and friendships that are based on the recognition of moral goodness.
It only the latter form is actually friendship per se, τελεία φιλία. Why is it perfect? The
idea behind it is that it expresses the very essense of friendship in its most ideal form
because friendship in its most ideal form is to be mutually inclined to mean good and
to do good to another person for its own sake and not for one's own as we just saw
(There is a very clear statement to this effect in Rhetoric 2.4). At the face of it this
seems again correct. But of course, this requirement might be too strict to capture real
friendship among real people. Friendship between saints and moral heroes may be the
purest expression of the idea and we deeply admire those who can reach a level of
self-negating and self-sacrificing love for the other. But I would tend to believe that
these are extreme cases not only in terms of the scarsity of really virtuous people but
also in terms of the rarity of the occasions that justify such a behavior. Saintly and
heroic response is asked in extraordinary situations but we are in need for friendship
in situations of human normality. So as it goes we should ask if friendship is possible
among people who cannot be good and virtuous absolutely and exclusively, whose
motivational framework is mixed, who are capable of doing good to others but are
also prone to seek their own narrow or broader self-interest. Can these people be
friends and have friends?
Perfect friendship involves a relation of love (στέργειν), trust and mutual
acknowledgement of each other's excellence of character. Really virtuous people who
have morally and intellectually mastered their own life feel attracted to tokens of
equal excellence and tend to form permanent relations when they encounter
individuals that share the same capacity and urge for excellence. This highly
admirable ideal can only be shared by individuals that are equals in excellence of
character. But this is a rare phenomenon for various reasons. Most commonly,
friendship is a relation that may be inchoate or incomplete. We often get carried away
by first impressions, we are sometimes overwhelmed by what we think we see in the
other, it oftens happens that a relation does not fulfill its initial promise.
This does not need to be lethal for the relation. We accept imperfection and we focus
on what is good and rewarding. Friends with great minds and weak characters,
generosity and inconsistency, we take them as they are and negotiate some
improvements perhaps. So in a sense, Aristotle cannot restrict the case of frienship of
virtue and good character only to the perfect and complete kind. But there is also a
further reason. People are unequal in kind (at least according to Aristotle) and
sometimes the fuel of attraction has it source in some kind of disparity of status. We
look up to superior knowledge or wisdom or judgement and we suppose that at least
the benevolently inclined among those who possess this kind of excellence will feel
attracted to share it with persons they love.
What should we say about the imperfect and inferior types of friendship that feed on
pleasure and advantage? Can friendship be based on such accidental and contigent
faculties? Isn't real friendship supposed to be resting on essential and not accidental
qualities and is it not that we become excellent by achieving these qualities? This is
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perfectly true but there is an addendum we should not underestimate here. On the one
hand, Aristotle certainly allows pure friendship to be also pleasureable and
advantageous for the parties. Greek ethics are more far-sighted in this respect than
their modern successors. It is, of course, obvious that Aristotle would not consider
business relationships, professional affiliations and fleeting encounters of any kind as
per se a foundation of friendship. On the other hand pleasure and advantage are
constants of human life and any conception of friendship would be justified in taking
them seriously. Any kind of human activity that relies on human interaction and
cooperation may be in need of some more permanent and stable underpinning than
"mere rational self-interest" based on strict reciprocity. Friendship allows a mutuality
that is more relaxed, more human, more beautiful: a mutuality that cultivates
awareness of common interests beyond short-term profit making or immediate
gratification.
Even the more instrumentalized world of profession, economy, social and political
interaction is in deep need of the pleasures, the benefits and the value of friendship. A
businessman looks after his clients because he wants them to be pleased and come
back. This is no friendship but good business acumen. But with time he learns to
know his clients better and he wishes them well not only because they are essential to
his business but because through their special relation of mutual advantage a special
concern for the other has grown out of it. This special concern is causally triggered by
the pre-established business relationship of advantage and profit but it is not based on
it. It is more personal and human and can thus be represented as a form of friendly
care for the other on its own term. As one of the first commentators on Aristotelian
friendship has observed, "(h)ere then one has a complex and subtle mixture of selfseeking and unself-interested well-wishing and well-doing. The overriding concern of
the advantage-friend is for his own profit. But this does not mean that every action
and wish of his is ultimately aimed at the realization of something profitable to
himself."1
To be sure, most economic transactions and interactions of business nature are
nowadays faceless and impersonal. No doubt, the friendships of advantage Aristotle
had in mind, do not seem very likely in the spheres of globalized economy. Still,
reflecting on the value and the prospects of more authentic, less alienated relations of
interest and the admittedly inferior type of friendship that emanates from them may be
a ground of restrained optimism. If others are important for us, we have a very
compelling reason to learn to care for them for their own sake, not our own.
But there is a nagging question here. If what we have just described are the plausible
kinds of friendship, what is the value of φιλία for our life, what reasons do we have to
entertain and develop intimate relations of love and care with close friends? If we care
for the good of our friend for his own sake only, why is that so important for our life?
Aristotle intimates in many ways that having friendships of the superior kind,
friendships in goodness and excellence contributes to human flourishing. This is a
deeply moving assumption but it is not self-evident. For instance, people of
excellence who seek absolute goodness, what need do they really have of friendship?
Can't they seek and attain goodness on their own? But the Aristotelian thesis seems to
be that goodness is knowledge of oneself and this is something that can be reached
1
John M. Cooper, p. 314.
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not just through socratic elenchos but rather through some pattern of comparative
learning integrated as a parameter of our own life. A friend is thus a kind of second
self (1213a10 MM: "τοιούτος οίος έτερος είναι εγώ") in which one's own self is
mirrored.
However, one should not assume that the mere availability of comparison of strengths
and weakness makes the trick. We don't need friends to see and compare. We see
people everywhere on the street, in the marketplace, in the theater, in one's
professional space, in social gatherings. But we can never check ourselves adequately
against all these personae. We can never really know what is true and what is false,
what is objective and what is subjective because looking at others from a perspective
has a distorting effect. Afterall, goodness in practical matters is not just a matter of
verification, but rather a challenge of active achievement based on self-knowledge. As
it is easy to fool oneself either by blindly admiring whatever shines or ignoring what
remains hidden in the dark, so it is equally easy to overestimate one's own capacities
and qualities and fall victim of self-deception. Here enters friendship. The gist of the
argument lies in the fact that a friend exemplifies qualities that are common or purport
to be common. Real friendship of the excellent kind is a truthful and well-intended
mirror of oneself, we can trust and learn from. This is the context that enables
constructive comparison as a foundation for common flourishing among friends.
Friendship is not only an invaluable support for the project of excellence through selfknowledge. Friendship is also a pleasurable good that keeps as alive and active by
helping us remain in the game and keep the ball rolling. Through friendship we
participate in far more complex projects of experience that we would ever have been
capable of carrying out on our own. No doubt, there are many important activities and
responsibilities that can only be borne individually, we think and feel on our own and
we literaly live and die on our own. It is one's own life that we have to lead and be
responsible for. We are indeed individuals but there is hardly any activity that is not
based and also enhanced through the intermediation of others. Of course, we think
and feel on our own but thinking and feeling with others is far more than a metaphor.
It might be dabatable to what extent we are rational choosers, but what we do choose
most of all is life with others and thus we form part of more complex and intensive
web of life. As Aristotle himself poignantly puts it, "people think that the happy must
live pleasantly: well, for an isolated person life is difficult, for being continuously
active is not easy by oneself, but it is easier in the company of people different from
oneself, and in relation to others. Consequently his activity will be more continuous,
being pleasant in itself, which is a necessary condition of blessedness; for the good
man, in so far as he is good, delights in actions in accordance with excellence and is
disgusted by those, flowing from badness, just as a musical expert takes pleasure in
fine melodies and is distressed at worthless ones. Living in company of good people
may also provide a training of excellence, as Theognis says." (1117a10-15) It is not
astonishing that contemporary research carried out in many fields seems somehow to
corroborate the truth of the Aristotelian insights. Loneliness is certainly unhealthy for
the physical and mental balance of human beings and people lacking the capacity to
form strong emotional connections and a meaningful relationship are prone to all sorts
of illness and decay.
Still, Aristotle's point does not form part of a compendium for good health, it is a
philosophy of good life. Although he does not deny that there may be people capable
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of leading good and successful lives based exclusively on their own, he urges us to
take the more natural path of common love and support. Imperfect creatures as we
are, we cannot face the adversity and complexity - perhaps even the brevity - of life
on our own. His ideas and fragmented arguments on friendship present an admirable
insight into a good of life that transcends its individual significance and acquires a
social and political dimension. The question of why and how we should live becomes
a question of with whom we should live. We should learn to value and understand the
point of living in full awareness with others we care for. This means, of course, that
we should learn to assume responsibility for others, importantly associated as they are
with our lives. This means further that we should live consciously with an attitude of
love and concern for those we chose as companions, but it also means conversely that
we do not owe that much to those who are not and cannot be our friends. Friendship
then seems to be releasing us from two kinds of shackles, those of an egoistic self
living only a life of one's own and those of a super altruistic and impartial self
belonging to humanity as such. If we understand ourselves as part of everybody else,
we abolish the sense of a self. If on the other hand we think only of the self, we
abolish the cognitive and ethical potential that lies in recognizing and bonding with
the other.
Aristotle always recognized a political relevance for his understanding of friendship.
Living with others in the polis is indeed a form of friendship and this is something we
tend to forget or rather underplay in our reading of democracy only as conflict.
Democracy is among other things a framework institutionally accommodating
difference and disagreement and it is good so. But contemporary rule of law
democracies tend to loose their effectiveness in promoting their legitimate values
when they become forgetful of the common good and, most of all, the common bond
that unites citizens. The idea of political friendship is not meant as an ideological
mechanism of control and manipulation enforcing a kind of pseudo-consensus. It
should rather be understood as an opportunity that empowers citizenship by involving
everyone in each other's good. As it goes, friendship among citizens will also ask us
to take an active stance towards non-citizens, whether they are peoples under
oppressive regimes, or μέτοικοι, in search of a better future in our own polis.
Friendship after all is a common and mutual endeavour for the good, not an exclusive
club for the promotion of one's interest to the detriment of others.
Athens, 3. 6. 2013
Konstantinos Papageorgiou, University of Athens
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