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The Concept And Practice Of Friendship In Aristotle's The Nicomachean Ethics

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One of the many subjects that Aristotle tackles in The Nicomachean Ethics is the concept and practice of friendship. Aristotle himself sets three requirements for friendship, as well as three separate categories for friendship, the categories being, utility based, pleasure based, and virtues based. While Aristotle does state that a virtue based friendship is the strongest, one could also put forth the argument that friendship only exists for the benefits of utility that come from friendship, leading to the true conclusion that friendship for the sake of friendship does not exist. The assumption of the argument is that no one would seek out friendship without desiring any of the benefits derived from friendship, including companionship, the …show more content…
The difference made between utility and pleasure is very narrow. With utility we our affection for one another is based on the benefits they give us, the services they provide for us, while affection based on pleasure is rooted in what is agreeable to us, in Book Eight of his ethics, he uses the example of witty people, that we enjoy their company not based on the fact we enjoy them as a person, but their wit is agreeable to us. One can ascertain just how similar the base ideas of these two concepts are; going as far to frame the argument that pleasure itself should be classified as a utility, we use these people to entertain ourselves, making pleasure just a result of utility, not an entirely different category. He does provide a clearer distinction between these and virtue, the friendship he describes as working …show more content…
Theoretically, these are the friendships that last eternally, where both people wish well for one another for their own sake. This is the main distinction between this category and the ones of utility and pleasure; with the previous two, you are friends with them for your own sake, you’re friends in exchange for the benefits that come along with the friendship. Here, we observe a friendship that is perfect where both parties have friendship for the sake of friendship. Now, Aristotle does admit that these friendships are rare, due to good men being rare. Consequently, one may argue that these men do not exist. Perhaps in a perfect world with perfect people this friendship could exist, where each person truly cares for that person based not on what they are receiving from the person but for the sake of the person and their friendship. Ours is not a perfect world, and the people are far from

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