Book VIII

It seems to be present by nature in a parent toward its offspring and in offspring toward the parent, not only among human beings but also among birds and most animals; and in members of the same kind toward one another, especially among human beings—which is why we praise those who love their fellow human beings. Even on one’s travels one can see how every human being is akin and dear to every other. Friendship also seems to hold cities together, and lawgivers seem to care more about it than about justice. For concord seems to be something like friendship, and this is what they aim at most, while civil strife, which is enmity, is what they most try to drive out. When people are friends they have no need of justice, but when they are just they need friendship as well; and the most just thing of all seems to be something friendly.

It is not only necessary but also fine. We praise those who love their friends, and having many friends seems to be one of the fine things. And further, people think that the same men are good men and friends.

Let us set aside the puzzles that belong to the study of nature, since they are not proper to the present inquiry, and examine those that are human and bear on character and feelings. For instance: does friendship arise among all people, or is it impossible for bad people to be friends? And is there one kind of friendship or more than one? Those who think there is only one, because it admits of more and less, have relied on an insufficient sign; for things that differ in kind also admit of more and less. But we have spoken about these matters earlier.

There are three things, then, for which people love. The love of inanimate things is not called friendship, since there is no return of love, nor any wishing of good to the thing. (It would presumably be ridiculous to wish good things to wine; if anything, one wishes it to keep, so as to have it oneself.) But to a friend, people say, one must wish good things for his own sake. Those who wish good things in this way they call well-disposed, if the same wish does not come from the other person too; for goodwill, they say, is friendship when it is reciprocated. Or must we add “when it does not go unnoticed”? For many people are well-disposed toward those they have never seen but suppose to be decent or useful; 1156a and one of those might feel the same toward him. These people, then, are evidently well-disposed to one another; but how could anyone call them friends when they are unaware of how they are disposed toward each other? So friends must bear each other goodwill and wish each other good things, without its going unnoticed, for one of the reasons mentioned.

These friendships, then, are incidental; for the one loved is not loved insofar as he is the very person he is, but insofar as he provides, in the one case some good, in the other pleasure. So such friendships are easily dissolved, when the parties do not stay as they were; for if they are no longer pleasant or useful, the others stop loving them. And the useful does not last but is different at different times. So when the reason they were friends has gone, the friendship dissolves too, since the friendship was directed at those things. This kind of friendship seems to arise especially among the old (for people of that age pursue not the pleasant but the beneficial), and among those in their prime or young who pursue their own advantage.

Such people do not much live together, either; for sometimes they are not even pleasant to each other. Nor do they need that sort of company unless they are beneficial to each other; for they are pleasant only so far as they have hopes of some good. Friendship between host and guest is also placed among these. The friendship of the young seems to be for pleasure; for they live by feeling and pursue above all what is pleasant to themselves and what is at hand. And as their age changes, what they find pleasant changes too. That is why they become friends quickly and quickly stop; for the friendship shifts along with what is pleasant, 1156b and such pleasure changes quickly. The young are also prone to erotic love; for erotic love mostly goes by feeling and is for pleasure. That is why they fall in love and quickly stop, often changing within the same day.note

But these people do want to spend their days together and live together; for this is how they get what their friendship is about.

For every friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure, either without qualification or for the one who loves, and it rests on some likeness. In this friendship all the things mentioned belong to the friends in themselves; for in this friendship they are alike in the other respects as well, and what is good without qualification is also pleasant without qualification, and these are the most lovable things. So loving and friendship are found most, and at their best, among such people. Such friendships are likely to be rare, since such people are few. Further, friendship of this kind needs time and familiarity. As the proverb says, people cannot know each other until they have eaten the proverbial salt together; nor can they accept each other or be friends until each has shown himself lovable to the other and has won his trust.note

Those who are quick to treat each other in friendly ways want to be friends, but they are not, unless they are also lovable and know it. For the wish for friendship arises quickly, but friendship does not.

For these two do not take pleasure in the same things: the lover takes pleasure in seeing his beloved, the beloved in being courted by the lover. And when the bloom of youth fades, the friendship sometimes fades too (for the one no longer finds the sight pleasant, and the other no longer gets the attention). But many, on the other hand, remain friends, if through familiarity they have come to love each other’s characters, being alike in character. Those who exchange not pleasure but utility in their love affairs are both less truly friends and less lasting. And those who are friends for utility part as soon as the advantage does; for they were friends not of each other but of the profit.

For pleasure and for utility, then, even bad people can be friends with each other, and decent people with bad ones, and someone who is neither with anyone at all; but clearly only good people can be friends for each other’s own sake. For bad people take no delight in each other unless some benefit comes of it. And only the friendship of the good is proof against slander; for it is not easy to believe anyone about someone one has tested oneself over a long time. Among the good there is trust, and the assurance that neither would ever wrong the other, and all the other things expected in true friendship. In the other kinds, nothing prevents such things from happening.

For people call friends even those who are friends for utility, as cities do (alliances between cities seem to be formed for the sake of advantage), and those who are fond of each other for pleasure, as children are. So perhaps we too should call such people friends, but say that there are several kinds of friendship: primarily and in the strict sense, the friendship of good people insofar as they are good, and the others by resemblance to it. For people are friends insofar as there is something good and something similar between them; and the pleasant is a good to those who love pleasure. But these two kinds do not combine very well, nor do the same people become friends for utility and for pleasure; for things that are incidental are not often coupled.

Those who accept each other but do not live together seem more like well-wishers than friends. For nothing is so characteristic of friends as living together. Those in need long for benefit, but even the blessed want company for their days, since a solitary life suits them least of all. And people cannot spend their time together unless they are pleasant and enjoy the same things, as seems to be the case in the friendship of companions.

One must also gain experience of the other and become familiar, which is very hard. But for utility and pleasure it is possible to please many; for there are many such people, and the services take little time. Of these two, the friendship for pleasure is more like friendship, when both get the same things from each other and enjoy each other or the same things, as in the friendships of the young; for there is more generosity of spirit in these. Friendship for utility is for traders. And the blessed have no need of useful friends, but they do need pleasant ones. For they want to live with someone, and while they can bear what is painful for a short time, no one could endure it continuously—not even the good itself, if it were painful to him. That is why they look for friends who are pleasant.

Perhaps they should also look for friends who, besides being pleasant, are good, and good for them as well; for in that way they will have everything that friends should have. People in positions of power appear to keep their friends in separate groups: some are useful to them and others pleasant, but hardly the same ones for both. For they do not look for pleasant friends who have excellence, nor for useful ones who serve fine ends; rather, when they aim at pleasure they look for witty people, and otherwise for people clever at carrying out orders, and these qualities hardly ever occur in the same person. We have said that the excellent person is both pleasant and useful; but such a person does not become the friend of someone who surpasses him, unless the other is surpassed by him in excellence. Otherwise, being surpassed, he does not achieve equality by proportion. But such people are not often found.

In all friendships based on superiority, the love too must be proportional: the better person should be loved more than he loves, and so should the more beneficial one, and likewise with each of the others. For when love accords with merit, then there is in a way equality, which is thought to be characteristic of friendship.

In such cases there is no precise definition of how far people can still be friends. Much can be taken away and the friendship still remain; but when one party is far removed, as the god is, it no longer does. Hence the puzzle whether friends may not wish their friends the greatest of goods—to be gods, for instance. For then they will no longer be friends to them, and so not goods to them either, since friends are goods. If, then, it was rightly said that a friend wishes good things to his friend for that friend’s sake, the friend would have to remain whatever sort of being he is. So it is to him as a human being that he will wish the greatest goods. But perhaps not all of them; for each person wishes good things most of all to himself.

But people enjoy being loved for its own sake. So it would seem that being loved is better than being honored, and that friendship is choiceworthy for its own sake. Yet friendship seems to lie in loving rather than in being loved. A sign of this is the delight mothers take in loving. Some mothers give their children to others to raise, and they love them, knowing who they are, but don’t seek to be loved in return if both aren’t possible. It seems enough for them to see their children doing well, and they love them even if the children, not knowing them, give them nothing of what is due to a mother. Since friendship lies more in loving, and people who love their friends are praised, loving seems to be the excellence of friends. So those in whom this happens according to worth 1159b are lasting friends, and theirs is a lasting friendship. This is also the way in which unequals can most of all be friends, since in this way they would be made equal.

Equality and likeness are friendship, and above all the likeness of those who are alike in excellence. Being steady in themselves, they also remain steady toward each other. They neither ask for base things nor render base services, but, so to speak, even prevent them; for it is characteristic of good people neither to go wrong themselves nor to let their friends do so. Wicked people, by contrast, have no constancy, since they don’t even remain like themselves; they become friends for a short time, enjoying each other’s wickedness. Useful and pleasant friends last longer — as long, that is, as they supply each other with pleasures or benefits. Friendship based on usefulness seems most of all to arise from opposites, as between a poor person and a rich one, or an ignorant person and one who knows: whatever someone happens to lack, he aims at, and gives something else in exchange. One might drag the lover and the beloved in here too, and the beautiful and the ugly.

That is why lovers sometimes appear ridiculous, when they expect to be loved as they love. If they are equally lovable, perhaps they are entitled to expect it; but if they have nothing of the kind, it’s ridiculous. Perhaps, though, opposite does not aim at opposite for its own sake but incidentally, and the desire is really for the mean, since that is what is good. For the dry, for example, the good is not to become wet but to arrive at the mean, and similarly for the hot and everything else. But let’s set these questions aside, since they are rather foreign to our subject.

What is just differs too. 1160a It isn’t the same for parents toward children as for brothers toward each other, nor for comrades as for fellow citizens, and similarly with the other friendships. So the wrongs done to each of these are different as well, and they become graver the closer the friendship. It is more terrible, for example, to defraud a comrade of money than a fellow citizen, to fail to help a brother than a stranger, and to strike one’s father than anyone else. It is natural for what is just to increase along with friendship, since they are found between the same people and extend equally far.

All communities seem to be parts of the political community. People band together for some advantage, to provide something they need for life; and the political community too seems both to have come together at the beginning and to persist for the sake of advantage. This is what lawgivers aim at, and they call just what is to the common advantage. The other communities aim at advantage in part: sailors at what concerns the voyage, with a view to making money or something of the sort; fellow soldiers at what concerns war, whether they are after money or victory or a city; and similarly fellow tribesmen and fellow demesmen. Some communities seem to arise for the sake of pleasure — those of religious guilds and dining clubs, which exist for the sake of sacrifice and companionship.note

But all these seem to fall under the political community, since the political community aims not at the advantage of the moment but at what concerns the whole of life — people making sacrifices and holding gatherings around them, paying honors to the gods and providing themselves with relaxation and pleasure. For the ancient sacrifices and gatherings appear to have taken place after the harvest, as a kind of offering of first fruits, since that was the season when people had the most leisure. All communities, then, appear to be parts of the political community, and the particular kinds of friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of community.

And it is more evident in the case of tyranny that it is the worst, since the opposite of the best is the worst. Kingship changes into tyranny, since tyranny is the degenerate form of monarchy, and a bad king becomes a tyrant. Aristocracy changes into oligarchy through the vice of the rulers, who distribute what belongs to the city contrary to worth — all or most of the good things to themselves, and offices always to the same people — setting the highest value on being rich. So the rulers are few, and bad, instead of the most decent. Timocracy changes into democracy, since these border on each other: timocracy too aims to be rule by the many, and all who meet the property assessment are equal. Democracy is the least bad, since it deviates only slightly from the form of polity. These, then, are the ways in which constitutions most often change, since in these ways the change is smallest and easiest.

One can find likenesses of these, patterns as it were, in households too. The community of a father with his sons has the shape of kingship, since the father cares for his children. That is why Homer calls Zeus “father”: kingship aims to be paternal rule. Among the Persians, however, a father’s rule is tyrannical, since they treat their sons as slaves. The rule of a master over slaves is tyrannical too, since it is the master’s advantage that is achieved in it. This latter seems to be correct, but the Persian kind mistaken, since different people call for different kinds of rule. The community of husband and wife seems aristocratic: the man rules according to worth, and in the matters in which a man should, and whatever suits a woman he hands over to her.

When the man controls everything, he changes it into an oligarchy, since he does so contrary to worth and not insofar as he is better. 1161a Sometimes wives rule because they are heiresses; then rule doesn’t go by excellence but by wealth and power, just as in oligarchies. The community of brothers is like timocracy, since they are equal except insofar as they differ in age; that is why, if they differ greatly in age, the friendship is no longer brotherly. Democracy is found most of all in households without a master (for there everyone is on an equal footing), and in those where the ruler is weak and everyone may do as he likes.note

The friendship of husband toward wife is the same as in an aristocracy. It goes by excellence: more good goes to the better, and to each what suits them; and so it is with what is just as well. The friendship of brothers is like that of comrades, since they are equal and of an age, and such people are for the most part alike in feelings and character. The friendship in a timocracy resembles this, since the citizens aim to be equal and decent; so they rule in turn and on equal terms, and so too with their friendship. In the deviations, just as there is little justice, so there is little friendship, and least of all in the worst: in a tyranny there is no friendship, or little.

For where ruler and ruled have nothing in common, there is no friendship either, since there is no justice — as between a craftsman and his tool, the soul and the body, a master and his slave. 1161b All of these are benefited by those who use them, but there is no friendship toward inanimate things, nor justice. Nor is there toward a horse or an ox, nor toward a slave insofar as he is a slave. For there is nothing in common: a slave is a living tool, and a tool a lifeless slave. Insofar as he is a slave, then, there is no friendship with him, but there is insofar as he is a human being. For there seems to be some justice between every human being and anyone able to share in law and agreement, and so friendship too, to the extent that he is a human being.

So in tyrannies friendship and justice extend only a little way, but in democracies further, since people who are equal have much in common.

Parents know their offspring better than children know that they come from their parents; and the source is more closely attached to what it generated than the thing produced is to what made it. For what comes from something belongs to its source — a tooth, say, or a hair, or anything else, to the one who has it — whereas the source doesn’t belong to what comes from it at all, or less so. The length of time matters too: parents love their children as soon as they are born, but children love their parents only as time goes on, once they have gained understanding or perception. From this it is also clear why mothers love more.

Parents, then, love their children as themselves (for what comes from them is a sort of other self, by being separated), children love their parents as having sprung from them, and brothers love each other by having sprung from the same parents; for their sameness in relation to the parents makes them the same as each other. That’s why people speak of “the same blood,” “the same root,” and so on. They are, then, in a way the same thing, even in separate beings. Being brought up together and being of an age also count for a great deal in friendship: “like age delights in like,” and people used to each other become comrades. That is why brotherly friendship resembles the friendship of comrades. 1162a Cousins and other relatives are bound together because of this, since they come from the same forebears. And they become closer or more distant according as the founder of the family is nearer or further off.

The friendship of children toward parents, like that of human beings toward gods, is friendship toward something good and superior; for they have conferred the greatest benefits. They are responsible for their children’s existence and nurture, and, once they are born, for their education. This kind of friendship also has more pleasure and usefulness than friendship with outsiders, to the degree that they share more of their life. Friendship between brothers has the same features as friendship between comrades, and more so when they are decent, and generally when they are alike — to the degree that they are closer and have loved each other from birth, and to the degree that those born of the same parents, brought up together and educated alike, are more similar in character. And in their case the test of time is longest and most reliable. Among other relatives, the elements of friendship are in proportion.

Between husband and wife friendship seems to exist by nature. For a human being is by nature more inclined to live in pairs than in cities, in that the household is prior to the city and more necessary, and producing children is something shared more widely with the animals. In the other animals the community goes only this far, but human beings live together not only for the sake of producing children but also for the needs of life. For the tasks are divided from the start, and those of the man and the woman are different; so they supply each other’s needs, putting what is their own into the common stock. For these reasons both usefulness and pleasure seem to be found in this friendship. It could also be based on excellence, if they are decent, since each has an excellence, and they would delight in that.

Children seem to be a bond, which is why childless couples separate more quickly: children are a good common to both, and what is common holds people together. The question of how a man should live with his wife, and generally a friend with a friend, seems to be no different from the question of how it is just for them to live. For what is just does not seem to be the same toward a friend as toward a stranger, a comrade, or a schoolfellow.

And the one who outdoes the other, since he is getting what he aims at, would not complain against his friend, since each desires the good. Nor are complaints very common in friendships based on pleasure, since both get what they desire at once, if they enjoy spending time together; and someone who complained that another didn’t please him would look ridiculous, since he is free not to spend his days with him. But friendship based on usefulness is full of complaints. Since they deal with each other for the sake of benefit, they always want more, think they have less than is due, and blame the other because they don’t get as much as they need and deserve; while those doing the good can’t supply as much as the recipients need. It seems that, just as what is just is of two kinds, unwritten and legal, so friendship based on usefulness is of two kinds, one based on character and the other legal.

So complaints arise most of all when people do not conclude the relationship in the same spirit in which they entered into it. The legal kind is on stated terms. One version is purely commercial, hand to hand; the other is more generous, allowing time, but still with an agreement about what is given for what. In this kind the debt is clear and not in dispute, but the delay has something friendly about it. That is why in some places there are no lawsuits over such things, and people think that those who have made a deal on trust must be content with it. The kind based on character is not on stated terms: one gives a gift, or whatever else it may be, as to a friend. But one expects to get back as much or more, as if one had not given but lent; and if one does not end the relationship on the terms on which one entered it, one will complain.

This happens because all people, or most, wish for what is fine but decide on what is beneficial; and it is fine to do good without aiming to be repaid, 1163a but beneficial to receive benefits. So one should, if able, repay the value of what one has received, and do so willingly (for one should not make a man one’s friend against his will). One should settle up as though one had made a mistake at the start and been benefited by someone one should not have been — not by a friend, nor by someone doing it for its own sake — and so one should settle just as though one had been benefited on stated terms. And one would agree to repay if able; if one were unable, not even the giver would have expected it. So one should repay if possible. At the start one should consider by whom one is being benefited, and on what terms, so as to accept on those terms or not. It is disputed whether one should measure by the benefit to the recipient and make the return on that basis, or by the benefaction of the giver.

Recipients say that what they got from their benefactors was a small thing to them and could have been had from others, belittling it. The givers, on the contrary, say it was the greatest of the things they had, that it couldn’t have been had from others, and that it was given in danger or in some such need. Since the friendship is based on usefulness, isn’t the recipient’s benefit the measure? He is the one in need, and the other supplies him expecting to receive an equal return. So the help has been as great as the benefit he received, and he should repay as much as he gained, or even more, since that is finer. In friendships based on excellence there are no complaints, and the giver’s decision seems to be the measure, since what is decisive in excellence and character lies in decision.

It seems, then, that each is right in what he claims, and that each should be given more from the friendship — but not more of the same thing: the superior should get more honor, and the needy more gain. For honor is the prize of excellence and beneficence, while gain is the help that meets need. This seems to be how things are in constitutions too. Someone who provides nothing good to the community is not honored, since what is common is given to the one who benefits the community, and honor is something common. One cannot make money from the common funds and be honored at the same time. For no one puts up with having less in everything; so to the person who loses out in money they allot honor, and to the one who wants gifts, money. For what accords with worth equalizes and preserves the friendship, as has been said.

This is how one should deal with unequals too: someone who is benefited in money or in excellence should repay with honor, repaying what he can. For friendship seeks what is possible, not what accords with worth, since that isn’t possible in every case — as with the honors paid to the gods and to parents. No one could ever repay what they deserve, but someone who serves them as far as he can is thought to be decent. That is why it would seem that a son may not disown his father, though a father may disown his son. One who owes must repay, and a son has done nothing worthy of what he has received, so he is always in debt. But those to whom something is owed are free to release the debtor, and so a father is too. At the same time, perhaps no one would ever part from his son unless the son were exceedingly wicked; for, apart from natural friendship, it is only human not to spurn the help a son would give.

But for the son, if he is wicked, helping his father is something to be avoided, or at least not something to be eager about. For most people wish to receive benefits but avoid conferring them as unprofitable. So much, then, for these matters.