Aristotle's Arguments On Friendship And Justice

Decent Essays
Aristotle’s arguments seem to say that, friendship and justice appear to be concerned with similar objects, and expressed between the same type of people. In Aristotle’s view, there is thought to be a certain form of justice as well as friendship in every community. Friendship depends on community, and brothers or comrades tend to have many things in common, sometimes including property.
Aristotle then ventures into a sort of contradiction, when he makes a statement of how claims of justice tend to differ from claims of friendship. This contradiction is cleared when he gives examples of different types of duties in certain relationships like; the duties of parents to their children, as well as siblings to one another, which he says are never

Related Documents

  • Improved Essays

    While attempting to find the correct meaning of the word justice, Socrates refutes several of Thrasymachus's arguments pertaining to his personal perception of the definition. Furthermore, Socrates counters Thrasymachus's belief that one should be unjust, with the conviction that justice is a trait which one should possess. This particular area of the discussion shows a contrast between the ideas of Socrates and Thrasymachus regarding the term. One of Thrasymachus's arguments that Socrates takes issue with is that in which he states that unjust rulers and cities are the strongest, making justice something that the less powerful and the unwise should aspire to obtain.…

    • 1161 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    A just man acts for what is improper or immoral for someone else. The worst man is the one whose evil habits not only affect himself but also his friends and family. This comparison by Aristotle leads up to his clarification that the difference between the whole virtue and justice is that justice is defined in relation to something but virtue alone doesn’t have qualifications. Aristotle also follows up with another of perspective of how to look at justice in a specific sense; by stating that in a specific sense justice is concerned with honor, property, safety and similar things. Compared to justice in a larger sense that is concerned with the virtue as a whole.…

    • 715 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Aristotle's "Nichomachean Ethics" is filled with wisdom. He provides his views on what he believes is the different form of friendship. Aristotle claims that there are three forms of friendship. The three are friendships based on utility, pleasure, and good. Among those three there is one form of friendship that is best, and that is the friendship based on goodness.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics The human experience of the Nicomachean Ethics is about finding happiness. The difference between Aristotle’s versions of happiness and what happiness is viewed like today is large. It is common for people in today’s society to think happiness is pleasure. Aristotle and the Athenians viewed happiness as a way of life and one can determine if they have had a happy life by a sum of all his days not just one day.…

    • 336 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Many people have a lot of people that they are close to and consider them friends. Many of these friends to Aristotle are not real or at least do not have good intensions they just benefit from the friendship and this happens both way in the friendship. In “The Nicomachean Ethics” by Aristotle explains three types of friendships that occurring to him exist. He also says what type of people should be friend based on the category that they go in to.…

    • 796 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Aristotle extensively examines the stability of the three types of friendship in Nicomachean Ethics. “Friendship has three species, corresponding to the three objects of love. For each of love has a corresponding type of mutual loving, combined with awareness of it” (Aristotle, 121). The first two types of friendship, utility and pleasure, are relatively fragile. These types of friendships are only good for as long as our wants and desires remain the same.…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, both friendship and justice are present in communal associations. In the community, there are three types of friendship, with the highest form being a perfect friendship. Friends are crucial for humans to flourish, but perfect friendships are rare as Aristotle describes it as a “Friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other… and they are good in themselves.” (Nic.8.3.1156b7-9). A perfect friendship encourages both people in the relationship to better themselves and push each other towards a higher standard.…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Aristotle is largely concerned in the Politics with the idea of political virtue and the effects it has on the formation of the government. He defines political virtue as having a sense of justice, dedication to the common good, and prudence. Throughout his discussion of how various regimes see political virtue, Aristotle refuses to take sides. However, he ultimately argues that the most just regime gives political power to those with the most political virtue. Aristotle concludes that the best regime might be different practically than it is purely, yet he suggests that aristocracy is the most just regime.…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    A Self-Sufficient Friendship Human beings have an intuitive sense when it comes to friendship. It simply seems natural to be in a virtuous relationship with another person. For Aristotle, the conversation deserves more than an assumption of the natural feelings in humans. He introduces the idea of self-sufficiency as a means of attaining happiness, however, there appears to be a contradiction when comparing this to the necessity of friends. He says they are both are required for happiness, but they seem to be fundamentally opposite.…

    • 1236 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    To begin, Aristotle defines and contrasts both practical and theoretical wisdom. Practical wisdom is defined by Aristotle as being, “a truthful rational characteristic of acting in matters involving what is good for man” (Aristotle Ethics, pg. 154). In other words, practical wisdom is concerned with deciding what a good course of action for man is. On the other hand about theoretical wisdom, Aristotle writes, “a wise man must not only know what follows from fundamental principles, but he must also have true knowledge of the fundamental principles themselves. Accordingly, theoretical wisdom must comprise both intelligence and scientific knowledge”(Aristotle Ethics, pg. 156).…

    • 1023 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Friendship is an integral part of who we are as human beings, and ancient Greek philosophers attempted to understand why we need or want friendships. The basic ideas we have of friendship are based on the ideas that have been implemented by philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. However, some of these same ideas have been misinterpreted into modern culture. Even the ideas Plato and Aristotle discussed were not fulling practiced in truth. This essay will discuss the idea of friendship according to both Plato and Aristotle focusing on friendships impact on the Psyche, discussing the similarities and differences between the two philosophers, and how these have affected modern society’s idea of friendship.…

    • 2018 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, we need only to look at those who repeatedly commit crimes today to know that not every moves up in their moral growths. Additionally, Aristotle’s thinking is limited because he was an elite member of society in his day, or a member of the hoi aristoi. He believed that everyone else in the hoi polloi would want to be more “noble” and virtuous like the members of the hoi aristoi, which also may not have been the case. Finally, both philosophers have radically differing opinions on friendship and how it relates to happiness in our lives. While Augustine’s concerns regarding the influence that friends have on sinfulness are valid, I think that Aristotle’s beliefs are more legitimate.…

    • 1228 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Similar to Plato, Aristotle considered also justice as a virtue and moderation yet contrary to Plato, he thought that justice is not in the soul, but in the actions. Justice in the social sphere is the composition of individual virtues, it is where Aristotle distinguishes from Plato in terms of method. Aristotle emphasizes also the relational and reciprocal character of justice and stated that justice can be exercised only in relation to other individuals (NE, 1129b30).…

    • 1127 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Common Good theory, is a theory on groups and individuals based on Aristotle’s principles. It states that the highest good can be achieved when people work together to obtain a certain goal. It is defined as, “a good proper to, and attainable only by the community, yet individually shared by its members” (Dupre, 687). These goods can be material possessions or abstract resources such as honor, security, or any other thing that people have to share. Aristotle states that the scarcity of these resources makes them the subject of intense competition and conflict (Smith, 626).…

    • 1287 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    BOOK V, SECTION 14 Socrates has shown us what is justice, both in the state and the individual. But to give real answer to the questions and problems raised him Trasícamo, Glaucon and Adeimantus, it must now continue to prove that a man is always better to be right than wrong. To achieve this, Socrates must first give a detailed description of injustice, then to contrast these two contrary qualities. Well, if justice is a kind of internal harmony in the state or in the mind, injustice must be a kind of discord or disagreement between the three factions. One type of injustice would occur when emotions become masters of reason or, in our state, when the auxiliary dominate the rulers.…

    • 1253 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays