The Nature of Friendship
Aristotle discusses friendship near the end of his Nicomachean Ethics, immediately after a discussion of pleasure, and before the final discussion of true happiness. This order is appropriate, because friendship is both man’s greatest pleasure and necessary for the happiness of man’s earthly life. True happiness is to know the good and to have it, and friendship is among the greatest goods a person can have.
Yet the main point Aristotle proves in the Ethics is that happiness cannot be attained without virtue. Friendship itself is not a kind of virtue, but, like happiness itself, it requires virtue. Virtue is simply the perfection of human nature: the excellence of intellect, will, and appetite in proper order. Friendship belongs to human perfection, not as some personal excellence of nature, but as a good toward which the excellence of nature is ordered. In other words, virtue allows persons to have and to enjoy friendship, and friendship allows persons to practice the full extent of virtue. Hence friendship, virtue, and happiness are all intimately connected.
The connection of friendship, virtue, and happiness is clear when we consider what friendship itself is. Aristotle calls friendship a pursuit of love, and “two men resembling one another in virtue.” St. Aelred begins On Spiritual Friendship with Cicero’s definition: “consensus in all things human and divine, with benevolence and charity.” All of these descriptions capture some characteristic of friendship, but friendship is essentially a communion of love.
Love is, simply put, an inclination of the appetite toward the good. Thus there are three main kinds of love: natural, sensitive, and rational, named after the respective sources from which the love arises, i.e. from nature, sensation, or reason. Rational love is further divided into two types: love of concupiscence and love of benevolence. Concupiscible love is the inclination to some good, whereas benevolence is the desire of some good for the sake of a person. Hence, friendship is specifically a rational love, which Grenier defines as “a mutual love of benevolence” (Cursus Philosophiae, III, 256).
The rational nature of friendship necessitates a shared knowledge of the good which each friend desires for the other. One’s love can be misguided if his estimation of the good is mistaken, but true love follows what is truly good. Moreover, one cannot love what he does not first know. Therefore true friendship is first and foremost concord in the truth. Christ Himself refers to knowledge as the principle of friendship: “But I have called you friends: because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you” (John 15:15). There are thus two ways which knowledge must permeate a friendship: friends must know the truth which is the object of their shared love, and they must know each other well enough to be certain that they agree. It is now apparent that those who are true friends must be virtuous, because virtue is required to recognize, to desire, and to choose what is truly good. This is why Cicero says, “Only the good can be friends.”
False Friendship
It would seem that a false friendship would result from a false understanding; that is, two persons who share a false notion of the true and the good would seem to be mistaken about the validity of their friendship. However, one can love the truth without having a complete understanding of it, and his love for it increases his will to know more. So, despite sharing an erroneous understanding, a friendship can still be rooted in a love of truth, so long as love prevails over error. Therefore, in the case of ignorant friends, there are three possible outcomes: They both obstinately persist in error, refusing to grow in knowledge, in which case their friendship is merely accidental; only one friend might revise his opinions in respect to truth, which breaks the concord between them and ends the friendship; or both friends grow in love and understanding, and thereby strengthen their communion.
So true friendship is not a mutual exchange, but a communion. The difference between communion and exchange is apparent when one compares a friendship to two persons who love one another and are still not considered friends. As Cicero observes, two men can remain strangers while bestowing gifts on one another, for a variety of reasons. For example, a man might express admiration and pledge support for the author of a work of art without even knowing the artist’s name, and the artist might respond to this support by developing more art on the themes which his admirer loves, not for love of money, but from sincere encouragement. In this case, there is a mutual love and support, but so long as the men remain unknown to each other, they could hardly be called friends.
Love without communion is also seen in unreciprocated love. True love can be one-sided: take, for example, the perfect charity a Christian has for his self-professed enemies. Though this kind of charity is an excellent form of love, it is not friendship.
In common parlance, “friendship” refers to something much less than true friendship. It usually refers to a simple mutual exchange of pleasure or utility or some combination thereof. It is easy to find “friendships of pleasure” between young men and women who value each other for a good feeling, but who are not yet virtuous enough to establish a lasting communion of true love. “Friendships of utility” can be found between neighbors, coworkers, or business partners—a relationship that is impartial to personal excellence, but is concerned with the exchange of some benefit. These so-called friendships are sometimes mixed, as well: for example, a man of some wealth might be friendly with an artist, whose work he takes pleasure in, while the artist obtains financial support from his patron. These relationships, which Aristotle calls “accidental friendships,” are usually good, though not as good as true friendship.
St. Ambrose teaches that there are three categories of the good: the pleasurable, the useful, and the perfect. The pleasurable serves the useful, and the useful serves the perfect. To reverse this order, by attempting to make a higher good serve a lower, is to lose the higher good altogether. For example, the proper use of opiates is to serve the health of the body, when a body that is made imperfect through sickness and suffering must be brought back to a (more) perfect state of good health. When one uses an opiate for pleasure, he loses both the medicinal use which ordinarily belongs to it and the perfection of good health which it is meant to serve.
Accidental friendships are essentially economic relationships and not true communions, but they are good when they serve human perfection and do not impede virtue. Even true friendship is strengthened by a generous supply of pleasantness and favors. But when an exchange of utility or pleasure frustrates virtue, or otherwise corrupts a person, it is more like an evil pact than an accidental friendship. Adulterous affairs, street gangs, usurious contracts, and unfair employment are just some examples of personal exchanges that are evil because they sacrifice human perfection for some lesser good.
The Delight of Friends
Though pleasure is not the principal object of true friendship, there is still necessarily a special kind of delight which follows from seeing a good friend. As St. Thomas says, delight is the hallmark of a good friendship, because we necessarily delight in seeing our friends do good (ST Ia-IIae, q. 4, a. 2 and 8). Friendship between men is therefore analogous to the beatific vision, in which the blessed soul loves God for His own sake, and the soul delights in what he loves.
In summary, the bond of true friendship is neither the individual benefit of one person nor the sum total of mutual benefits between them. The bond of true friendship is the love for something which is greater than both persons: a shared knowledge and love of the truth. Hence, accidental friendships come and go as frequently as the economic benefits they provide, whereas true friendship is undying, because the love which unites true friends is undying. As the union of friends is the love of what is eternal, the eternal imparts its character on that union.
It is because true friendship is undying that the loss of such friendship is felt so strongly. St. Augustine, speaking of the death of a close friend, illustrates this evil well:
[H]e whom I had loved as if he would never die was dead. I was even more surprised that when he was dead I was still alive, for he was my “other self.” Someone has well said of his friend, “He was half my soul.” So my life was to me a horror. I did not wish to live with only half of myself (Confessions IV.vi).
Augustine admits, however, that true friendship “is not possible unless you bond together those who cleave to one another by the love which is poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Confessions IV.iv). Even friendship can be made into an idol if one mistakes the benefits of friendship for its cause. On the other hand, because God is the cause of friendship, He is also the source of consolation in friendship lost.
The Relation of Friendship to Law
Aristotle remarks that friendship does not need justice. This saying can be misinterpreted as meaning that justice is unrelated to friendship or, worse, that concern for justice can even pervert or dissolve friendship. On the contrary, if one understands that justice is the perfection of the will and the appropriation of what is truly deserved, then it is obvious that true friendship is the full measure of justice. As Aristotle says, “The truest form of justice is a friendly quality” (NE, VIII). One does not lack what he has perfected.
That friendship is the perfection of justice suggests that it has an important relation to law as well. St. Thomas is explicit about this relation, saying, “The principal intention of human law is to make friendship between man and man” (ST Ia-IIae, q. 99, a. 2). If the purpose of law is friendship, then law is not abolished or abrogated by friendship, but fulfilled by it. Therefore, the activity of friendship necessitates an obedience to the law.
That friendship necessarily involves obedience to the law is clear when we consider the nature of both friendship and obedience. Friendship is concord in the truth and a shared pursuit of the good, whereas law is an ordinance of reason for the common good. In a sense, therefore, the essence of friendship is to love the law. This follows for every kind of law, positive, natural, and divine. The distinction of laws and of the personal roles under each law entails a distinction in the kinds of political relations which are the basis of every friendship. In other words, not all friendships are of the same kind; rather, each kind of political relation entails a distinct kind of potential friendship. It is for this reason that Grenier distinguishes between domestic friendships and political friendships (Cursus Philosophiae, III, 262-265).
Domestic friendships include all those relationships which are a natural part of the domestic society; e.g. marital, paternal, maternal, filial, or fraternal relations. Similarly, political friendships include political relationships, such as those between ruler and subject, or between fellow citizens.
If a friendship between a subordinate and his superior seems dubious, recall that friendship is concord in the truth and the mutual pursuit of virtue. These essential properties are not precluded by any kind of good relationship. Rather, the nature of the relationship imparts its character to the friendship which perfects it. Christ Himself says, “You are my friends, if you do the things I command you” (John 15:14). He premises His disciples’ friendship on His supreme authority. Hence, friendship follows from obedience so long as obedience is necessary for the perfection of that relationship.
Aristotle remarks in his Ethics that friends are necessarily equals. This is true in one sense, because the good which one wants for oneself is desired also for the friend, and vice versa. An equality of love is thus enjoyed in every friendship; hence the saying, “with friends, all goods are common goods.” However, the equality of friends is not absolute. One’s status in life may differ from his friend’s, for instance. Aristotle explains that differences of status or talent are balanced by an equality of virtue, which is required for the mutual pursuit of perfection; e.g. a king might be friends with one who is poor, provided the king and his subject are of comparable virtue.
The essential quality of friendship, therefore, is an analogous one: Friends are equal with respect to their friendship. In the case of a man and his ruler, all things, in a material sense, may be quite unequal. Yet both the man and his king enjoy the perfection of their relationship as characterized by the political order to which they belong. That is, they each know the nature of their bond and love it in an equitable way.
Friendship as a Share in Society
Cicero says of friendship, “There is nothing which so fits in with our nature” (De Amicitia, 5). Even the person who has fulfilled every other requirement of nature needs human community, as Thomas says:
If we speak of the happiness of this life, the happy man needs friends, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. ix, 9), not, indeed, to make use of them, since he suffices himself; nor to delight in them, since he possesses perfect delight in the operation of virtue; but for the purpose of a good operation, viz. that he may do good to them, that he may delight in seeing them do good, and again that he may be helped by them in his good work. For in order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends (ST Ia-IIae, q. 4, a. 8).
Note that the person’s participation in friendship is not exclusively for his own sake, but for the sake of his friends, and for the fellowship which is irreducible to any individual good. But even the good of friendship is not an ultimate good in itself; rather, every relationship which is perfected in friendship is itself ordered to a higher good; viz. the common good of the state (polis), which belongs to the active life, and the ultimate good which belongs to the contemplative.
Recall that Cicero defines friendship as “consensus in all things human and divine, with benevolence and charity.” St. Augustine defines human society in strikingly similar terms: “A people is the union of a rational assembly, a community united in concord according to the things it loves” (De Civitate Dei XIX.24). It might seem that, since the essence of friendship is the same as that of civil society, then civil society is simply a web of friendships. There is an important distinction between civil society and friendship, however.
Society, whose ordered unity is the state, is governed by laws for its own good. Even in a perfect state, there is a general knowledge and direction which the civil authority imparts to the state as a whole which its citizens are not capable of imparting as mere individuals. These laws apply to the citizenry in general. Likewise, each person, insofar as he is a citizen, is of one mind and heart with the community in general. This authoritative knowledge and direction in which the citizens take part is for the good of the state (i.e. the universal common good), and so it is none other than a special kind of benevolence. This benevolence, however, is for no particular person but society in general, and therefore does not have the character of friendship.
Friends need to be familiar with each other for their friendship to blossom. They must know each other well, their particular dispositions and talents as they relate to their station in life, in order to assist each other in the life of virtue. Whereas citizens who are otherwise strangers are united by a common interest in the general welfare, friends are intimately concerned with all the particular goods of life. Therefore, citizenship raised to the perfection of civic friendship is the highest form of participation in the common good according to the natural order.
Erroneous Notions of Friendship and Enmity
It is clear from what has been said that friendship can neither be the basis of politics in general, nor can it adequately describe or summarize the essence of political relations. Each type of relationship is specified according to its cause, whereas friendship (generally speaking) does not specify a relationship, but qualifies the extent of its perfection. There are friendships that are not strictly political, and there are political relationships that are not necessarily friendships.
It also follows that enmity cannot, properly speaking, describe the nature of a relationship. If friendship is concord in the truth, then enmity cannot be the strict opposite of friendship. Enmity is a purely accidental quality of a relationship: it is characterized by evil, which is manifested in the discord between enemies, resulting from one or both parties failing to recognize the true or pursue the good. When two men are friends, they are really united in their common love, by active participation rather than mere convention. In other words, friendship is more than a contract: Their choices redound to their mutual benefit and their souls are enriched by the resonance of their respective wills.
In contrast, one sees his enemy as an obstacle to his own good. Whereas love of the good is the unitive factor in friendship, enmity is merely circumstantial. The good inhibited by enmity can be real or mistaken, there can be competing notions of the good, or one good might be sought exclusively by each party. The distinct kinds of friendship are specified according to the distinct kinds of good which cause them (e.g. domestic or political) but enmity is indefinite, because evil is indefinite. A friend is another self, but an enemy can be anything.
Hence, it is incorrect to say that he who is not a friend is necessarily an enemy. One may share any manner of concord with another and yet not be his friend; and two men may share great potential for friendship on account of many common loves and yet find themselves enemies. Enmity itself is an evil, regardless of whether anyone is culpable for it. Insofar as all men ought to know the true and to love the good, they also ought to strive for community in its pursuit and to avoid enmity.
Conclusion
We may summarize what we have said about friendship in three key points. Firstly, true friendship is necessary for a good life, not just to compensate for human weakness, but because man was made to enjoy communion with others. Secondly, friendship is not a kind of relationship in its own right, but is rather the perfection of a social relation which serves the ultimate end of human life. As such, the reality of friendship depends on the political, and on the ultimate good to which the political is ordered. Society is therefore not reducible to a collection of friendships; rather, man can have friendship precisely because he participates in society. Thirdly, friendship is the personal, particular perfection of the communion which fellow citizens share in a general sense. All men ought to share some level of communion because all men ought to love the good in common. Enmity therefore ought to be avoided, because it is an unnecessary defect of human society.