On "goodwill," towards men.
Goodwill is a friendly sort of relation, but is not identical with friendship; for one may have goodwill both towards people whom one does not know, and without their knowing it, but not friendship. This has indeed been said already.
While this commentary is on Aristotle, an aside to a much later philosopher is helpful here. Kant, in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, implies that this sort of "beneficence" towards all is a basic moral duty of all rational beings. (Ak. 4:398, for any students of Kant here.) It's the sort of thing we think of at Christmastime, when the carol hopes for "Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men."
The problem with it is that it is a duty that doesn't imply any particular actions, just to feel a certain way and not to hold generalized hatred or bad-feeling for strangers. When he gets to it in the full Metaphysics of Morals (Ak. 6:402) he says that "Beneficence is a duty. If someone practices it often and succeeds in realizing his beneficent intention, he eventually comes to love the person he has helped. So the saying, 'you ought to love your neighbor as yourself' does not mean that you ought immediately (first) to love him and (afterwards) by means of this love do good to him. It means, rather, do good to your fellow human beings, and your beneficence will produce love of them in you[.]"* Even here, though, while Kant says there is a duty to do good to others, there's no way to discern which particular others we should do it for right now.
For Aristotle, there is no duty to generalized beneficence; that comes from the Christian heritage, which even a rational Modern like Kant felt very strongly to be the basis of morality. The idea is that we sometimes feel goodwill towards people one may not even know, or know very much about. They might even be people actively working against us. [Cf. Sympathy vs. Empathy for a discussion of the dangers of such feelings as motivational of action.]
But goodwill is not even friendly feeling. For it does not involve intensity or desire, whereas these accompany friendly feeling; and friendly feeling implies intimacy while goodwill may arise of a sudden, as it does towards competitors in a contest; we come to feel goodwill for them and to share in their wishes, but we would not do anything with them [Irwin: "would not cooperate with them" -Grim]; for, as we said, we feel goodwill suddenly and love them only superficially.
Indeed, they are strictly speaking your competitors; perhaps even your enemies. One can imagine watching a ship at sea bravely crewed in a storm, and wishing the sailors well in view of their obvious courage; but not so well that they should succeed at reaching your port, since they are carrying a crew of hostile raiders. Viewed as fellow men struggling valiantly, though, it is hard not to sympathize with them. Goodwill could arise in such a situation, though as Aristotle says "we would not do anything with them" as companions; we might not even, pace Kant, do any good to them that might save them. They are, after all, enemies.
Goodwill seems, then, to be a beginning of friendship, as the pleasure of the eye is [a] beginning of love. For no one loves if he has not first been delighted by the form of the beloved, but he who delights in the form of another does not, for all that, love him, but only does so when he also longs for him when absent and craves for his presence...
Here, by the way, is a useful heuristic for any young readers who want to know if another person loves you the way you feel love for them. If they do not long for you when you are absent and crave your presence, they do not in fact love you, however delightful they may be to your eyes. Accept this and move on.
...so too it is not possible for people to be friends if they have not come to feel goodwill for each other, but those who feel goodwill are not for all that friends; for they only wish well to those for whom they feel goodwill, and would not do anything with them nor take trouble for them.
Notice that this is a kind of passion as Aristotle is describing it, rather than anything like a "duty" as it is for Kant. It's a feeling that comes upon you, as if from outside; it can be something you suffer, which is what "passion" strictly speaking means. It does not imply any duty to do anything with or for the other person.
And so one might by an extension of the term friendship say that goodwill is inactive friendship, though when it is prolonged and reaches the point of intimacy it becomes friendship-not the friendship based on utility nor that based on pleasure; for goodwill too does not arise on those terms. The man who has received a benefit bestows goodwill in return for what has been done to him, but in doing so is only doing what is just; while he who wishes some one to prosper because he hopes for enrichment through him seems to have goodwill not to him but rather to himself, just as a man is not a friend to another if he cherishes him for the sake of some use to be made of him. In general, goodwill arises on account of some excellence and worth, when one man seems to another beautiful or brave or something of the sort, as we pointed out in the case of competitors in a contest.
So the courage of the sailors in the storm may excite goodwill for them in us; but they still deserve no help from us, nor should we rush out and aid our enemies in landing on our shores.
* Kant, Immanuel. Practical Philosophy. Edited and translated by Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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