Socratic Salon: Friendship

​Does friendship make us better people?

In this month's Socratic Salon, we will discuss the moral value of friendship, including whether or not it is a necessary condition or not that they make us more virtuous.

​Aristotle describes 3 kinds of friendship:

​Friendship of utility — based on mutual benefit. These are common in business or political relationships and dissolve when the usefulness ends.
Friendship of pleasure — based on enjoyment derived from the other person, common among the young. These too are fragile and fade when the pleasure does.
Friendship of virtue (perfect friendship) — based on admiration for each other's good character. These are rare, take time to develop, and are the most enduring because virtue itself is stable.

​He argues that a friendship based on virtue is the highest form of friendship.

Meanwhile other philosophers argue that the truest frienship is based on respecting a friend's own wishes/ends, even if you don't agree with them. For example, the popular refrain goes that "A good friend will help you move, a true friend would help you move a body".

So which is it? Should we only be friends with people who we wholly regard as virtuous, or should we be able to accept the flaws in moral judgements in our friends? Which of these is the best definition of a "true" friend?

Recommended Readings:

Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle: Book VIII, Book IX
https://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

A Good friend will help you move a body: Friendship and the problem of Moral Disagreement, Daniel Koltonski
https://philarchive.org/rec/KOLAGF