Real Friendship Love December 14 at 10:19 AM ⭐ La amistad no solo se encuentra en gente desconocida que con el tiempo se combierten en familia si no tambien en la familia que poco a poco se combierten en buenos amigos y eso es mucho mas bonito en todo sentido de la palabra. Sometimes it might be hard to tell the difference between platonic friendship and a different kind of love. If you’re feeling confused, take some time to examine your relationship. Think about specific examples of times that you’ve experienced feelings of love. Real Love and Friendship. People crave real love and friendship without having an understanding of what it is all about. Love cannot be defined in words, it is a feeling that can only be expressed through words and actions. Real love is a feeling that would be the resultant of being loved and cared for. When there is love between two people.

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Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personalrelationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friendfor the welfare of the other, for the other’s sake, and thatinvolves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedlycentral to our lives, in part because the special concern we have forour friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns,including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can helpshape who we are as persons. Given this centrality, importantquestions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, inthis context, whether it is permissible to “trade up” whensomeone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility ofreconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality incases in which the two seem to conflict.

• 1. Nature of Friendship
• 2. Value and Justification of Friendship

1. The Nature of Friendship

Friendship essentially involves a distinctive kind of concern for yourfriend, a concern which might reasonably be understood as a kind oflove. Philosophers from the ancient Greeks on have traditionallydistinguished three notions that can properly be called love:agape, eros, and philia. Agape is a kind of love that does not respond to the antecedent value ofits object but instead is thought to create value in thebeloved; it has come through the Christian tradition to mean the sortof love God has for us persons as well as, by extension, our love forGod and our love for humankind in general. By contrast, eros and philia are generally understood to be responsive to themerits of their objects—to the beloved’s properties,especially his goodness or beauty. The difference is thateros is a kind of passionate desire for an object, typicallysexual in nature, whereas ‘philia’ originally meant a kind of affectionate regard or friendly feelingtowards not just one’s friends but also possibly towards familymembers, business partners, and one’s country at large (Liddellet al., 1940; Cooper, 1977a). Given this classification of kinds oflove, philia seems to be that which is most clearly relevantto friendship (though just what philia amounts to needs to beclarified in more detail).

For this reason, love and friendship often get lumped together as asingle topic; nonetheless, there are significant differences betweenthem. As understood here, love is an evaluative attitudedirected at particular persons as such, an attitude which we mighttake towards someone whether or not that love is reciprocated andwhether or not we have an established relationship with her.^[1] Friendship, by contrast, is essentially a kind ofrelationship grounded in a particular kind of special concerneach has for the other as the person she is; and whereas we must makeconceptual room for the idea of unrequited love, unrequited friendshipis senseless. Consequently, accounts of friendship tend to understandit not merely as a case of reciprocal love of some form (together withmutual acknowledgment of this love), but as essentially involvingsignificant interactions between the friends—as being in thissense a certain kind of relationship.

Nonetheless, questions can be raised about precisely how todistinguish romantic relationships, grounded in eros, fromrelationships of friendship, grounded in philia, insofar aseach involves significant interactions between the involved partiesthat stem from a kind of reciprocal love that is responsive to merit.Clearly the two differ insofar as romantic love normally has a kind ofsexual involvement that friendship lacks; yet, as Thomas (1989) asks,is that enough to explain the real differences between them? Badhwar(2003, 65–66) seems to think so, claiming that the sexualinvolvement enters into romantic love in part through a passion andyearning for physical union, whereas friendship involves instead adesire for a more psychological identification. Yet it is not clearexactly how to understand this: precisely what kind of“psychological identification” or intimacy ischaracteristic of friendship? (For further discussion, see Section 1.2.)

In philosophical discussions of friendship, it is common to followAristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII) in distinguishingthree kinds of friendship: friendships of pleasure, of utility, and ofvirtue. Although it is a bit unclear how to understand thesedistinctions, the basic idea seems to be that pleasure, utility, andvirtue are the reasons we have in these various kinds of relationshipsfor loving our friend. That is, I may love my friend because of thepleasure I get out of her, or because of the ways in which she isuseful to me, or because I find her to have a virtuous character.Given the involvement of love in each case, all three kinds offriendship seem to involve a concern for your friend for his sake andnot for your own.

There is an apparent tension here between the idea that friendshipessentially involves being concerned for your friend for his sake andthe idea of pleasure and utility friendships: how can you be concernedfor him for his sake if you do that only because of the pleasure orutility you get out of it? If you benefit your friend because,ultimately, of the benefits you receive, it would seem that you do notproperly love your friend for his sake, and so your relationship isnot fully one of friendship after all. So it looks like pleasure andutility friendships are at best deficient modes of friendship; bycontrast, virtue friendships, because they are motivated by theexcellences of your friend’s character, are genuine,non-deficient friendships. For this reason, most contemporaryaccounts, by focusing their attention on the non-deficient forms offriendship, ignore pleasure and utility friendships.^[2]

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, philiaseems to be the kind of concern for other persons that is mostrelevant to friendship, and the word, ‘philia,’sometimes gets translated as friendship; yet philia is insome ways importantly different from what we ordinarily think of asfriendship. Thus, ‘philia’ extends not just to friends but also tofamily members, business associates, and one’s country at large.Contemporary accounts of friendship differ on whether family members,in particular one’s children before they become adults, can befriends. Most philosophers think not, understanding friendship to beessentially a relationship among equals; yet some philosophers (suchas Friedman 1989; Rorty 1986/1993; Badhwar 1987) explicitly intendtheir accounts of friendship to include parent-child relationships,perhaps through the influence of the historical notion ofphilia. Nonetheless, there do seem to be significantdifferences between, on the one hand, parental love and therelationships it generates and, on the other hand, the love ofone’s friends and the relationships it generates; the focus herewill be on friendship more narrowly construed.

In philosophical accounts of friendship, several themes recurconsistently, although various accounts differ in precisely how theyspell these out. These themes are: mutual caring (or love), intimacy,and shared activity; these will be considered in turn.

1.1 Mutual Caring

A necessary condition of friendship, according to just about everyview (Telfer 1970–71; Annas 1988, 1977; Annis 1987; Badhwar1987; Millgram 1987; Sherman 1987; Thomas 1987, 1989, 1993; Friedman1993, 1989; Whiting 1991; Hoffman 1997; Cocking & Kennett 1998;and White 1999a, 1999b, 2001) is that the friends each care about theother, and do so for her sake; in effect, this is to say that thefriends must each love the other. Although many accounts of friendshipdo not analyze such mutual caring any further, among those that dothere is considerable variability as to how we should understand thekind of caring involved in friendship. Nonetheless, there iswidespread agreement that caring about someone for his sake involvesboth sympathy and action on the friend’s behalf. That is,friends must be moved by what happens to their friends to feel theappropriate emotions: joy in their friends’ successes,frustration and disappointment in their friends’ failures (asopposed to disappointment in the friends themselves), etc. Moreover,in part as an expression of their caring for each other, friends mustnormally be disposed to promote the other’s good for her sakeand not out of any ulterior motive. (However, see Velleman 1999 for adissenting view.)

To care about something is generally to find it worthwhile or valuablein some way; caring about one’s friend is no exception. Acentral difference among the various accounts of mutual caring is theway in which these accounts understand the kind of evaluation implicittherein. Most accounts understand that evaluation to be a matter ofappraisal: we care about our friends at least in part because of thegood qualities of their characters that we discover them to have(Annas 1977; Sherman 1987; Whiting 1991); this is in line with theunderstanding of love as philia or eros given in thefirst paragraph of Section 1 above. Other accounts, however,understand caring as in part a matter of bestowing value on yourbeloved: in caring about a friend, we thereby project a kind ofintrinsic value onto him; this is in line with the understanding oflove as agape given above.

Friedman (1989, 6) argues for bestowal, saying that if we were to baseour friendship on positive appraisals of our friend’sexcellences, “to that extent our commitment to thatperson is subordinate to our commitment to the relevant [evaluative]standards and is not intrinsically a commitment to that person.”However, this is too quick, for to appeal to an appraisal of the goodqualities of your friend’s character in order to justify yourfriendship is not on its own to subordinate your friendship to thatappraisal. Rather, through the friendship, and through changes in yourfriend over time, you may come to change your evaluative outlook,thereby in effect subordinating your commitment to certain values toyour commitment to your friend. Of course, within friendship theinfluence need not go only one direction: friends influence eachother’s conceptions of value and how to live. Indeed, thatfriends have a reciprocal effect on each other is a part of theconcern for equality many find essential to friendship, and it iscentral to the discussion of intimacy in Section 1.2.

(For more on the notion of caring about another for her sake and thevariety of philosophical accounts of it, see the entry on love.)

1.2 Intimacy

The relationship of friendship differs from other interpersonalrelationships, even those characterized by mutual caring, such asrelationships among colleagues: friendships are, intuitively,“deeper,” more intimate relationships. Thequestion facing any philosophical account is how that characteristicintimacy of friendship is to be understood.

On this point, there is considerable variation in theliterature—so much that it raises the question whether differingaccounts aim at elucidating the same object. For it seems as thoughwhen the analysis of intimacy is relatively weak, the aim is toelucidate what might be called “acquaintance friendships”;as the analysis of intimacy gets stronger, the aim seems to tendtowards closer friendships and even to a kind of ideal of maximallyclose friendship. It might be asked whether one or another of thesetypes of friendship ought to take priority in the analysis, such that,for example, cases of close friendship can be understood to be anenhanced version of acquaintance friendship, or whether acquaintancefriendship should be understood as being deficient in various waysrelative to ideal friendship. Nonetheless, in what follows, views willbe presented roughly in order from weaker to stronger accounts ofintimacy.

To begin, Thomas (1987; 1989; 1993; 2013) claims that we shouldunderstand what is here called the intimacy of friendship in terms ofmutual self-disclosure: I tell my friends things about myself that Iwould not dream of telling others, and I expect them to make me privyto intimate details of their lives. The point of such mutualself-disclosure, Thomas argues, is to create the “bond oftrust” essential to friendship, for through such self-disclosurewe simultaneously make ourselves vulnerable to each other andacknowledge the goodwill the other has for us. Such a bond of trust iswhat institutes the kind of intimacy characteristic of friendship.(Similar ideas can be found in Annis 1987.)

Cocking & Kennett (1998) caricature this as “the secretsview,” arguing:

It is not the sharing of private information nor even of very personalinformation, as such, that contributes to the bonds of trust andintimacy between companion friends. At best it is the sharing of whatfriends care about that is relevant here. [518]

Their point is that the secrets view underestimates the kind of trustat issue in friendship, conceiving of it largely as a matter ofdiscretion. Given the way friendship essentially involves each caringabout the other’s good for the other’s sake and so actingon behalf of the other’s good, entering into and sustaining arelationship of friendship will normally involve considerabletrust in your friend’s goodwill towards you generally, and notjust concerning your secrets. Moreover, friendship will normallyinvolve trust in your friend’s judgment concerning what is inyour best interests, for when your friend sees you harming yourself,she ought, other things being equal, to intervene, and through thefriendship you can come to rely on her to do so. (See also Alfano,2016, who emphasizes not just trust but trustworthiness to makesimilar points.)

Such enhanced trust can lead to “shared interests or enthusiasmsor views … [or] a similar style of mind or way of thinkingwhich makes for a high degree of empathy” (Telfer 1970–71,227). Telfer finds such shared interests central to the “senseof a bond” friends have, an idea similar to the“solidarity”—the sharing of values and a sense ofwhat’s important—that White (2001) advocates as central tofriendship. For trusting my friend’s assessments of my good inthis way seemingly involves trusting not only that she understands whoI am and that I find certain things valuable and important inlife but also and centrally that she understands the value ofthese things that are so meaningful to me. That in turn seems to begrounded in the empathy we have for each other—the shared senseof what’s important. So Telfer and White, in appealing to suchshared sense of value, are offering a somewhat richer sense of thesort of intimacy essential to friendship than Thomas and Annis.

An important question to ask, however, is what precisely is meant bythe “sharing” of a sense of value. Once again there areweaker and stronger versions. On the weak side, a sense of value isshared in the sense that a coincidence of interests and values is anecessary condition of developing and sustaining a friendship; whenthat happy coincidence dissipates, so too does the friendship. It ispossible to read Annas’s summary of Aristotle’s view offriendship this way (1988, 1):

A friend, then, is one who (1) wishes and does good (or apparentlygood) things to a friend, for the friend’s sake, (2) wishes thefriend to exist and live, for his own sake, (3) spends time with hisfriend, (4) makes the same choices as his friend and (5) finds thesame things pleasant and painful as his friend.

(4) and (5) are the important claims for present purposes: making thesame choices as your friend, if done consistently, depends on having asimilar outlook on what reasons there are so to choose, and this pointis reinforced in (5) given Aristotle’s understanding of pleasureand pain as evaluative and so as revealing what is (apparently) goodand bad. The message might be that merely having coincidence inevaluative outlook is enough to satisfy (4) and (5).

Of course, Aristotle (and Annas) would reject this reading: friends donot merely have such similarities antecedent to their friendship as anecessary condition of friendship. Rather, friends can influence andshape each other’s evaluative outlook, so that the sharing of asense of value is reinforced through the dynamics of theirrelationship. One way to make sense of this is through theAristotelian idea that friends function as a kind of mirror of eachother: insofar as friendship rests on similarity of character, andinsofar as I can have only imperfect direct knowledge about my owncharacter, I can best come to know myself—both the strengths andweaknesses of my character—by knowing a friend who reflects myqualities of character. Minor differences between friends, as when myfriend on occasion makes a choice I would not have made, can lead meto reflect on whether this difference reveals a flaw in my owncharacter that might need to be fixed, thereby reinforcing thesimilarity of my and my friend’s evaluative outlooks. On thisreading of the mirroring view, my friend plays an entirely passiverole: just by being himself, he enables me to come to understand myown character better (cf. Badhwar 2003).^[3]

Cocking & Kennett (1998) argue against such a mirroring view intwo ways. First, they claim that this view places too much emphasis onsimilarity as motivating and sustaining the friendship. Friends can bevery different from each other, and although within a friendship thereis a tendency for the friends to become more and more alike, thisshould be understood as an effect of friendship, notsomething constitutive of it. Second, they argue that the appeal tothe friend’s role as a mirror to explain the increasingsimilarity involves assigning too much passivity to the friend. Ourfriends, they argue, play a more active role in shaping us, and themirroring view fails to acknowledge this. (Cocking &Kennett’s views will be discussed further below. Lynch (2005)provides further criticisms of the mirroring view, arguing that thedifferences between friends can be central and important to theirfriendship.)

In an interesting twist on standard accounts of the sense in which(according to Aristotle, at least) a friend is a mirror, Millgram(1987) claims that in mirroring my friend I am causally responsiblefor my friend coming to have and sustain the virtues he has.Consequently, I am in a sense my friend’s“procreator,” and I therefore find myself actualized in myfriend. For this reason, Millgram claims, I come to love my friend inthe same way I love myself, and this explains (a) Aristotle’sotherwise puzzling claim that a friend is “another self,”(b) why it is that friends are not fungible, given my role asprocreator only of this particular person, and (c) why friendships ofpleasure and utility, which do not involve such procreation, fail tobe genuine friendships. (For more on the problem of fungibility, see Section 2.1.) However, in offering this account, Millgram may seem to confound mybeing causally necessary for my friend’s virtues withmy being responsible for those virtues—to confound mypassive role as a mirror with that of a “procreator,” aseemingly active role. Millgram’s understanding of mirroringdoes not, therefore, escape Cocking & Kennett’s criticism ofmirroring views as assigning too much passivity to the friend asmirror.

Friedman (1989) offers another way to make sense of the influence myfriend has on my sense of value by appealing to the notion ofbestowal. According to Friedman, the intimacy of friendship takes theform of a commitment friends have to each other as unique persons, acommitment in which the

friend’s successes become occasions for joy; her judgments mayprovoke reflection or even deference; her behavior may encourageemulation; and the causes which she champions may inspiredevotion…. One’s behavior toward the friend takes itsappropriateness, at least in part, from her goals andaspirations, her needs, her character—all ofwhich one feels prima facie invited to acknowledge asworthwhile just because they are hers. [4]

As noted in the 3rd paragraph of Section 1.1, Friedman thinks my commitment to my friend cannot be grounded inappraisals of her, and so my acknowledgment of the worth of her goals,etc., is a matter of my bestowing value on these: her ends becomevaluable to me, and so suitable for motivating my actions, “justbecause they are hers.” That is, such a commitment involvestaking my friend seriously, where this means something like findingher values, interests, reasons, etc. provide me with protanto reasons for me to value and think similarly.^[4] In this way, the dynamics of the friendship relation involves friendsmutually influencing each other’s sense of value, which therebycomes to be shared in a way that underwrites significant intimacy.

In part, Friedman’s point is that sharing an evaluativeperspective in the way that constitutes the intimacy of friendshipinvolves coming to adopt her values as parts of my own sense of value.Whiting (1991) argues that such an approach fails properly to makesense of the idea that I love my friend for her sake. For torequire that my friend’s values be my own is to blur thedistinction between valuing these things for her sake and valuing themfor my own. Moreover, Whiting (1986) argues, to understand my concernfor her for her sake in terms of my concern for things for my sakeraises the question of how to understand this latter concern. However,Whiting thinks the latter is at least as unclear as the former, as isrevealed when we think about the long-term and my connection andresponsibility to my “future selves.” The solution, sheclaims, is to understand the value of my ends (or yours) to beindependent of the fact that they are mine (or yours): these ends areintrinsically valuable, and that’s why I should care about them,no matter whose ends they are. Consequently, the reason I have to carefor myself, including my future selves, for my sake is thesame as the reason I have to care about my friend for hersake: because I recognize the intrinsic value of the (excellent)character she or I have (Whiting 1991, 10; for a similar view,see Keller 2000). Whiting therefore advocates what she calls an“impersonal” conception of friendship: There arepotentially many people exhibiting (what I would consider to be)excellences of character, and these are my impersonal friendsinsofar as they are all “equally worthy of my concern”;what explains but does not justify my “differential andapparently personal concern for only some … [is]largely a function of historical and psychological accident”(1991, 23).

It should be clear that Whiting does not merely claim that friendsshare values only in that these values happen to coincide; if thatwere the case, her conception of friendship would be vulnerable to thecharge that the friends really are not concerned for each other butmerely for the intrinsically valuable properties that eachexemplifies. Rather, Whiting thinks that part of what makes my concernfor my friend be for her sake is my being committed to remind her ofwhat’s really valuable in life and to foster within her acommitment to these values so as to prevent her from going astray.Such a commitment on my part is clearly a commitment to her, and arelationship characterized by such a commitment on both sides is onethat consistently and non-accidentally reinforces the sharing of thesevalues.

Brink (1999) criticizes Whiting’s account of friendship as tooimpersonal because it fails to understand the relationship offriendship itself to be intrinsically valuable. (For similarcriticisms, see Jeske 1997.) In part, the complaint is the same asthat which Friedman (1989) offered against any conception offriendship that bases that friendship on appraisals of thefriend’s properties (cf. the 3rd paragraph of Section 1.1 above): such a conception of friendship subordinates our concern forthe friend to our concern for the values, thereby neglecting whatmakes friendship a distinctively personal relationship. GivenWhiting’s understanding of the sense in which friends sharevalues in terms of their appeal to the intrinsic and impersonal worthof those values, it seems that she cannot make much of the rebuttal toFriedman offered above: that I can subordinate my concern for certainvalues to my concern for my friend, thereby changing my values in partout of concern for my friend. Nonetheless, Brink’s criticismgoes deeper:

Unless our account of love and friendship attaches intrinsicsignificance to the historical relationship between friends, it seemsunable to justify concern for the friend qua friend. [1999,270]

It is only in terms of the significance of the historicalrelationship, Brink argues, that we can make sense of the reasons forfriendship and for the concern and activity friendship demands asbeing agent-relative (and so in this way personal) rather thanagent-neutral (or impersonal, as for Whiting).^[5]

Cocking & Kennett (1998), in what might be a development of Rorty(1986/1993), offer an account of close friendship in part in terms ofthe friends playing a more active role in transforming eachother’s evaluative outlook: in friendship, they claim, we are“receptive” to having our friends “direct” and“interpret” us and thereby change our interests. To bedirected by your friend is to allow her interests, values,etc. to shape your own; thus, your friend may suggest that you go tothe opera together, and you may agree to go, even though you have noantecedent interest in the opera. Through his interest, enthusiasm,and suggestion (“Didn’t you just love the concluding duetof Act III?”), you may be moved directly by him to acquire aninterest in opera only because he’s your friend. To beinterpreted by your friend is to allow your understanding ofyourself, in particular of your strengths and weaknesses, to be shapedby your friend’s interpretations of you. Thus, your friend mayadmire your tenacity (a trait you did not realize you had), or beamused by your excessive concern for fairness, and you may come as aresult to develop a new understanding of yourself, and potentiallychange yourself, in direct response to his interpretation of you.Hence, Cocking & Kennett claim, “the self my friend sees is,at least in part, a product of the friendship” (505). (Nehamas2010 offers a similar account of the importance of the interpretationof one’s friends in determining who one is, though Nehamasemphasizes in a way that Cocking & Kennett do not that yourinterpretation of your friend can reveal possible valuable ways to bethat you yourself “could never have even imaginedbeforehand” (287).)

It is a bit unclear what your role is in being thus directed andinterpreted by your friend. Is it a matter of merely passivelyaccepting the direction and interpretation? This is suggested byCocking & Kennett’s understanding of friendship in terms ofa receptivity to being drawn by your friend and by theirapparent understanding of this receptivity in dispositional terms. Yetthis would seem to be a matter of ceding your autonomy to your friend,and that is surely not what they intend. Rather, it seems, we are atleast selective in the ways in which we allow our friends to directand interpret us, and we can resist other directions andinterpretations. However, this raises the question of why we allow anysuch direction and interpretation. One answer would be because werecognize the independent value of the interests of our friends, orthat we recognize the truth of their interpretations of us. But thiswould not explain the role of friendship in such direction andinterpretation, for we might just as easily accept such direction andinterpretation from a mentor or possibly even a stranger. Thisshortcoming might push us to understanding our receptivity todirection and interpretation not in dispositional terms but rather innormative terms: other things being equal, we ought to acceptdirection and interpretation from our friends precisely because theyare our friends. And this might push us to a still stronger conceptionof intimacy, of the sharing of values, in terms of which we canunderstand why friendship grounds these norms.

Such a stronger conception of intimacy is provided in Sherman’sinterpretation of Aristotle’s account (Sherman 1987). Accordingto Sherman’s Aristotle, an important component of friendship isthat friends identify with each other in the sense that they exhibit a“singleness of mind.” This includes, first, a kind ofsympathy, whereby I feel on my friend’s behalf the same emotionshe does. Unlike similar accounts, Sherman explicitly includes prideand shame as emotions I sympathetically feel on behalf of myfriend—a significant addition because of the role pride andshame have in constituting our sense of ourselves and even ouridentities (Taylor 1985). In part for this reason, Sherman claims that“through the sense of belonging and attachment” we attainbecause of such sympathetic pride and shame, “we identify withand share their [our friends’] good” (600).^[6]

Second, and more important, Sherman’s Aristotle understands thesingleness of mind that friends have in terms of shared processes ofdeliberation. Thus, as she summarizes a passage in Aristotle(1170b11–12):

character friends live together, not in the way animals do, by sharingthe same pasture, but “by sharing in argument andthought.” [598]

The point is that the friends “share” a conception ofvalues not merely in that there is significant overlap between thevalues of the one friend and those of the other, and not merely inthat this overlap is maintained through the influence that the friendshave on each other. Rather, the values are shared in the sense thatthey are most fundamentally their values, at which theyjointly arrive by deliberating together.

[Friends have] the project of a shared conception ofeudaimonia [i.e., of how best to live]. Through mutualdecisions about specific practical matters, friends begin to expressthat shared commitment…. Any happiness or disappointment thatfollows from these actions belongs to both persons, for the decisionto so act was joint and the responsibility is thus shared. [598]

The intent of this account, in which what gets shared is, we mightsay, an identity that the friends have in common, is not to bedescriptively accurate of particular friendships; it is rather toprovide a kind of ideal that actual friendships at best onlyapproximate. Such a strong notion of sharing is reminiscent of theunion view of (primarily erotic) love, according to which loveconsists in the formation of some significant kind of union, a“we” (see the entry on love, the section on love as union). Like the union view of love, this account of friendship raisesworries about autonomy. Thus, it seems as though Sherman’sAristotle does away with any clear distinction between the interestsand even agency of the two friends, thereby undermining the kind ofindependence and freedom of self-development that characterizesautonomy. If autonomy is a part of the individual’s good, thenSherman’s Aristotle might be forced to conclude that friendshipis to this extent bad; the conclusion might be, therefore, that weought to reject this strong conception of the intimacy offriendship.

It is unclear from Sherman’s interpretation of Aristotle whetherthere are principled reasons to limit the extent to which we share ouridentities with our friends; perhaps an appeal to something likeFriedman’s federation model (1998) can help resolve thesedifficulties. Friedman’s idea is that we should understandromantic love (but the idea could also be applied to friendship) notin terms of the union of the two individuals, in which theiridentities get subsumed by that union, but rather in terms of thefederation of the individuals—the creation of a third entitythat presupposes some degree of independence of the individuals thatmake it up. Even so, much would need to be done to spell out this viewsatisfactorily. (For more on Friedman’s account, see the entryon love, the section on love as union.)

In each of these accounts of the kind of intimacy and commitment thatare characteristic of friendship, we might ask about the conditionsunder which friendship can properly be dissolved. Thus, insofar asfriendship involves some such commitment, we cannot just give up onour friends for no reason at all; nor, it seems, should our commitmentbe unconditional, binding on us come what may. Understanding moreclearly when it is proper to break off a friendship, or allow it tolapse, may well shed light on the kind of commitment and intimacy thatis characteristic of friendship; nonetheless, this issue gets scantattention in the literature.

1.3 Shared Activity

A final common thread in philosophical accounts of friendship isshared activity. The background intuition is this: never to shareactivity with someone and in this way to interact with him is not tohave the kind of relationship with him that could be calledfriendship, even if you each care for the other for his sake. Rather,friends engage in joint pursuits, in part motivated by thefriendship itself. These joint pursuits can include not only suchthings as making something together, playing together, and talkingtogether, but also pursuits that essentially involve sharedexperiences, such as going to the opera together. Yet for thesepursuits to be properly shared in the relevant sense of“share,” they cannot involve activities motivated simplyby self interest: by, for example, the thought that I’ll helpyou build your fence today if you later help me paint my house.Rather, the activity must be pursued in part for the purpose of doingit together with my friend, and this is the point of saying that theshared activity must be motivated, at least in part, by the friendshipitself.

This raises the following questions: in what sense can such activitybe said to be “shared,” and what is it about friendshipthat makes shared activity so central to it? The common answer to thissecond question (which helps pin down an answer to the first) is thatshared activity is important because friends normally have sharedinterests as a part of the intimacy that is characteristic offriendship as such, and the “shared” pursuit of suchshared interests is therefore an important part of friendship.Consequently, the account of shared activity within a particulartheory ought to depend at least in part on that theory’sunderstanding of the kind of intimacy relevant to friendship. And thisgenerally seems to be the case: for example, Thomas (1987, 1989, 1993,2013), who argues for a weak conception of intimacy in terms of mutualself-disclosure, has little place for shared activity in his accountof friendship, whereas Sherman (1987), who argues for a strongconception of intimacy in terms of shared values, deliberation, andthought, provides within friendship a central place not just toisolated shared activities but, more significantly, to a sharedlife.

Nonetheless, within the literature on friendship the notion of sharedor joint activity is taken for granted: not much thought has beengiven to articulating clearly the sense in which friends share theiractivity. This is surprising and unfortunate, especially insofar asthe understanding of the sense in which such activities are“shared” is closely related to the understanding ofintimacy that is so central to any account of friendship; indeed, aclear account of the sort of shared activity characteristic offriendship may in turn shed light on the sort of intimacy it involves.This means in part that a particular theory of friendship might becriticized in terms of the way in which its account of the intimacy offriendship yields a poor account of the sense in which activity isshared. For example, one might think that we must distinguish betweenactivity we engage in together in part out of my concern for someone Ilove, and activity we share insofar as we engage in it atleast partly for the sake of sharing it; only the latter, it might beargued, is the sort of shared activity constitutive of therelationship of friendship as opposed to that constitutivemerely of my concern for him (see Nozick 1989). Consequently,according to this line of thought, any account of the intimacy offriendship that fails to understand the sharing of interests in such away as to make sense of this distinction ought to be rejected.

Helm (2008) develops an account of shared activity and shared valuingat least partly with an eye to understanding friendship. He arguesthat the sense in which friends share activity is not the sort ofshared intention and plural subjecthood discussed in literature onshared intention within social philosophy (on which, see Tuomela 1995,2007; Gilbert 1996, 2000, 2006; Searle 1990; and Bratman 1999), forsuch sharing of intentions does not involve the requisite intimacy offriendship. Rather, the intimacy of friendship should be understoodpartly in terms of the friends forming a “plural agent”: agroup of people who have joint cares—a joint evaluativeperspective—which he analyzes primarily in terms of a pattern ofinterpersonally connected emotions, desires, judgments, and (shared)actions. Friendships emerge, Helm claims, when the friends form aplural agent that cares positively about their relationship, and thevariety of kinds of friendships there can be, including friendships ofpleasure, utility, and virtue, are to be understood in terms of theparticular way in which they jointly understand their relationship tobe something they care about—as tennis buddies or as lifepartners, for example.

2. Value and Justification of Friendship

Friendship clearly plays an important role in our lives; to a largeextent, the various accounts of friendship aim at identifying andclarifying that role. In this context, it is important to understandnot only why friendship can be valuable, but also what justifiesparticular friendships.

2.1 Individual Value

One way to construe the question of the value of friendship is interms of the individual considering whether to be (or continue tobe) engaged in a friendship: why should I invest considerable time,energy, and resources in a friend rather than in myself? What makesfriendship worthwhile for me, and so how ought I to evaluate whetherparticular friendships I have are good friendships or not?

One sort of answer is that friendship is instrumentally good. Thus,Telfer (1970–71) claims that friendship is “lifeenhancing” in that it makes us “feel morealive”—it enhances our activities by intensifying ourabsorption in them and hence the pleasure we get out of them(239–40). Moreover, she claims, friendship is pleasant in itselfas well as useful to the friends. Annis (1987) adds that it helpspromote self-esteem, which is good both instrumentally and for its ownsake.

Yet friendship is not merely instrumentally valuable, as is hinted atby Annis’ claim that “our lives would be significantlyless full given the universal demise of friendship” (1987, 351).Cooper (1977b), interpreting Aristotle, provides two arguments for whythis might be so. First, Cooper’s Aristotle claims, living wellrequires that one know the goodness of one’s own life; however,given the perpetual possibility of self-deception, one is ableaccurately to evaluate one’s own life only through friendship,in which one’s friend acts as a kind of mirror of one’sself. Hence, a flourishing life is possible only through the epistemicaccess friendship provides. Second, Cooper’s Aristotleclaims that the sort of shared activity characteristic of friendshipis essential to one’s being able to engage in the sort ofactivities characteristic of living well “continuously”and “with pleasure and interest” (310). Such activitiesinclude moral and intellectual activities, activities in which it isoften difficult to sustain interest without being tempted to actotherwise. Friendship, and the shared values and shared activities itessentially involves, is needed to reinforce our intellectual andpractical understanding of such activities as worthwhile in spite oftheir difficulty and the ever present possibility that our interest inpursuing them will flag. Consequently, the shared activity offriendship is partly constitutive of human flourishing.

So far these are attempts to understand the value of friendship to theindividual in terms of the way friendship contributes, instrumentallyor constitutively, to something else that is valuable to theindividual. Yet one might also think that friendship is valuable forits own sake. Schoeman (1985), partly in response to the individualismof other accounts of the value of friendship, claims that infriendship the friends “become a unique community with a beingand value of its own” (280): the intimacy of friendship resultsin “a way of being and acting in virtue of being united withanother” (281). Although this claim has intuitive appeal,Schoeman does not clearly explain what the value of that “uniquecommunity” is or why it should have that value. Indeed, we oughtto expect that fleshing out this claim would involve a substantiveproposal concerning the nature of that community and how it can have aseparate (federated?—cf. Friedman 1998) existence and value.Once again, the literature on shared intention and plural subjecthoodis relevant here; see, for example, Gilbert 1989, 1996, 2000; Tuomela1984, 1995; Searle 1990; and Bratman 1999.

A question closely related to this question of the value of friendshipis that of what justifies my being friends with this person ratherthan with someone else or no one at all. To a certain extent, answersto the question of the value of friendship might seem to provideanswers 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 forme, then it might seem that I can justify particular friendships inlight of the extent to which they contribute to my flourishing.Nonetheless, this seems unacceptable because it suggests—what issurely false—that friends are fungible. (To be fungible is to be replaceable by a relevantly similarobject without any loss of value.) That is, if my friend has certainproperties (including, perhaps, relational properties) in virtue ofwhich I am justified in having her as my friend (because it is invirtue of those properties that she contributes to my flourishing),then on this view I would be equally justified in being friends withanyone else having relevantly similar properties, and so I would haveno reason not to replace my current friend with someone else of thissort. Indeed, it might even be that I ought to “trade up”when someone other than my current friend exhibits the relevantfriendship-justifying properties to a greater degree than my frienddoes. This is surely objectionable as an understanding offriendship.

In solving this problem of fungibility, philosophers have typicallyfocused on features of the historical relationship of friendship (cf.Brink 1999, quoted above). One approach might be found inSherman’s 1987 union account of friendship discussed above (thistype of view might be suggested by the account of the value offriendship in Schoeman 1985). If my friend and I form a kind of unionin virtue of our having a shared conception of how to live that isforged and maintained through a particular history of interaction andsharing of our lives, and if my sense of my values and identitytherefore depends on these being most fundamentally our values andidentity, then it is simply not possible to substitute another personfor my friend without loss. For this other person could not possiblyshare the relevant properties of my friend, namely herhistorical relationship with me. However, the price of this solutionto the problem of fungibility, as it arises both for friendship andfor love, is the worry about autonomy raised towards the end ofSection 1.2 above.

An alternative solution is to understand these historical, relationalproperties of my friend to be more directly relevant to thejustification of our friendship. Thus, Whiting (1991) distinguishesthe reasons we have for initiating a friendship (which are, shethinks, impersonal in a way that allows for fungibility) from thereasons 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 canprovide any additional justification for friendship beyond thatprovided by thinking about the value of friendship in general, whichdoes not solve the fungibility problem. For the mere fact that this ismy friend does not seem to justify my continued friendship:when we imagine that my friend is going through a rough time so thathe loses those virtues justifying my initial friendship with him, whyshouldn’t I just dump him and strike up a new friendship withsomeone who has those virtues? It is not clear how the appeal tohistorical properties of my friend or our friendship can provide ananswer.

In part the trouble here arises from tacit preconceptions concerningthe nature of justification. If we attempt to justify continuedfriendship in terms of the friend’s being this particularperson, with a particular historical relationship to me, then it seemslike we are appealing to merely idiosyncratic and subjectiveproperties, which might explain but cannot justify that friendship.This seems to imply that justification in general requires the appealto the friend’s being a type of person, having general,objective properties that others might share; this leads to theproblem of fungibility. Solving the problem, it might therefore seem,requires somehow overcoming this preconception concerningjustification—a task which no one has attempted in theliterature on friendship.

(For further discussion of this problem of fungibility as it arises inthe context of love, as well as discussion of a related problemconcerning whether the object (rather than the grounds) of love is aparticular person or a type of person, see Section 6 of the entry on love.)

2.2 Social Value

Another way to construe the question of the value of friendship is inmore social terms: what is the good to society of having its membersengaged in relationships of friendship? Telfer (1970–71, 238)answers that friendship promotes the general good “by providinga degree and kind of consideration for others’ welfare whichcannot exist outside it.” Blum (1980) concurs, arguing thatfriendship is an important source of moral excellence preciselybecause it essentially involves acting for the sake of your friend, akind of action that can have considerable moral worth. (For similarclaims, see Annis 1987.)

Cocking & Kennett (2000) argue against this view that friendlyacts per se are morally good, claiming that “I might bea perfectly good friend. I might just not be a perfectly moralone” (287). They support this conclusion, within their accountof friendship as involving being directed and interpreted byone’s friend, by claiming that “I am just as likely to bedirected by your interest in gambling at the casino as by yourinterest in ballet” (286). However, Cocking & Kennett seemto be insufficiently sensitive to the idea, which they accept (cf.284), that friends care about promoting each other’s well-being.For if I am concerned with your well-being and find you to be about toembark on an immoral course of action, I ought not, contrary to whatCocking & Kennett suggest, blindly allow you to draw me intojoining you; rather, I ought to try to stop you or at least get you toquestion whether you are doing the right thing—as a matter of mydirecting and interpreting you. In this context, Koltonski (2016)argues that one ought to ensure that one’s friend is properlyengaging in moral deliberation, but then defer to one’sfriend’s judgment about what to do, even when one disagrees withthe moral conclusion, for such deference is a matter of properlyrespecting the friend’s moral agency.

These answers to the social value of friendship seem to apply equallywell to love: insofar as love essentially involves both a concern foryour beloved for his sake and, consequently, action on his behalf forhis sake, love will exhibit the same social value. Friedman (1989),however, argues that friendship itself is socially valuable in a waythat love is not. Understanding the intimacy of friendship in terms ofthe sharing of values, Friedman notes that friendship can involve themutual support of, in particular, unconventional values, which can bean important stimulus to moral progress within a community. For“our commitments to particular persons are, in practice,necessary counterbalances to our commitments to abstractmoral guidelines, and may, at times, take precedence over them”(6). Consequently, the institution of friendship is valuable not justto the individuals but also to the community as a whole.

3. Friendship and Moral Theory

A growing body of research since the mid-1970s questions therelationship between the phenomenon of friendship and particular moraltheories. Thus, many (Stocker 1976, 1981; Blum 1980, 1993; Wilcox1987; Friedman 1989, 1993; Badhwar 1991; Cocking & Oakley 1995)have criticized consequentialist and deontological moral theories onthe grounds that they are somehow incompatible with friendship and thekind of reasons and motives that friendship provides. Often, theappeal to friendship is intended to bypass traditional disputes amongmajor types of moral theories (consequentialism, deontology, andvirtue ethics), and so the “friendship critique” may seemespecially important and interesting.^[7]

At the root of these questions concerning the relationship betweenfriendship and morality is the idea that friendship involvesspecial duties: duties for specific people that arise out ofthe relationship of friendship. Thus, it seems that we haveobligations to aid and support our friends that go well beyond thosewe have to help strangers because they are our friends, much like weparents have special duties to aid and support our children becausethey are our children. Indeed, Annis (1987) suggests, such duties“are constitutive of the relationship” of friendship (352;but see Bernstein (2007) for an argument that friendship does notinvolve any requirement of partiality). Given this, the questionarises as to what the relationship is between such special duties offriendship and other duties, in particular moral duties: can ourobligations to our friends sometimes trump our moral duties, or mustwe always subordinate our personal relationships to morality in orderto be properly impartial (as, it might be thought, moralitydemands)?

One concern in this neighborhood, articulated by Stocker (1976), isthat the phenomenon of friendship reveals that consequentialist anddeontological moral theories, by offering accounts of what it is rightto do irrespective of the motives we have, promote a kind of“moral schizophrenia”: a split between our moralreasons on the one hand and our motives on the other. Such moralschizophrenia, Stocker argues, prevents us in general from harmonizingour moral reasons and our motives, and it does so in a way thatdestroys the very possibility of our having and sustaining friendshipswith others. Given the manifest value of friendship in our lives, thisis clearly a serious problem with these moral theories.

What is it about friendship that generates these problems? One concernarises out of the teleological conception of action, implicitin consequentialism, according to which actions are understood interms of their ends or purposes. The trouble is, Stocker (1981)argues, the characteristic actions of friendship cannot be understoodin this way. To be a friend is at least sometimes to be motivated toact out of a concern for your friend as this individual (cf. Section 1.1). Although actions done out of friendship may have ends, whatcharacterizes these as “friendly acts,” as we might callthem, is not that they are done for any particular purpose:

If acting out of friendship is composed of purposes, dispositions tohave purposes, and the like, where these are purposes properlyso-called, and thus not essentially described by the phrase ‘outof friendship’, there seems … no guarantee that theperson cares about and likes, has friendship for, the‘friend’. [Stocker 1981, 756–57]

That is, actions done out of friendship are essentially actionsmotivated by a special sort of concern—a concern for thisparticular person—which is in part a matter of having settledhabits of response to the friend. This, Stocker concludes, is a kindof motivation for action that a teleological conception of actioncannot countenance, resulting in moral schizophrenia. (Jeske (2008)argues for a somewhat different conclusion: that in order to heal thisapparent split between impartial moral obligations and the partialobligations of friendship, we must abandon the distinction betweenmoral and nonmoral obligations.)

Stocker (1976) raises another, more general concern forconsequentialism and deontology arising out of a conception offriendship. Thus, although act consequentialists—thosewho justify each particular act by appeal to the goodness of theconsequences of that act, impersonally conceived (see the entry on consequentialism)—could justify friendly acts, they “cannot embody their reason intheir motive” (1976, 70), for to be motivated teleologically bythe concern to maximize goodness is not to be motivated out offriendship. Consequently, either act consequentialists must exhibitmoral schizophrenia, or, to avoid it, they must understandconsequentialist reasons for action to be our motives. However,because such consequentialist reasons are impersonal, taking thislatter tack would be to leave out the kind of reasons and motives thatare central to friendship, thereby undermining the very institution offriendship. (Cf. the discussion of impersonal justification offriendship and the problem of fungibility in Section 2.1.)

The same is true, Stocker argues, of rule consequentialism(the view that actions are right if they follow principles or rulesthat tend to result in the most good overall, impersonallyconceived—see the entry on rule-consequentialism) and on deontology (the view that actions are right just incase they are in accordance with certain rules or principles that arebinding on all moral agents). For even if rule consequentialism anddeontology can provide moral reasons for friendly actions in terms ofthe rule that one must benefit one’s friends, for example, suchreasons would be impersonal, giving no special consideration to ourparticular friends at all. If we are to avoid moral schizophrenia andembody this reason in our motives for action, we could not, then, actout of friendship—out of a concern for our friends for theirsakes. This means that any rule consequentialist or deontologist thatavoids moral schizophrenia can act so as to benefit her friends, butsuch actions would be merely as if friendly, not genuinelyfriendly, and she could not therefore have and sustain genuinefriendships. The only alternative is to split her moral reasons andher motives for friendly acts, thereby becoming schizophrenic. (Forsome discussion about whether such moral schizophrenia really is asbad as Stocker thinks, see Woodcock 2010. For concerns similar toStocker’s about impartial moral theories and motivation foraction arising out of a consideration of personal relationships likefriendship, see Williams 1981.)

Blum (1980) (portions of which are reprinted with slight modificationsin Blum 1993) and Friedman (1993), pick up on this contrast betweenthe impartiality of consequentialism and deontology and the inherentpartiality of friendship, and argue more directly for a rejection ofsuch moral theories. Consequentialists and deontologists must thinkthat relationships like friendship essentially involve a kind ofspecial concern for the friend and that such relationships thereforedemand that one’s actions exhibit a kind of partiality towardsthe friend. Consequently, they argue, these impartialist moraltheories must understand friendship to be inherently biased andtherefore not to be inherently moral. Rather, such moral theories canonly claim that to care for another “in a fully morallyappropriate manner” requires caring for him “simply as ahuman being, i.e., independent of any special connection or attachmentone has with him” (Blum 1993, 206). It is this claim that Blumand Friedman deny: although such universalist concern surely has aplace in moral theory, the value—indeed the moral value (cf. Section 2.2)—of friendship cannot properly be appreciated except as involving aconcern for another for his sake and as the particular person he is.Thus, they claim, insofar as consequentialism and deontology areunable to acknowledge the moral value of friendship, they cannot beadequate moral theories and ought to be rejected in favor of somealternative.

In reply, Railton (1984) distinguishes between subjective andobjective consequentialism, arguing that this “friendshipcritique” of Stocker and Blum (as well as Friedman) succeedsonly against subjective consequentialism. (See Mason (1998) forfurther elaborations of this argument, and see Sadler (2006) for analternative response.) Subjective consequentialism is theview that whenever we face a choice of actions, we should both morallyjustify a particular course of action and be motivated to actaccordingly directly by the relevant consequentialist principle(whether what that principle assesses are particular actions or rulesfor action). That is, in acting as one ought, one’s subjectivemotivations ought to come from those very moral reasons: because thisaction promotes the most good (or is in accordance with the rule thattends to promote the most good). Clearly, Stocker, Blum, and Friedmanare right to think that subjective consequentialism cannot properlyaccommodate the motives of friendship.

By contrast, Railton argues, objective consequentialismdenies that there is such a tight connection between the objectivejustification of a state of affairs in terms of its consequences andthe agent’s motives in acting: the moral justification of aparticular action is one thing (and to be undertaken inconsequentialist terms), but the motives for that action may beentirely separate. This means that the objective consequentialist canproperly acknowledge that sometimes the best states of affairs resultnot just from undertaking certain behaviors, but from undertaking themwith certain motives, including motives that are essentially personal.In particular, Railton argues, the world would be a better place ifeach of us had dispositions to act so as to benefit our friends out ofa concern for their good (and not the general good). So, onconsequentialist grounds each of us has moral reasons to inculcatesuch a disposition to friendliness, and when the moment arrives thatdisposition will be engaged, so that we are motivated to act out of aconcern for our friends rather than out of an impersonal, impartialconcern for the greater good.^[8] Moreover, there is no split between our moral reasons for action andour motives because such reasons may in some cases (such as that of afriendly act) require that in acting we act out of the appropriatesort of motive. So the friendship critique of Stocker, Blum, andFriedman fails.^[9]

Badhwar (1991) thinks even Railton’s more sophisticatedconsequentialism ultimately fails to accommodate the phenomenon offriendship, and that the moral schizophrenia remains. For, she argues,a sophisticated consequentialist must both value the friend for thefriend’s sake (in order to be a friend at all) and value thefriend only so long as doing so is consistent with promoting the mostgood overall (in order to be a consequentialist).

As a non-schizophrenic, un-selfdeceived consequentialist friend,however, she must put the two thoughts together. And the two thoughtsare logically incompatible. To be consistent she must think, “Asa consequentialist friend, I place special value on you so long, butonly so long, as valuing you thus promotes the overall good.”… Her motivational structure, in other words, is instrumental,and so logically incompatible with the logical structure required forend friendship. [493]

Badhwar is here alluding to a case of Railton’s in which,through no fault of yours or your friend’s, the right actionaccording to consequentialism is to sacrifice your friendship for thegreater good. In such a case, the sophisticated consequentialist mustin arriving at this conclusion “evaluate intrinsic goods [offriendship] and their virtues by reference to a standard external tothem”—i.e., by reference to the overall good as this isconceived from an impersonal point of view (496). However, Badhwarargues, the value of friendship is something we can appreciate onlyfrom a personal point of view, so that the moral rightness of friendlyactions must be assessed only by appeal to an essentially personalrelationship in which we act for the sake of our friends and not forthe sake of producing the most good in general and in indifference tothis particular personal relationship. Therefore, sophisticatedconsequentialism, because of its impersonal nature, blinds us to thevalue of particular friendships and the moral reasons they provide foracting out of friendship, all of which can be properly appreciatedonly from the personal point of view. In so doing, sophisticatedconsequentialism undermines what is distinctive about friendship assuch. The trouble once again is a split between consequentialistreasons and friendly motivations: a kind of moral schizophrenia.

At this point it might seem that the proper consequentialist reply tothis line of criticism is to refuse to accept the claim that a moraljustification of the value of friendship and friendly actions must bepersonal: the good of friendship and the good that friendly actionspromote, a consequentialist should say, are things we must be able tounderstand in impersonal terms or they would not enter into a properlymoral justification of the rightness of action. Becausesophisticated consequentialists agree that motivation out offriendship must be personal, they must reject the idea that theultimate moral reasons for acting in these cases are your motives,thereby rejecting the relatively weak motivational internalism that isimplicit in the friendship critique (for weak motivationalinternalism, see the entry on moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, and in particular the section on motivational internalism and the action-guiding character of moral judgements). Indeed, this seems to be Railton’s strategy in articulating hisobjective consequentialism: to be a good person is to act inthe morally right ways (justified by consequentialism) and so to have,on balance, motivations that tend to produce right action, even thoughin certain cases (including those of friendship) these motivationsneed not—indeed cannot—have the consequentialistjustification in view. (For further elaborations of this strategy indirect response to Badhwar 1991, see Conee 2001 and Card 2004; for adefense of Railton in opposition to Card’s elaboration ofsophisticated consequentialism, see Tedesco 2006.)

This means that the debate at issue in the friendship critique ofconsequentialism needs to be carried on in part at the level of adiscussion of the nature of motivation and the connection betweenmoral reasons and motives. Indeed, such a discussion has implicationsfor how we should construe the sort of mutual caring that is centralto friendship. For the sophisticated consequentialist would presumablytry to spell out that mutual caring in terms of friendly dispositions(motives divorced from consequentialist reasons), an attempt whichadvocates of the friendship critique would say involves insufficientattention to the particular person one cares about, insofar as thecaring would not be justified by who she is (motives informed bypersonal reasons).

The discussion of friendship and moral theories has so farconcentrated on the nature of practical reason. A similar debatefocuses on the nature of value. Scanlon (1998) uses friendship toargue against what he calls teleological conceptions of valuespresupposed by consequentialism. The teleological view understandsstates of affairs to have intrinsic value, and our recognition of suchvalue provides us with reasons to bring such states of affairs intoexistence and to sustain and promote them. Scanlon argues thatfriendship involves kinds of reasons—of loyalty, forexample—are not teleological in this way, and so the value offriendship does not fit into the teleological conception and so cannotbe properly recognized by consequentialism. In responding to thisargument, Hurka (2006) argues that this argument presupposesa conception of the value of friendship (as something we ought torespect as well as to promote) that is at odds with the teleologicalconception of value and so with teleological conceptions offriendship. Consequently, the debate must shift to the more generalquestion about the nature of value and cannot be carried out simply byattending to friendship.

These conclusions that we must turn to broader issues if we are tosettle the place friendship has in morality reveal that in one sensethe friendship critique has failed: it has not succeeded in making anend run around traditional debates between consequentialists,deontologists, and virtue theorists. Yet in a larger sense it hassucceeded: it has forced these moral theories to take personalrelationships seriously and consequently to refine and complicatetheir accounts in the process.

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• Rorty, A.O., 1986/1993, “The Historicity of PsychologicalAttitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It AlterationFinds”, in Badhwar (1993), 73–88.
• Sadler, B., 2006, “Love, Friendship, Morality”,Philosophical Forum, 37: 243–63.
• Scanlon, T.M., 1998, What We Owe to Each Other,Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Schoeman, F., 1985, “Aristotle on the Good ofFriendship”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 63:269–82.
• Searle, J.R., 1990, “Collective Intentions andActions”, in P.R. Cohen, M.E. Pollack, & J.L. Morgan (eds.),Intentions in Communication, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press,401–15.
• Sherman, N., 1987, “Aristotle on Friendship and the SharedLife”, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 47:589–613.
• Stocker, M., 1976, “The Schizophrenia of Modern EthicalTheories”, Journal of Philosophy, 73:453–66.
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• Stroud, S., 2006, “Epistemic Partiality inFriendship”, Ethics, 116: 498–524.
• Taylor, G., 1985, Pride, Shame, and Guilt: Emotions ofSelf-Assessment, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Tedesco, M., 2006, “Indirect Consequentialism,Suboptimality, and Friendship”, Pacific PhilosophicalQuarterly, 87: 567–77.
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Academic Tools

Other Internet Resources

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Translated by W. D. Ross.
• Moseley, A., ‘Philosophy of Love’, in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
• Doyle, M. E. and Smith, M. K., 2002, ‘Friendship: Theory and Experience’, in The Encyclopaedia of Informal Education, hosted byInformal Education and Lifelong Learning.

Related Entries

Aristotle, General Topics: ethics character, moral cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, moral consequentialism consequentialism: rule ethics: deontological ethics: virtue impartiality love obligations: special Plato: ethics Plato: friendship and eros Plato: rhetoric and poetry respect value: intrinsic vs. extrinsic

Copyright © 2017 by
Bennett Helm<bennett.helm@fandm.edu>

This article examines the nature of love and some of the ethical and political ramifications. For the philosopher, the question “what is love?” generates a host of issues: love is an abstract noun which means for some it is a word unattached to anything real or sensible, that is all; for others, it is a means by which our being—our self and its world—are irrevocably affected once we are ‘touched by love’; some have sought to analyze it, others have preferred to leave it in the realm of the ineffable.

Yet it is undeniable that love plays an enormous and unavoidable role in our several cultures; we find it discussed in song, film, and novels—humorously or seriously; it is a constant theme of maturing life and a vibrant theme for youth. Philosophically, the nature of love has, since the time of the Ancient Greeks, been a mainstay in philosophy, producing theories that range from the materialistic conception of love as purely a physical phenomenon—an animalistic or genetic urge that dictates our behavior—to theories of love as an intensely spiritual affair that in its highest permits us to touch divinity. Historically, in the Western tradition, Plato’s Symposium presents the initiating text, for it provides us with an enormously influential and attractive notion that love is characterized by a series of elevations, in which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual conception of love which also is surpassed by what may be construed by a theological vision of love that transcends sensual attraction and mutuality. Since then there have been detractors and supporters of Platonic love as well as a host of alternative theories—including that of Plato’s student, Aristotle and his more secular theory of true love reflecting what he described as ‘two bodies and one soul.’

The philosophical treatment of love transcends a variety of sub-disciplines including epistemology, metaphysics, religion, human nature, politics and ethics. Often statements or arguments concerning love, its nature and role in human life for example connect to one or all the central theories of philosophy, and is often compared with, or examined in the context of, the philosophies of sex and gender as well as body and intentionality. The task of a philosophy of love is to present the appropriate issues in a cogent manner, drawing on relevant theories of human nature, desire, ethics, and so on.

Table of Contents

1. The Nature of Love: Eros, Philia, and Agape

1. The Nature of Love: Eros, Philia, and Agape

The philosophical discussion regarding love logically begins with questions concerning its nature. This implies that love has a “nature,” a proposition that some may oppose arguing that love is conceptually irrational, in the sense that it cannot be described in rational or meaningful propositions. For such critics, who are presenting a metaphysical and epistemological argument, love may be an ejection of emotions that defy rational examination; on the other hand, some languages, such as Papuan, do not even admit the concept, which negates the possibility of a philosophical examination. In English, the word “love,” which is derived from Germanic forms of the Sanskrit lubh (desire), is broadly defined and hence imprecise, which generates first order problems of definition and meaning, which are resolved to some extent by the reference to the Greek terms, eros, philia, and agape.

a. Eros

The term eros (Greek erasthai) is used to refer to that part of love constituting a passionate, intense desire for something; it is often referred to as a sexual desire, hence the modern notion of “erotic” (Greek erotikos). In Plato‘s writings however, eros is held to be a common desire that seeks transcendental beauty-the particular beauty of an individual reminds us of true beauty that exists in the world of Forms or Ideas (Phaedrus 249E: “he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he partakes of it.” Trans. Jowett). The Platonic-Socratic position maintains that the love we generate for beauty on this earth can never be truly satisfied until we die; but in the meantime we should aspire beyond the particular stimulating image in front of us to the contemplation of beauty in itself.

The implication of the Platonic theory of eros is that ideal beauty, which is reflected in the particular images of beauty we find, becomes interchangeable across people and things, ideas, and art: to love is to love the Platonic form of beauty-not a particular individual, but the element they posses of true (Ideal) beauty. Reciprocity is not necessary to Plato’s view of love, for the desire is for the object (of Beauty), than for, say, the company of another and shared values and pursuits.

Many in the Platonic vein of philosophy hold that love is an intrinsically higher value than appetitive or physical desire. Physical desire, they note, is held in common with the animal kingdom. Hence, it is of a lower order of reaction and stimulus than a rationally induced love—that is, a love produced by rational discourse and exploration of ideas, which in turn defines the pursuit of Ideal beauty. Accordingly, the physical love of an object, an idea, or a person in itself is not a proper form of love, love being a reflection of that part of the object, idea, or person, that partakes in Ideal beauty.

b. Philia

In contrast to the desiring and passionate yearning of eros, philia entails a fondness and appreciation of the other. For the Greeks, the term philia incorporated not just friendship, but also loyalties to family and polis-one’s political community, job, or discipline. Philia for another may be motivated, as Aristotle explains in the Nicomachean Ethics, Book VIII, for the agent’s sake or for the other’s own sake. The motivational distinctions are derived from love for another because the friendship is wholly useful as in the case of business contacts, or because their character and values are pleasing (with the implication that if those attractive habits change, so too does the friendship), or for the other in who they are in themselves, regardless of one’s interests in the matter. The English concept of friendship roughly captures Aristotle’s notion of philia, as he writes: “things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done” (Rhetoric, II. 4, trans. Rhys Roberts).

Aristotle elaborates on the kinds of things we seek in proper friendship, suggesting that the proper basis for philia is objective: those who share our dispositions, who bear no grudges, who seek what we do, who are temperate, and just, who admire us appropriately as we admire them, and so on. Philia could not emanate from those who are quarrelsome, gossips, aggressive in manner and personality, who are unjust, and so on. The best characters, it follows, may produce the best kind of friendship and hence love: indeed, how to be a good character worthy of philia is the theme of the Nicomachaen Ethics. The most rational man is he who would be the happiest, and he, therefore, who is capable of the best form of friendship, which between two “who are good, and alike in virtue” is rare (NE, VIII.4 trans. Ross). We can surmise that love between such equals-Aristotle’s rational and happy men-would be perfect, with circles of diminishing quality for those who are morally removed from the best. He characterizes such love as “a sort of excess of feeling”. (NE, VIII.6)

Friendships of a lesser quality may also be based on the pleasure or utility that is derived from another’s company. A business friendship is based on utility–on mutual reciprocity of similar business interests; once the business is at an end, then the friendship dissolves. This is similar to those friendships based on the pleasure that is derived from the other’s company, which is not a pleasure enjoyed for whom the other person is in himself, but in the flow of pleasure from his actions or humour.

The first condition for the highest form of Aristotelian love is that a man loves himself. Without an egoistic basis, he cannot extend sympathy and affection to others (NE, IX.8). Such self-love is not hedonistic, or glorified, depending on the pursuit of immediate pleasures or the adulation of the crowd, it is instead a reflection of his pursuit of the noble and virtuous, which culminate in the pursuit of the reflective life. Friendship with others is required “since his purpose is to contemplate worthy actions… to live pleasantly… sharing in discussion and thought” as is appropriate for the virtuous man and his friend (NE, IX.9). The morally virtuous man deserves in turn the love of those below him; he is not obliged to give an equal love in return, which implies that the Aristotelian concept of love is elitist or perfectionist: “In all friendships implying inequality the love also should be proportional, i.e. the better should be more loved than he loves.” (NE, VIII, 7,). Reciprocity, although not necessarily equal, is a condition of Aristotelian love and friendship, although parental love can involve a one-sided fondness.

c. Agape

Agape refers to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God but is extended to include a brotherly love for all humanity. (The Hebrew ahev has a slightly wider semantic range than agape). Agape arguably draws on elements from both eros and philia in that it seeks a perfect kind of love that is at once a fondness, a transcending of the particular, and a passion without the necessity of reciprocity. The concept is expanded on in the Judaic-Christian tradition of loving God: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5) and loving “thy neighbour as thyself” (Leviticus 19:18). The love of God requires absolute devotion that is reminiscent of Plato’s love of Beauty (and Christian translators of Plato such as St. Augustine employed the connections), which involves an erotic passion, awe, and desire that transcends earthly cares and obstacles. Aquinas, on the other hand, picked up on the Aristotelian theories of friendship and love to proclaim God as the most rational being and hence the most deserving of one’s love, respect, and considerations.

The universalist command to “love thy neighbor as thyself” refers the subject to those surrounding him, whom he should love unilaterally if necessary. The command employs the logic of mutual reciprocity, and hints at an Aristotelian basis that the subject should love himself in some appropriate manner: for awkward results would ensue if he loved himself in a particularly inappropriate, perverted manner! Philosophers can debate the nature of “self-love” implied in this—from the Aristotelian notion that self-love is necessary for any kind of interpersonal love, to the condemnation of egoism and the impoverished examples that pride and self-glorification from which to base one’s love of another. St. Augustine relinquishes the debate—he claims that no command is needed for a man to love himself (De bono viduitatis, xxi). Analogous to the logic of “it is better to give than to receive”, the universalism of agape requires an initial invocation from someone: in a reversal of the Aristotelian position, the onus for the Christian is on the morally superior to extend love to others. Nonetheless, the command also entails an egalitarian love-hence the Christian code to “love thy enemies” (Matthew 5:44-45). Such love transcends any perfectionist or aristocratic notions that some are (or should be) more loveable than others. Agape finds echoes in the ethics of Kant and Kierkegaard, who assert the moral importance of giving impartial respect or love to another person qua human being in the abstract.

However, loving one’s neighbor impartially (James 2:9) invokes serious ethical concerns, especially if the neighbor ostensibly does not warrant love. Debate thus begins on what elements of a neighbor’s conduct should be included in agape, and which should be excluded. Early Christians asked whether the principle applied only to disciples of Christ or to all. The impartialists won the debate asserting that the neighbor’s humanity provides the primary condition of being loved; nonetheless his actions may require a second order of criticisms, for the logic of brotherly love implies that it is a moral improvement on brotherly hate. For metaphysical dualists, loving the soul rather than the neighbor’s body or deeds provides a useful escape clause-or in turn the justification for penalizing the other’s body for sin and moral transgressions, while releasing the proper object of love-the soul-from its secular torments. For Christian pacifists, “turning the other cheek” to aggression and violence implies a hope that the aggressor will eventually learn to comprehend the higher values of peace, forgiveness, and a love for humanity.

The universalism of agape runs counter to the partialism of Aristotle and poses a variety of ethical implications. Aquinas admits a partialism in love towards those to whom we are related while maintaining that we should be charitable to all, whereas others such as Kierkegaard insist on impartiality. Recently, Hugh LaFallotte (1991) has noted that to love those one is partial towards is not necessarily a negation of the impartiality principle, for impartialism could admit loving those closer to one as an impartial principle, and, employing Aristotle’s conception of self-love, iterates that loving others requires an intimacy that can only be gained from being partially intimate. Others would claim that the concept of universal love, of loving all equally, is not only impracticable, but logically empty-Aristotle, for example, argues: “One cannot be a friend to many people in the sense of having friendship of the perfect type with them, just as one cannot be in love with many people at once (for love is a sort of excess of feeling, and it is the nature of such only to be felt towards one person)” (NE, VIII.6).

2. The Nature of Love: Further Conceptual Considerations

Presuming love has a nature, it should be, to some extent at least, describable within the concepts of language. But what is meant by an appropriate language of description may be as philosophically beguiling as love itself. Such considerations invoke the philosophy of language, of the relevance and appropriateness of meanings, but they also provide the analysis of “love” with its first principles. Does it exist and if so, is it knowable, comprehensible, and describable? Love may be knowable and comprehensible to others, as understood in the phrases, “I am in love”, “I love you”, but what “love” means in these sentences may not be analyzed further: that is, the concept “love” is irreducible-an axiomatic, or self-evident, state of affairs that warrants no further intellectual intrusion, an apodictic category perhaps, that a Kantian may recognize.

The epistemology of love asks how we may know love, how we may understand it, whether it is possible or plausible to make statements about others or ourselves being in love (which touches on the philosophical issue of private knowledge versus public behavior). Again, the epistemology of love is intimately connected to the philosophy of language and theories of the emotions. If love is purely an emotional condition, it is plausible to argue that it remains a private phenomenon incapable of being accessed by others, except through an expression of language, and language may be a poor indicator of an emotional state both for the listener and the subject. Emotivists would hold that a statement such as “I am in love” is irreducible to other statements because it is a nonpropositional utterance, hence its veracity is beyond examination. Phenomenologists may similarly present love as a non-cognitive phenomenon. Scheler, for example, toys with Plato’s Ideal love, which is cognitive, claiming: “love itself… brings about the continuous emergence of ever-higher value in the object–just as if it were streaming out from the object of its own accord, without any exertion (even of wishing) on the part of the lover” (1954, p. 57). The lover is passive before the beloved.

The claim that “love” cannot be examined is different from that claiming “love” should not be subject to examination-that it should be put or left beyond the mind’s reach, out of a dutiful respect for its mysteriousness, its awesome, divine, or romantic nature. But if it is agreed that there is such a thing as “love” conceptually speaking, when people present statements concerning love, or admonitions such as “she should show more love,” then a philosophical examination seems appropriate: is it synonymous with certain patterns of behavior, of inflections in the voice or manner, or by the apparent pursuit and protection of a particular value (“Look at how he dotes upon his flowers-he must love them”)?

If love does possesses “a nature” which is identifiable by some means-a personal expression, a discernible pattern of behavior, or other activity, it can still be asked whether that nature can be properly understood by humanity. Love may have a nature, yet we may not possess the proper intellectual capacity to understand it-accordingly, we may gain glimpses perhaps of its essence-as Socrates argues in The Symposium, but its true nature being forever beyond humanity’s intellectual grasp. Accordingly, love may be partially described, or hinted at, in a dialectic or analytical exposition of the concept but never understood in itself. Love may therefore become an epiphenomenal entity, generated by human action in loving, but never grasped by the mind or language. Love may be so described as a Platonic Form, belonging to the higher realm of transcendental concepts that mortals can barely conceive of in their purity, catching only glimpses of the Forms’ conceptual shadows that logic and reason unveil or disclose.

Another view, again derived from Platonic philosophy, may permit love to be understood by certain people and not others. This invokes a hierarchical epistemology, that only the initiated, the experienced, the philosophical, or the poetical or musical, may gain insights into its nature. On one level this admits that only the experienced can know its nature, which is putatively true of any experience, but it also may imply a social division of understanding-that only philosopher kings may know true love. On the first implication, those who do not feel or experience love are incapable (unless initiated through rite, dialectical philosophy, artistic processes, and so on) of comprehending its nature, whereas the second implication suggests (though this is not a logically necessary inference) that the non-initiated, or those incapable of understanding, feel only physical desire and not “love.” Accordingly, “love” belongs either to the higher faculties of all, understanding of which requires being educated in some manner or form, or it belongs to the higher echelons of society-to a priestly, philosophical, or artistic, poetic class. The uninitiated, the incapable, or the young and inexperienced-those who are not romantic troubadours-are doomed only to feel physical desire. This separating of love from physical desire has further implications concerning the nature of romantic love.

3. The Nature of Love: Romantic Love

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Romantic love is deemed to be of a higher metaphysical and ethical status than sexual or physical attractiveness alone. The idea of romantic love initially stems from the Platonic tradition that love is a desire for beauty-a value that transcends the particularities of the physical body. For Plato, the love of beauty culminates in the love of philosophy, the subject that pursues the highest capacity of thinking. The romantic love of knights and damsels emerged in the early medieval ages (11^th Century France, fine amour) a philosophical echo of both Platonic and Aristotelian love and literally a derivative of the Roman poet, Ovid and his Ars Amatoria. Romantic love theoretically was not to be consummated, for such love was transcendentally motivated by a deep respect for the lady; however, it was to be actively pursued in chivalric deeds rather than contemplated-which is in contrast to Ovid’s persistent sensual pursuit of conquests!

Modern romantic love returns to Aristotle’s version of the special love two people find in each other’s virtues-one soul and two bodies, as he poetically puts it. It is deemed to be of a higher status, ethically, aesthetically, and even metaphysically than the love that behaviorists or physicalists describe.

4. The Nature of Love: Physical, Emotional, Spiritual

Some may hold that love is physical, i.e., that love is nothing but a physical response to another whom the agent feels physically attracted to. Accordingly, the action of loving encompasses a broad range of behavior including caring, listening, attending to, preferring to others, and so on. (This would be proposed by behaviorists). Others (physicalists, geneticists) reduce all examinations of love to the physical motivation of the sexual impulse-the simple sexual instinct that is shared with all complex living entities, which may, in humans, be directed consciously, sub-consciously or pre-rationally toward a potential mate or object of sexual gratification.

Physical determinists, those who believe the world to entirely physical and that every event has a prior (physical cause), consider love to be an extension of the chemical-biological constituents of the human creature and be explicable according to such processes. In this vein, geneticists may invoke the theory that the genes (an individual’s DNA) form the determining criteria in any sexual or putative romantic choice, especially in choosing a mate. However, a problem for those who claim that love is reducible to the physical attractiveness of a potential mate, or to the blood ties of family and kin which forge bonds of filial love, is that it does not capture the affections between those who cannot or wish not to reproduce-that is, physicalism or determinism ignores the possibility of romantic, ideational love—it may explain eros, but not philia or agape.

Behaviorism, which stems from the theory of the mind and asserts a rejection of Cartesian dualism between mind and body, entails that love is a series of actions and preferences which is thereby observable to oneself and others. The behaviorist theory that love is observable (according to the recognizable behavioral constraints corresponding to acts of love) suggests also that it is theoretically quantifiable: that A acts in a certain way (actions X,Y,Z) around B, more so than he does around C, suggests that he “loves” B more than C. The problem with the behaviorist vision of love is that it is susceptible to the criticism that a person’s actions need not express their inner state or emotions—A may be a very good actor. Radical behaviorists, such as B. F. Skinner, claim that observable and unobservable behavior such as mental states can be examined from the behaviorist framework, in terms of the laws of conditioning. On this view, that one falls in love may go unrecognised by the casual observer, but the act of being in love can be examined by what events or conditions led to the agent’s believing she was in love: this may include the theory that being in love is an overtly strong reaction to a set of highly positive conditions in the behavior or presence of another.

Expressionist love is similar to behaviorism in that love is considered an expression of a state of affairs towards a beloved, which may be communicated through language (words, poetry, music) or behavior (bringing flowers, giving up a kidney, diving into the proverbial burning building), but which is a reflection of an internal, emotional state, rather than an exhibition of physical responses to stimuli. Others in this vein may claim love to be a spiritual response, the recognition of a soul that completes one’s own soul, or complements or augments it. The spiritualist vision of love incorporates mystical as well as traditional romantic notions of love, but rejects the behaviorist or physicalist explanations.

Those who consider love to be an aesthetic response would hold that love is knowable through the emotional and conscious feeling it provokes yet which cannot perhaps be captured in rational or descriptive language: it is instead to be captured, as far as that is possible, by metaphor or by music.

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5. Love: Ethics and Politics

The ethical aspects in love involve the moral appropriateness of loving, and the forms it should or should not take. The subject area raises such questions as: is it ethically acceptable to love an object, or to love oneself? Is love to oneself or to another a duty? Should the ethically minded person aim to love all people equally? Is partial love morally acceptable or permissible (that is, not right, but excusable)? Should love only involve those with whom the agent can have a meaningful relationship? Should love aim to transcend sexual desire or physical appearances? May notions of romantic, sexual love apply to same sex couples? Some of the subject area naturally spills into the ethics of sex, which deals with the appropriateness of sexual activity, reproduction, hetero and homosexual activity, and so on.

In the area of political philosophy, love can be studied from a variety of perspectives. For example, some may see love as an instantiation of social dominance by one group (males) over another (females), in which the socially constructed language and etiquette of love is designed to empower men and disempower women. On this theory, love is a product of patriarchy, and acts analogously to Karl Marx’s view of religion (the opiate of the people) that love is the opiate of women. The implication is that were they to shrug off the language and notions of “love,” “being in love,” “loving someone,” and so on, they would be empowered. The theory is often attractive to feminists and Marxists, who view social relations (and the entire panoply of culture, language, politics, institutions) as reflecting deeper social structures that divide people into classes, sexes, and races.

This article has touched on some of the main elements of the philosophy of love. It reaches into many philosophical fields, notably theories of human nature, the self, and of the mind. The language of love, as it is found in other languages as well as in English, is similarly broad and deserves more attention.

6. References and Further Reading

• Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics.
• Aristotle Rhetoric. Rhys Roberts (trans.).
• Augustine De bono viduitatis.
• LaFallotte, Hugh (1991). “Personal Relations.” Peter Singer (ed.) A Companion to Ethics. Blackwell, pp. 327-32.
• Plato Phaedrus.
• Plato Symposium.
• Scheler, Max (1954). The Nature of Sympathy. Peter Heath (trans.). New Haven: Yale University Press.

Author Information

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Alexander Moseley
Email: alexandermoseley@icloud.com
United Kingdom