Aristotle, Friendship Important Virtuous Regimes. Why Aristotle Essay

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Aristotle, friendship important virtuous regimes. Why Aristotle "complete" friendship important a healthy

One of the most important concepts in Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics is the notion of friendship. The philosopher attributes a great deal of attention to friendship largely because he believes it is one of the most readily accessible ways of exercising and manifesting virtue. The truly interesting part about this text in relation to the tenet of friendship is that the author posits that there is a fundamental relationship between friendship and politics, at least in terms of providing a basis for a civil or state regime. In order to properly understand the relationship between friendship and various forms of regimes such as aristocracy and polity, it is necessary to explicate the many types of friendship and the ones that most apply to the political realm. In doing so, the prudent reader and thinker will be able to discern how the optimal type of friendship actually provides an ideal basis for the foundation of state or civil life.

Within the aforementioned text, Aristotle makes note of the fact that there are essentially three stratifications of friendship. The author propounds the view point that people become friends with one another either due to the fact that they can derive pleasure in such a relationship, obtain some form of utility, or ultimately find good. However, the philosopher does not believe that these types of friendship are necessarily equitable, and considers the sort of friendship that is based on goodness or virtue to be a superior variety than that of the other two. This notion is largely substantiated by the fact that virtue or goodness in and of itself is considerably less mutable than utility or pleasure. Pleasure and utility are more apt to change over time than virtue is, which is why friendship based on goodness directly relates to the concept of virtue and is a more lasting and desirable form of friendship than the other types.

Due to the higher stratification of friendship based on goodness compared to that based on usefulness or pleasure, the philosopher asserts that it is a more perfect form of friendship. In fact, there is also a tenet of completeness associated with a friendship based on goodness since it inevitably encompasses both utility and pleasure. Nonetheless, it is not based on utility and pleasure, which means that it will outlast friendships which are solely based on these two things. There are other extremely ideal and virtuous aspects of the relationship between individuals which one can categorize as based on goodness. There is a reciprocity involved in such relationship, as well as an altruistic aspect of it since the true good and pleasure and utility in these relationships comes more from giving than from receiving. The subsequent quotation alludes to this fact. "Those who wish good things to their friends for the sake of the latter are friends most of all, because they do so because of their friends themselves, and not coincidentally" (Aristotle, 350 B.C.E.). Thus, there are aspects of altruism and reciprocity inherently associated with the complete form of friendship which principally revolves around goodness.

Once the reader understands the fact that Aristotle associates friendship with an exercise of virtue, then the author's association between friendship and civil states becomes significantly more comprehensible. As such, he believes that "complete" friendship is important to a healthy regime largely because of the degree of justice he believes that such a regime should ideally serve. In this respect, the author's notion of the state is somewhat different than contemporary notions, in which (particularly within Westernized culture) people tend to value autonomy and individuality more than community or cohesiveness. Aristotle considered one of the highest forms of virtue to serve the public interest and the good of one's community and fellow citizen. To do so sufficiently requires prioritizing justice beyond other petty concerns of government, such as the accumulation of capital goods. The following quotation emphasizes this prioritization of justice. "Between friends there is no need for justice, but people who are just still need the quality of friendship; and indeed friendliness is considered to be justice in the fullest sense. It is not only a necessary thing but a splendid one" (Aristotle, B.C.E.). This passage indicates the fact that Aristotle ultimately views friendship (and a complete one, at that) as important to a healthy regime since it provides the basis for that regime. The virtues celebrated and regularly enacted during such a friendship, including goodness, reciprocity, altruism, and others, are the same virtues that individuals should derive from effective government.

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If they are able to, then Aristotle believe that such a form of government is just.

A thorough read of the eighth and ninth chapters of Nicomachean Ethics reveals that one of the reasons that Aristotle devotes so much time to the subject of friendship is that he ultimately believes that it serves as a model for government. The relationships between individuals and the varying types of friendships possible are applicable to various governments and the sorts of things individuals are able to derive from them. The primary similarity whereby friendship between people is an apt metaphor for justice between an individual and the state is that both should engender happiness. There are, of course, different varieties and degrees of happiness. However, the one that is most readily applicable between friends and between governments and individuals is that which is based on goodness and doing good deeds for the sake of producing a positive impact on a person. Aristotle delivers the idea that friends should want to do this for each other, in much the same way that a particular form of government seeks to do so for its individual and collective constituents.

Aristotle discusses many forms of government within this text, some of which include monarchies, democracies, oligarchies, aristocracies, polities, and others. Prior to discussing the form of governments which he favors and believes best relates to the concepts of justice and friendship discussed within this document, however, it is important to acknowledge the fact that within friendships (as within governments) reciprocity or equity is not always possible. Aristotle himself acknowledges this fact, which is of immense importance when discussing the forms of governments he appears to advocate in this work. The subsequent quotation alludes to this fact.

But there is another kind of friendship, viz. that which involves an inequality between the parties, e.g. that of father to son and in general of elder to younger, that of man to wife and in general that of ruler to subject…these friendships differ from each other. For the virtue and the function of each of these is different

(Aristotle, 350 B.C.E).

The "inequality" referred to in this quotation applies to forms of government in a practical sense. A true egalitarian society in the political sense of the word is a republic, one which Aristotle does not discuss within this work nor advocate. Instead, the two regimes which the author writes about as the most practical choices of those he considers are aristocracies and polities. Aristocracies, of course, are forms of governments in which a group of learned and elite men are the principle rulers and govern for the welfare for the majority. Polities are the closest forms of government to a republic in the sense that there is an equality between all individuals who are property owners. Within this manuscript, Aristotle likens both of these forms of government to types of friendship.

The author draws a comparison between an aristocracy and a type of friendship in which there is an imbalance of power -- a relationship between a husband and wife. It is critical to note that the author was writing at a time well in advance of the women's liberation movement, during an epoch in which women were largely considered subservient to men. The relationships they had with their husbands reflected this fact. Unlike women of today those in Aristotle's time were not breadwinners, were typically not property owners, and were largely dependent upon a man for several facets of their existence. Still, most husbands attempted to provide charitable and, in some cases, equitable treatment to their wives. The true parallel between this relationship and an aristocracy is that the husbands and the aristocrats were the decision-makers for others who were largely their beneficiaries. Yet, as suggested earlier in this document, despite the fact that there is an imbalance of power in this metaphor, the notions of complete friendship and that which is based on goodness ethically obligates the provider to purvey for the other in a way that is just. A corruption of this power as idealized in an aristocracy results in an oligarchy, which might be akin to an abusive husband, perhaps. The principle point that Aristotle makes in this book about an aristocracy and the development of friendship is that both are based on serving justice due to the virtues of goodness which are ideal.

The public lives of polities relate….....

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