"[Pangle's] focus on friendship enables the reader to appreciate more deeply the tensions of political life, virtue, and ultimately the life of philosophy Aristotle's.
Table of contents
Since activities differ with respect to goodness and badness, some being worth choosing, others worth avoiding, and others neither, the same is true of pleasures as well. Aristotle's statement implies that in order to determine whether for example the pleasure of virtuous activity is more desirable than that of eating, we are not to attend to the pleasures themselves but to the activities with which we are pleased.
A pleasure's goodness derives from the goodness of its associated activity. And surely the reason why pleasure is not the criterion to which we should look in making these decisions is that it is not the good. The standard we should use in making comparisons between rival options is virtuous activity, because that has been shown to be identical to happiness.
That is why Aristotle says that what is judged pleasant by a good man really is pleasant, because the good man is the measure of things a15— He does not mean that the way to lead our lives is to search for a good man and continually rely on him to tell us what is pleasurable. Rather, his point is that there is no way of telling what is genuinely pleasurable and therefore what is most pleasurable unless we already have some other standard of value. Aristotle's discussion of pleasure thus helps confirm his initial hypothesis that to live our lives well we must focus on one sort of good above all others: It is the good in terms of which all other goods must be understood.
Aristotle's analysis of friendship supports the same conclusion. Although Aristotle is interested in classifying the different forms that friendship takes, his main theme in Books VIII and IX is to show the close relationship between virtuous activity and friendship.
Aristotle's Ethics (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
He is vindicating his conception of happiness as virtuous activity by showing how satisfying are the relationships that a virtuous person can normally expect to have. His taxonomy begins with the premise that there are three main reasons why one person might like someone else.
One might like someone because he is good, or because he is useful, or because he is pleasant. And so there are three bases for friendships, depending on which of these qualities binds friends together. When two individuals recognize that the other person is someone of good character, and they spend time with each other, engaged in activities that exercise their virtues, then they form one kind of friendship.
If they are equally virtuous, their friendship is perfect. If, however, there is a large gap in their moral development as between a parent and a small child, or between a husband and a wife , then although their relationship may be based on the other person's good character, it will be imperfect precisely because of their inequality. The imperfect friendships that Aristotle focuses on, however, are not unequal relationships based on good character. Rather, they are relationships held together because each individual regards the other as the source of some advantage to himself or some pleasure he receives.
Aristotle does not mean to suggest that unequal relations based on the mutual recognition of good character are defective in these same ways. Rather, when he says that unequal relationships based on character are imperfect, his point is that people are friends in the fullest sense when they gladly spend their days together in shared activities, and this close and constant interaction is less available to those who are not equal in their moral development.
When Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship, he introduces a notion that is central to his understanding of this phenomenon: Does such good will exist in all three kinds of friendship, or is it confined to relationships based on virtue? At first, Aristotle leaves open the first of these two possibilities. The reasons mentioned are goodness, pleasure, and advantage; and so it seems that Aristotle is leaving room for the idea that in all three kinds of friendships, even those based on advantage and pleasure alone, the individuals wish each other well for the sake of the other.
But in fact, as Aristotle continues to develop his taxonomy, he does not choose to exploit this possibility. He speaks as though it is only in friendships based on character that one finds a desire to benefit the other person for the sake of the other person. 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. When one benefits someone not because of the kind of person he is, but only because of the advantages to oneself, then, Aristotle says, one is not a friend towards the other person, but only towards the profit that comes one's way a15— In such statements as these, Aristotle comes rather close to saying that relationships based on profit or pleasure should not be called friendships at all.
Friendships based on character are the ones in which each person benefits the other for the sake of other; and these are friendships most of all. Because each party benefits the other, it is advantageous to form such friendships. And since each enjoys the trust and companionship of the other, there is considerable pleasure in these relationships as well. Because these perfect friendships produce advantages and pleasures for each of the parties, there is some basis for going along with common usage and calling any relationship entered into for the sake of just one of these goods a friendship.
Friendships based on advantage alone or pleasure alone deserve to be called friendships because in full-fledged friendships these two properties, advantage and pleasure, are present. It is striking that in the Ethics Aristotle never thinks of saying that the uniting factor in all friendships is the desire each friend has for the good of the other. Aristotle does not raise questions about what it is to desire good for the sake of another person.
He treats this as an easily understood phenomenon, and has no doubts about its existence. But it is also clear that he takes this motive to be compatible with a love of one's own good and a desire for one's own happiness. Someone who has practical wisdom will recognize that he needs friends and other resources in order to exercise his virtues over a long period of time.
When he makes friends, and benefits friends he has made, he will be aware of the fact that such a relationship is good for him. And yet to have a friend is to want to benefit someone for that other person's sake; it is not a merely self-interested strategy. Aristotle sees no difficulty here, and rightly so. For there is no reason why acts of friendship should not be undertaken partly for the good of one's friend and partly for one's own good.
Acting for the sake of another does not in itself demand self-sacrifice. It requires caring about someone other than oneself, but does not demand some loss of care for oneself. For when we know how to benefit a friend for his sake, we exercise the ethical virtues, and this is precisely what our happiness consists in. Aristotle makes it clear that the number of people with whom one can sustain the kind of relationship he calls a perfect friendship is quite small IX.
Even if one lived in a city populated entirely by perfectly virtuous citizens, the number with whom one could carry on a friendship of the perfect type would be at most a handful. For he thinks that this kind of friendship can exist only when one spends a great deal of time with the other person, participating in joint activities and engaging in mutually beneficial behavior; and one cannot cooperate on these close terms with every member of the political community.
One may well ask why this kind of close friendship is necessary for happiness. If one lived in a community filled with good people, and cooperated on an occasional basis with each of them, in a spirit of good will and admiration, would that not provide sufficient scope for virtuous activity and a well-lived life? Admittedly, close friends are often in a better position to benefit each other than are fellow citizens, who generally have little knowledge of one's individual circumstances. But this only shows that it is advantageous to be on the receiving end of a friend's help.
The more important question for Aristotle is why one needs to be on the giving end of this relationship. And obviously the answer cannot be that one needs to give in order to receive; that would turn active love for one's friend into a mere means to the benefits received. Aristotle attempts to answer this question in IX. A virtuous person loves the recognition of himself as virtuous; to have a close friend is to possess yet another person, besides oneself, whose virtue one can recognize at extremely close quarters; and so, it must be desirable to have someone very much like oneself whose virtuous activity one can perceive.
The argument is unconvincing because it does not explain why the perception of virtuous activity in fellow citizens would not be an adequate substitute for the perception of virtue in one's friends. Aristotle would be on stronger grounds if he could show that in the absence of close friends one would be severely restricted in the kinds of virtuous activities one could undertake. But he cannot present such an argument, because he does not believe it.
He refuses to regard private life—the realm of the household and the small circle of one's friends—as the best or most favorable location for the exercise of virtue. He is convinced that the loss of this private sphere would greatly detract from a well-lived life, but he is hard put to explain why. He might have done better to focus on the benefits of being the object of a close friend's solicitude.
Just as property is ill cared for when it is owned by all, and just as a child would be poorly nurtured were he to receive no special parental care—points Aristotle makes in Politics II. But Aristotle is not looking for a defense of this sort, because he conceives of friendship as lying primarily in activity rather than receptivity.
It is difficult, within his framework, to show that virtuous activity towards a friend is a uniquely important good. Since Aristotle thinks that the pursuit of one's own happiness, properly understood, requires ethically virtuous activity and will therefore be of great value not only to one's friends but to the larger political community as well, he argues that self-love is an entirely proper emotion—provided it is expressed in the love of virtue IX.
Self-love is rightly condemned when it consists in the pursuit of as large a share of external goods—particularly wealth and power—as one can acquire, because such self-love inevitably brings one into conflict with others and undermines the stability of the political community. If egoism is the thesis that one will always act rightly if one consults one's self-interest, properly understood, then nothing would be amiss in identifying him as an egoist. But egoism is sometimes understood in a stronger sense. Just as consequentialism is the thesis that one should maximize the general good, whatever the good turns out to be, so egoism can be defined as the parallel thesis that one should maximize one's own good, whatever the good turns out to be.
Egoism, in other words, can be treated as a purely formal thesis: When egoism takes this abstract form, it is an expression of the idea that the claims of others are never worth attending to, unless in some way or other their good can be shown to serve one's own. The only underived reason for action is self-interest; that an act helps another does not by itself provide a reason for performing it, unless some connection can be made between the good of that other and one's own.
There is no reason to attribute this extreme form of egoism to Aristotle. On the contrary, his defense of self-love makes it clear that he is not willing to defend the bare idea that one ought to love oneself alone or above others; he defends self-love only when this emotion is tied to the correct theory of where one's good lies, for it is only in this way that he can show that self-love need not be a destructive passion.
He takes it for granted that self-love is properly condemned whenever it can be shown to be harmful to the community. It is praiseworthy only if it can be shown that a self-lover will be an admirable citizen. In making this assumption, Aristotle reveals that he thinks that the claims of other members of the community to proper treatment are intrinsically valid.
This is precisely what a strong form of egoism cannot accept. We should also keep in mind Aristotle's statement in the Politics that the political community is prior to the individual citizen—just as the whole body is prior to any of its parts a18— Aristotle makes use of this claim when he proposes that in the ideal community each child should receive the same education, and that the responsibility for providing such an education should be taken out of the hands of private individuals and made a matter of common concern a21—7. No citizen, he says, belongs to himself; all belong to the city a28—9.
What he means is that when it comes to such matters as education, which affect the good of all, each individual should be guided by the collective decisions of the whole community. An individual citizen does not belong to himself, in the sense that it is not up to him alone to determine how he should act; he should subordinate his individual decision-making powers to those of the whole. The strong form of egoism we have been discussing cannot accept Aristotle's doctrine of the priority of the city to the individual.
It tells the individual that the good of others has, in itself, no valid claim on him, but that he should serve other members of the community only to the extent that he can connect their interests to his own. Such a doctrine leaves no room for the thought that the individual citizen does not belong to himself but to the whole. In Book I Aristotle says that three kinds of lives are thought to be especially attractive: The life of pleasure is construed in Book I as a life devoted to physical pleasure, and is quickly dismissed because of its vulgarity.
But his discussion of happiness in Book X does not start from scratch; he builds on his thesis that pleasure cannot be our ultimate target, because what counts as pleasant must be judged by some standard other than pleasure itself, namely the judgment of the virtuous person. Amusements will not be absent from a happy life, since everyone needs relaxation, and amusements fill this need. But they play a subordinate role, because we seek relaxation in order to return to more important activities. Aristotle turns therefore, in X. Theoria is not the process of learning that leads to understanding; that process is not a candidate for our ultimate end, because it is undertaken for the sake of a further goal.
What Aristotle has in mind when he talks about theoria is the activity of someone who has already achieved theoretical wisdom. The happiest life is lived by someone who has a full understanding of the basic causal principles that govern the operation of the universe, and who has the resources needed for living a life devoted to the exercise of that understanding. Evidently Aristotle believes that his own life and that of his philosophical friends was the best available to a human being. He compares it to the life of a god: It may seem odd that after devoting so much attention to the practical virtues, Aristotle should conclude his treatise with the thesis that the best activity of the best life is not ethical.
In fact, some scholars have held that X. But it is difficult to believe that he intends to reverse himself so abruptly, and there are many indications that he intends the arguments of X. The best way to understand him is to take him to be assuming that one will need the ethical virtues in order to live the life of a philosopher, even though exercising those virtues is not the philosopher's ultimate end.
To be adequately equipped to live a life of thought and discussion, one will need practical wisdom, temperance, justice, and the other ethical virtues. To say that there is something better even than ethical activity, and that ethical activity promotes this higher goal, is entirely compatible with everything else that we find in the Ethics.
Although Aristotle's principal goal in X. Perfect happiness, he says, consists in contemplation; but he indicates that the life devoted to practical thought and ethical virtue is happy in a secondary way. He thinks of this second-best life as that of a political leader, because he assumes that the person who most fully exercises such qualities as justice and greatness of soul is the man who has the large resources needed to promote the common good of the city.
The political life has a major defect, despite the fact that it consists in fully exercising the ethical virtues, because it is a life devoid of philosophical understanding and activity. Were someone to combine both careers, practicing politics at certain times and engaged in philosophical discussion at other times as Plato's philosopher-kings do , he would lead a life better than that of Aristotle's politician, but worse than that of Aristotle's philosopher.
But his complaint about the political life is not simply that it is devoid of philosophical activity. The points he makes against it reveal drawbacks inherent in ethical and political activity. Perhaps the most telling of these defects is that the life of the political leader is in a certain sense unleisurely b4— What Aristotle has in mind when he makes this complaint is that ethical activities are remedial: Courage, for example, is exercised in war, and war remedies an evil; it is not something we should wish for.
Aristotle implies that all other political activities have the same feature, although perhaps to a smaller degree. Corrective justice would provide him with further evidence for his thesis—but what of justice in the distribution of goods? Perhaps Aristotle would reply that in existing political communities a virtuous person must accommodate himself to the least bad method of distribution, because, human nature being what it is, a certain amount of injustice must be tolerated.
As the courageous person cannot be completely satisfied with his courageous action, no matter how much self-mastery it shows, because he is a peace-lover and not a killer, so the just person living in the real world must experience some degree of dissatisfaction with his attempts to give each person his due.
The pleasures of exercising the ethical virtues are, in normal circumstances, mixed with pain. Unalloyed pleasure is available to us only when we remove ourselves from the all-too-human world and contemplate the rational order of the cosmos. No human life can consist solely in these pure pleasures; and in certain circumstances one may owe it to one's community to forego a philosophical life and devote oneself to the good of the city.
But the paradigms of human happiness are those people who are lucky enough to devote much of their time to the study of a world more orderly than the human world we inhabit. Although Aristotle argues for the superiority of the philosophical life in X. The final section of the Ethics is therefore intended as a prolegomenon to Aristotle's political writings. We must investigate the kinds of political systems exhibited by existing Greek cities, the forces that destroy or preserve cities, and the best sort of political order.
1. Preliminaries
Although the study of virtue Aristotle has just completed is meant to be helpful to all human beings who have been brought up well—even those who have no intention of pursuing a political career—it is also designed to serve a larger purpose. Human beings cannot achieve happiness, or even something that approximates happiness, unless they live in communities that foster good habits and provide the basic equipment of a well-lived life.
The study of the human good has therefore led to two conclusions: The best life is not to be found in the practice of politics. But the well being of whole communities depends on the willingness of some to lead a second-best life—a life devoted to the study and practice of the art of politics, and to the expression of those qualities of thought and passion that exhibit our rational self-mastery. Cooper chs 1, 3 , chs 9, 13 ; Curzer ; Gadamer ; Gerson ; Gomez-Lobo ; Heinaman , ; Irwin ; Keyt ; Korsgaard a, b; Kraut a, b, , ch. White , ; S. White ; Whiting , ; Wielenberg ; Williams ch.
Brickhouse ; Brown ; Brunschwig ; Clark 84—97 ; N. Cooper ; Curzer , , , , , ; Di Muzio ; Gardiner ; Gottlieb , a, b, , ; Halper ; Hardie ; Hursthouse ; Hutchinson ; Irwin a; Kraut ch. Broadie ; Charles , ; Coope ; J. Annas , ch. Broadie ; Chappell ed. Aristotle character, moral egoism ethics: The Human Good and the Function Argument 3.
Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence 5. The Doctrine of the Mean 5. Studies of Particular Topics C. Preliminaries Aristotle wrote two ethical treatises: The Human Good and the Function Argument The principal idea with which Aristotle begins is that there are differences of opinion about what is best for human beings, and that to profit from ethical inquiry we must resolve this disagreement. Virtues and Deficiencies, Continence and Incontinence Aristotle distinguishes two kinds of virtue a1— Intellectual Virtues Since Aristotle often calls attention to the imprecision of ethical theory see e.
Plato and Aristotle, he says, collapsed all succumbing to temptation into losing control of ourselves—a mistake illustrated by this example: Alternate Readings of Aristotle on Akrasia 8. Pleasure Aristotle frequently emphasizes the importance of pleasure to human life and therefore to his study of how we should live see for example a7—20 and b3—a16 , but his full-scale examination of the nature and value of pleasure is found in two places: Bartlett, and Susan D. The University of Chicago Press. With Introduction, Notes, and Glossary.
Princeton University Press, Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy , vol. Reprinted in his Philosophical Papers , Oxford: State University of New York Press. Bobonich, Christopher and Pierre Destree eds. From Socrates to Plotinus , Leiden: Bostock, David, , Aristotle's Ethics , Oxford: Reprinted in Broadie b: Essays on Metaphysics and Ethics , Cambridge: Burger, Ronna, , Aristotle's Dialogue with Socrates: Aristotelianism in Contemporary Ethics , Oxford: What does her Ignorance Consist in?
Speculations upon Aristotelian Anthropology , Oxford: University of Minnesota Press. Engstrom, Stephen and Jennifer Whiting eds. The Pennsylvania State University Press. Garver, Eugene, , Confronting Aristotle's Ethics: Ancient and Modern Morality , Chicago: Publications Universitaires de Louvain. Issues in Ancient and Modern Ethics , Oxford: Taylor, , The Greeks on Pleasure , Oxford: Clarendon Press, Chapters 11— The Methodology of Eudemian Ethics I.
Kenny, Anthony, , The Aristotelian Ethics: Phenomenological Ethics , New York: Political Philosophy , Oxford: Essays in Honour of Malcolm Schofield , Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle , Oxford: Reprinted in McDowell Identity, Truth and Value , Oxford: Harvard University Press, pp. Philosophical Essays , Cambridge, MA: A Critical Guide , Cambridge: State University of New York Press, pp. Perception, Phantasia, Thought, and Desire , Oxford: Reprinted in her Love's Knowledge , New York: Oxford University Press, , pp.
Reprinted in his, Logic, Science and Dialectic: Collected Papers in Greek Philosophy , M. Cornell University Press, pp. Pakaluk, Michael, , Aristotle: An Introduction , Cambridge: Pakaluk, Michael and Giles Pearson eds. Oxford University Press, Chapters 4—7. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics , Oxford: University of California Press. Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, suppl. Essays in Honour of Julia Annas , pp.
Plato, Aristotle, and the Moderns , Oxford: Reprint in Segvic b: Reprinted in Segvic b: Also appeared in Pakaluk and Pearson Aristotle's Theory of Virtue , Oxford: Aristotle and Kant on Virtue , Cambridge: Critical Essays , Lanham, Maryland: Aristotle's Philosophy of Friendship. Click on image to enlarge. Suzanne Stern-Gillet - Author. Table of Contents Abbreviations Introduction 1. Related Titles Mothership Connections. The Effectiveness of Causes. The Specter of the Absurd. The Gift of Touch. This raises the following questions: And this generally seems to be the case: Nonetheless, within the literature on friendship the notion of shared or joint activity is taken for granted: This means in part that a particular theory of friendship might be criticized in terms of the way in which its account of the intimacy of friendship yields a poor account of the sense in which activity is shared.
For example, one might think that we must distinguish between activity we engage in together in part out of my concern for someone I love, and activity we share insofar as we engage in it at least partly for the sake of sharing it; only the latter, it might be argued, is the sort of shared activity constitutive of the relationship of friendship as opposed to that constitutive merely of my concern for him see Nozick Consequently, according to this line of thought, any account of the intimacy of friendship that fails to understand the sharing of interests in such a way as to make sense of this distinction ought to be rejected.
Helm develops an account of shared activity and shared valuing at least partly with an eye to understanding friendship. He argues that the sense in which friends share activity is not the sort of shared intention and plural subjecthood discussed in literature on shared intention within social philosophy on which, see Tuomela , ; Gilbert , , ; Searle ; and Bratman , for such sharing of intentions does not involve the requisite intimacy of friendship.
Friendships emerge, Helm claims, when the friends form a plural agent that cares positively about their relationship, and the variety of kinds of friendships there can be, including friendships of pleasure, utility, and virtue, are to be understood in terms of the particular way in which they jointly understand their relationship to be something they care about—as tennis buddies or as life partners, for example.
Friendship clearly plays an important role in our lives; to a large extent, the various accounts of friendship aim at identifying and clarifying that role. In this context, it is important to understand not only why friendship can be valuable, but also what justifies particular friendships. What makes friendship worthwhile for me, and so how ought I to evaluate whether particular friendships I have are good friendships or not? One sort of answer is that friendship is instrumentally good. Moreover, she claims, friendship is pleasant in itself as well as useful to the friends. Annis adds that it helps promote self-esteem, which is good both instrumentally and for its own sake.
Cooper b , interpreting Aristotle, provides two arguments for why this might be so. Hence, a flourishing life is possible only through the epistemic access friendship provides. Such activities include moral and intellectual activities, activities in which it is often difficult to sustain interest without being tempted to act otherwise. Friendship, and the shared values and shared activities it essentially involves, is needed to reinforce our intellectual and practical understanding of such activities as worthwhile in spite of their difficulty and the ever present possibility that our interest in pursuing them will flag.
Friendship
Consequently, the shared activity of friendship is partly constitutive of human flourishing. So far these are attempts to understand the value of friendship to the individual in terms of the way friendship contributes, instrumentally or constitutively, to something else that is valuable to the individual. Yet one might also think that friendship is valuable for its own sake. Indeed, we ought to expect that fleshing out this claim would involve a substantive proposal concerning the nature of that community and how it can have a separate federated?
Friedman existence and value. Once again, the literature on shared intention and plural subjecthood is relevant here; see, for example, Gilbert , , ; Tuomela , ; Searle ; and Bratman A question closely related to this question of the value of friendship is that of what justifies my being friends with this person rather than with someone else or no one at all.
To a certain extent, answers to the question of the value of friendship might seem to provide answers to the question of the justification of friendship. After all, if the value of friendship in general lies in the way it contributes either instrumentally or constitutively to a flourishing life for me, then it might seem that I can justify particular friendships in light of the extent to which they contribute to my flourishing.
Nonetheless, this seems unacceptable because it suggests—what is surely false—that friends are fungible. To be fungible is to be replaceable by a relevantly similar object without any loss of value. That is, if my friend has certain properties including, perhaps, relational properties in virtue of which I am justified in having her as my friend because it is in virtue of those properties that she contributes to my flourishing , then on this view I would be equally justified in being friends with anyone else having relevantly similar properties, and so I would have no reason not to replace my current friend with someone else of this sort.
This is surely objectionable as an understanding of friendship. In solving this problem of fungibility, philosophers have typically focused on features of the historical relationship of friendship cf. Brink , quoted above.
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If my friend and I form a kind of union in virtue of our having a shared conception of how to live that is forged and maintained through a particular history of interaction and sharing of our lives, and if my sense of my values and identity therefore depends on these being most fundamentally our values and identity, then it is simply not possible to substitute another person for my friend without loss.
For this other person could not possibly share the relevant properties of my friend, namely her historical relationship with me. However, the price of this solution to the problem of fungibility, as it arises both for friendship and for love, is the worry about autonomy raised towards the end of Section 1. An alternative solution is to understand these historical, relational properties of my friend to be more directly relevant to the justification of our friendship.
Thus, Whiting distinguishes the reasons we have for initiating a friendship which are, she thinks, impersonal in a way that allows for fungibility from the reasons we have for sustaining a friendship; the latter, she suggests, are to be found in the history of concern we have for each other. However, it is unclear how the historical-relational properties can provide any additional justification for friendship beyond that provided by thinking about the value of friendship in general, which does not solve the fungibility problem.
For the mere fact that this is my friend does not seem to justify my continued friendship: It is not clear how the appeal to historical properties of my friend or our friendship can provide an answer. In part the trouble here arises from tacit preconceptions concerning the nature of justification. Solving the problem, it might therefore seem, requires somehow overcoming this preconception concerning justification—a task which no one has attempted in the literature on friendship.
For further discussion of this problem of fungibility as it arises in the context of love, as well as discussion of a related problem concerning whether the object rather than the grounds of love is a particular person or a type of person, see Section 6 of the entry on love. Another way to construe the question of the value of friendship is in more social terms: For similar claims, see Annis These answers to the social value of friendship seem to apply equally well to love: Friedman , however, argues that friendship itself is socially valuable in a way that love is not. Understanding the intimacy of friendship in terms of the sharing of values, Friedman notes that friendship can involve the mutual support of, in particular, unconventional values, which can be an important stimulus to moral progress within a community.
Consequently, the institution of friendship is valuable not just to the individuals but also to the community as a whole. A growing body of research since the mids questions the relationship between the phenomenon of friendship and particular moral theories. At the root of these questions concerning the relationship between friendship and morality is the idea that friendship involves special duties: Thus, it seems that we have obligations to aid and support our friends that go well beyond those we have to help strangers because they are our friends, much like we parents have special duties to aid and support our children because they are our children.
Given this, the question arises as to what the relationship is between such special duties of friendship and other duties, in particular moral duties: Such moral schizophrenia, Stocker argues, prevents us in general from harmonizing our moral reasons and our motives, and it does so in a way that destroys the very possibility of our having and sustaining friendships with others.
Given the manifest value of friendship in our lives, this is clearly a serious problem with these moral theories. What is it about friendship that generates these problems? One concern arises out of the teleological conception of action , implicit in consequentialism, according to which actions are understood in terms of their ends or purposes. The trouble is, Stocker argues, the characteristic actions of friendship cannot be understood in this way. To be a friend is at least sometimes to be motivated to act out of a concern for your friend as this individual cf.
That is, actions done out of friendship are essentially actions motivated by a special sort of concern—a concern for this particular person—which is in part a matter of having settled habits of response to the friend. This, Stocker concludes, is a kind of motivation for action that a teleological conception of action cannot countenance, resulting in moral schizophrenia.
Jeske argues for a somewhat different conclusion: Stocker raises another, more general concern for consequentialism and deontology arising out of a conception of friendship. Consequently, either act consequentialists must exhibit moral schizophrenia, or, to avoid it, they must understand consequentialist reasons for action to be our motives.
However, because such consequentialist reasons are impersonal, taking this latter tack would be to leave out the kind of reasons and motives that are central to friendship, thereby undermining the very institution of friendship. The same is true, Stocker argues, of rule consequentialism the view that actions are right if they follow principles or rules that tend to result in the most good overall, impersonally conceived—see the entry on rule-consequentialism and on deontology the view that actions are right just in case they are in accordance with certain rules or principles that are binding on all moral agents.
If we are to avoid moral schizophrenia and embody this reason in our motives for action, we could not, then, act out of friendship—out of a concern for our friends for their sakes. This means that any rule consequentialist or deontologist that avoids moral schizophrenia can act so as to benefit her friends, but such actions would be merely as if friendly, not genuinely friendly, and she could not therefore have and sustain genuine friendships. The only alternative is to split her moral reasons and her motives for friendly acts, thereby becoming schizophrenic.
For some discussion about whether such moral schizophrenia really is as bad as Stocker thinks, see Woodcock Blum portions of which are reprinted with slight modifications in Blum and Friedman , pick up on this contrast between the impartiality of consequentialism and deontology and the inherent partiality of friendship, and argue more directly for a rejection of such moral theories.