Nicomachean Ethics IX.3

When should you end a friendship?

Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same. Perhaps we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking off a friendship based on utility or pleasure, when our friends no longer have these attributes. For it was of these attributes that we were the friends; and when these have failed it is reasonable to love no longer. But one might complain of another if, when he loved us for our usefulness or pleasantness, he pretended to love us for our character. For, as we said at the outset, most differences arise between friends when they are not friends in the spirit in which they think they are.

Fair enough, is it not? If you chose a friend because he amused you, you'd quit spending time with him if he didn't keep doing that; if you chose a friend because he was rich and bought you nice dinners, his poverty might end your friendship. Yet if you had convinced him that you really admired and respected him, and that's why you came to his dinners, he might reasonably be annoyed.

So when a man has deceived himself and has thought he was being loved for his character, when the other person was doing nothing of the kind, he must blame himself; when he has been deceived by the pretenses of the other person, it is just that he should complain against his deceiver; he will complain with more justice than one does against people who counterfeit the currency, inasmuch as the wrongdoing is concerned with something more valuable.

But if one accepts another man as good, and he turns out badly and is seen to do so, must one still love him? Surely it is impossible, since not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one's duty to be a lover of evil, nor to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one's friends are incurable in their wickedness?

This advice is a problem for Christians, who are advised to forgive everything and love their enemies. I don't have an answer to that problem. I'm just acknowledging it.

If they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a man who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange; for it was not to a man of this sort that he was a friend; when his friend has changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up.

In a way I find that comment to be a strange thing for Aristotle to say, even though it's a perfectly ordinary sentiment that I don't think is controversial. The point of the Ethics is that virtue is a habitual character that is formed by repetition of good habits into firm characters. Here we see an acknowledgement that characters can deform, too, presumably in the same way: by bad habits that are allowed to continue unchallenged for a long time.

But if one friend remained the same while the other became better and far outstripped him in virtue, should the latter treat the former as a friend? Surely he cannot. When the interval is great this becomes most plain, e.g. in the case of childish friendships; if one friend remained a child in intellect while the other became a fully developed man, how could they be friends when they neither approved of the same things nor delighted in and were pained by the same things? For not even with regard to each other will their tastes agree, and without this (as we saw) they cannot be friends; for they cannot live together. But we have discussed these matters.

Also a little surprising, this time because the emphasis is not on helping your friend -- here the friend doesn't even need to be 'saved,' as just a moment ago was the case in the paragraph before. It's about abandoning him for not becoming as virtuous as you did. And how virtuous is that, if you abandon your old friends because they stayed the same as they were when you were coming up together?

Also, how can you not be friends because they have childish intellects compared with your own? Children are often the most sincere of friends; except for their grandparents, perhaps, who befriend the children with a deep love and intensity. Aristotle has treated the family relationship as different from friendship, but in my experience it is of great value to pursue friendships with those much older, or much younger, than you are. Our habit of tending to keep to our own cohort is greatly limiting in terms of the experience we are exposed to (when younger) or that we convey (when older); and it is limiting in our perspectives as well. I already know what the world looked like to someone who grew up in the American South of the 1970s and early 80s; I can still learn what it looks like to someone who is coming up today.

I do get the point, of course. The young sometimes seem to not know anything at all, and teaching them the context they need to understand the problems can be tiresome. Yet it is worthy to do so, and far less laborious than trying to 'save' a fallen friend. As for the ones who never changed, well, managing consistency in an ever-changing world is not always to be despised.

Should he, then, behave no otherwise towards [the unchanged friend] than he would if he had never been his friend? Surely he should keep a remembrance of their former intimacy, and as we think we ought to oblige friends rather than strangers, so to those who have been our friends we ought to make some allowance for our former friendship, when the breach has not been due to excess of wickedness.

I met an old friend the other day that I hadn't seen in more than twenty years. It turned out we had nothing to say to each other. She seemed to be doing well, and to have a perfectly satisfactory life without me imposing upon it; and while I remember her very gladly, I didn't feel that it was necessary or appropriate to press a renewal of our friendship. Probably something like that is what he means here; we remain friendly, but allow each other to pass by. If she had needed something of me, it would have been different; but she clearly didn't, and had learned to make her way without me. It's ok that we change, and move on, and lose touch even with treasured companions; that's the way the world works. We were together for a time, and mattered to each other once; once, but long ago.