In this chapter, Aristotle gives his case for an ideal friendship.
Now these reasons differ from each other in kind; so, therefore, do the corresponding forms of love and friendship. There are therefore three kinds of friendship, equal in number to the things that are lovable; for with respect to each there is a mutual and recognized love, and those who love each other wish well to each other in that respect in which they love one another.
This is a good point to mention that Ancient Greek has several words that are all translated as "love," just as we have already seen that Ancient Greek had a number of different words that are translated as "knowledge." Here as there, it is important to know which word is being used and what the deeper sense of that word happens to be.
When Americans say that two people are "lovers," we almost always mean "love" in the sense that the Greeks would call eros, ἔρως, clearly the root of our word "erotic." That is not the word being used in these passages.
The word being used here is philo/philia, φιλία, which is the root of philosophy ("love of wisdom," philo - sophia) or of Tolkien's passion of philology (love of words, philo - logos). It can be a very deep love, as we will be exploring, but not an erotic love: a love appropriate to deep personal passions or affection between friends, especially as we shall see the closest and deepest friendships of all. One might say that good marriages proceed from eros to philia as the couple age and develop these deep connections and mutual feeling for each other as a people; perhaps the very best manage to retain both.
Now those who love each other for their utility do not love each other for themselves but in virtue of some good which they get from each other. So too with those who love for the sake of pleasure; it is not for their character that men love ready-witted people, but because they find them pleasant. Therefore those who love for the sake of utility love for the sake of what is good for themselves, and those who love for the sake of pleasure do so for the sake of what is pleasant to themselves, and not in so far as the other is the person loved but in so far as he is useful or pleasant. And thus these friendships are only incidental; for it is not as being the man he is that the loved person is loved, but as providing some good or pleasure. Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasant or useful the other ceases to love him.
In the last chapter, I mentioned that neither the useful nor the pleasant would turn out to be a real candidate for what was worthy of love. You can see here a new reason for that conclusion: what a person loves, insofar as they have friends who are useful or pleasant to be around, is something of that first person's own. It's not really something about the other, but something the first person hopes to gain from them: either something valuable (useful) or something pleasing (pleasure).
Now the useful is not permanent but is always changing. Thus when the motive of the friendship is done away, the friendship is dissolved, inasmuch as it existed only for the ends in question. This kind of friendship seems to exist chiefly between old people (for at that age people pursue not the pleasant but the useful) and, of those who are in their prime or young, between those who pursue utility. And such people do not live much with each other either; for sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant; therefore they do not need such companionship unless they are useful to each other; for they are pleasant to each other only in so far as they rouse in each other hopes of something good to come. Among such friendships people also class the friendship of a host and guest.
I don't know if it is still true that old people pursue friendships chiefly for utility, as we have social structures that take care of a lot of the needs of the elderly. You can see how it was likely to be true in Aristotle's time that the elderly would seek others who could still do some of the things they could no longer do for themselves, and perhaps in return offer what they could still do that their 'friend' could not. Perhaps one was blind(er), and the other more deafened by age; or one could walk about more easily, and the other still had clearer thoughts.
On the other hand the friendship of young people seems to aim at pleasure; for they live under the guidance of emotion, and pursue above all what is pleasant to themselves and what is immediately before them; but with increasing age their pleasures become different. This is why they quickly become friends and quickly cease to be so; their friendship changes with the object that is found pleasant, and such pleasure alters quickly. Young people are amorous too...
Here the word being given as "amorous" is in fact a version of eros, ἐρωτικόςof.
...for the greater part of the friendship of love depends on emotion and aims at pleasure; this is why they fall in love and quickly fall out of love, changing often within a single day. But these people do wish to spend their days and lives together; for it is thus that they attain the purpose of their friendship.
So much for the lesser species of things we call "friendship."
Perfect friendship is the friendship of men who are good, and alike in virtue; for these wish well alike to each other qua good, and they are good themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their [i.e. the friend's own] sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of own nature and not incidentally; therefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing.
Here we see the connection between at least true friendship and virtue. True friends are "alike in virtue," meaning that they are not necessarily perfectly virtuous, but are fitted together by their similarity in virtue. Yet they are definitely at least somewhat virtuous because they are "men who are good," and that means that they possess virtue.
The best -- i.e. the magnanimous -- will have very deep and meaningful friendships with each other, because they are gracious and good to each other in the most honorable ways. Those who are 'equitable' in Aristotle's sense will have deep friendships because they will go beyond what mere fairness requires to bestow on the other what their friendship really deserves. Those who are merely just will still have good friendships because their virtue will compel them to treat each other fairly, and thus they will not slight one another.
Only those who have no virtue to speak of will be unable to know this sort of friendship, but only the sort that comes from finding someone pleasant or useful. Yet the true friends will not miss out on either pleasure or utility, because we shall see that those things come into the bargain with true friendship:
And each [true friend] is good without qualification and to his friend, for the good are both good without qualification and useful to each other. So too they are pleasant; for the good are pleasant both without qualification and to each other, since to each his own activities and others like them are pleasurable, and the actions of the good are the same or like. And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have. For all friendship is for the sake of good or of pleasure-good or pleasure either in the abstract or such as will be enjoyed by him who has the friendly feeling-and is based on a certain resemblance; and to a friendship of good men all the qualities we have named belong in virtue of the nature of the friends themselves; for in the case of this kind of friendship the other qualities also are alike in both friends, and that which is good without qualification is also without qualification pleasant, and these are the most lovable qualities. Love and friendship therefore are found most and in their best form between such men.
Back to philos as the root here, both for love (φιλέω) and friendship (φίλιος).
But it is natural that such friendships should be infrequent; for such men are rare. Further, such friendship requires time and familiarity; as the proverb says, men cannot know each other till they have 'eaten salt together'; nor can they admit each other to friendship or be friends till each has been found lovable and been trusted by each. Those who quickly show the marks of friendship to each other wish to be friends, but are not friends unless they both are lovable and know the fact; for a wish for friendship may arise quickly, but friendship does not.
Reflecting on this, you can provide your own examples from your lives of the best and truest friends you have had.
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