[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
animals; and in those of the same race towards one another, among men
especially for which reason we commend those who love their fellow-men. And
when one travels one may see how man is always akin to and dear to man.
Again, it seems that friendship is the bond that holds states together, and that
lawgivers are even more eager to secure it than justice. For concord bears a certain
resemblance to friendship, and it is concord that they especially wish to retain, and
dissension that they especially wish to banish as an enemy. If citizens be friends, they
have no need of justice, but though they be just, they need friendship or love also;
indeed, the completest realization of justice* seems to be the realization of friendship
or love also.
Moreover, friendship is not only an indispensable, but also a beautiful or noble thing:
for we commend those who love their friends, and to have many friends is thought to
be a noble thing; and some even think that a good man is the same as a friend.
But there are not a few differences of opinion about the matter. Some hold that it is a
kind of likeness, and that those who are like one another are friends; and this is the
origin of Like to like, and Birds of a feather flock together, ! and other similar
sayings. Others, on the contrary, say that two of a trade never agree. §
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/903
179
Online Library of Liberty: The Nicomachean Ethics
Others go deeper into these questions, and into the causes of the phenomena;
Euripides, for instance says
The parched earth loves the rain,
And the high heaven, with moisture laden, loves
Earthwards to fall.
Heraclitus also says, Opposites fit together, and Out of discordant elements comes
the fairest harmony, and It is by battle that all things come into the world. Others,
and notably Empedocles, take the opposite view, and say that like desires like.
Of these difficulties, all that refer to the constitution of the universe may be dismissed
(for they do not properly concern our present inquiry); but those that refer to human
nature, and are intimately connected with man s character and affections, we will
discuss as, for instance, whether friendship can exist in all men, or whether it is
impossible for men to be friends if they are bad, and whether there be one form of
friendship or rather many. For those who suppose that there is only one kind of
friendship, because it admits of degrees, go upon insufficient grounds. Things that
differ in kind may differ also in degree (But we have already spoken about this point.*
)
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/903
180
Online Library of Liberty: The Nicomachean Ethics
[Back to Table of Contents]
2.
Three Motives Of Friendship. Friendship Defined.
Perhaps these difficulties will be cleared up if we first ascertain what is the nature of
the lovable. For it seems that we do not love anything, but only the lovable, and that
the lovable is either good or pleasant or useful. But useful would appear to mean that
which helps us to get something good, or some pleasure; so that the good and the
pleasant only would be loved as ends.
Now, do men love what is good, or what is good for themselves? for there is
sometimes a discrepancy between these two.
The same question may be asked about the pleasant.
It seems that each man loves what is good for himself, and that, while the good is
lovable in itself, that is lovable to each man which is good for him. It may be said that
each man loves not what is really good for him, but what seems good for him. But this
will make no difference; for the lovable we are speaking of will then be the apparently
lovable.
The motives of love being thus threefold, the love of inanimate things is not called
friendship. For there is no return of affection here, nor any wish for the good of the
object: it would be absurd to wish well to wine, for instance; at the most, we wish that
it may keep well, in order that we may have it. But it is commonly said that we must
wish our friend s good for his own sake. One who thus wishes the good of another is
called a well-wisher, when the wish is not reciprocated; when the well-wishing is
mutual, it is called friendship.
But ought we not to add that each must be aware of the other s well-wishing? For a
man often wishes well to those whom he has never seen, but supposes to be good or
useful men; and one of these may have the same sentiments towards him. These two,
then, are plainly well-wishers one of another; but how could one call them friends
when each is unaware of the other s feelings?
In order to be friends, then, they must be wellwishers one of another, i.e. must wish
each other s good from one of the three motives above mentioned, and be aware of
each other s feelings.
PLL v6.0 (generated September, 2011) http://oll.libertyfund.org/title/903
181
Online Library of Liberty: The Nicomachean Ethics
[Back to Table of Contents]
3.
Three Kinds Of Friendship, Corresponding To The Three
Motives Perfect Friendship Is That Whose Motive Is The Good.
But these three motives are specifically different from one another; the several
affections and friendships based upon them, therefore, will also be specifically
different. The kinds of friendship accordingly are three, being equal in number to the
motives of love; for any one of these may be the basis of a mutual affection of which
each is aware.
Now, those who love one another wish each other s good in respect of that which is
the motive of their love. Those, therefore, whose love for one another is based on the
useful, do not love each other for what they are, but only in so far as each gets some
good from the other.
It is the same also with those whose affection is based on pleasure; people care for a
wit, for instance, not for what he is, but as the source of pleasure to themselves.
Those, then, whose love is based on the useful care for each other on the ground of
their own good, and those whose love is based on pleasure care for each other on the
ground of what is pleasant to themselves, each loving the other, not as being what he
is, but as useful or pleasant.
These friendships, then, are accidental; for the object of affection is loved, not as
being the person or character that he is, but as the source of some good or some
pleasure. Friendships of this kind, therefore, are easily dissolved, as the persons do
not continue unchanged; for if they cease to be pleasant or useful to one another, their
love ceases. But the useful is nothing permanent, but varies from time to time. On the
disappearance, therefore, of that which was the motive of their friendship, the
friendship itself is dissolved, since it existed solely with a view to that.
Friendship of this kind seems especially to be found among elderly men (for at that
time of life men pursue the useful rather than the pleasant) and those middle-aged and
young men who have a keen eye to what is profitable. But friends of this kind do not
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]