We continue to discuss friendship and community. I've mentioned several times that Aristotle conceives of politics as a sort-of friendship, and therefore the relationships between fellow citizens as being friendly. Today he's going to talk about how this sort of 'friendship' invokes justice, which is the 'virtue of the others' governing how we treat other people.
Friendship and justice seem, as we have said at the outset of our discussion, to be concerned with the same objects and exhibited between the same persons. For in every community there is thought to be some form of justice, and friendship too; at least men address as friends their fellow-voyagers and fellow-soldiers, and so too those associated with them in any other kind of community.
Indeed, comrade.
(This translation actually uses 'comrade' for 'friend' in parts of this section, which I will replace to avoid the contemporary connotation of a Communist fellow-subject).
And the extent of their association is the extent of their friendship, as it is the extent to which justice exists between them. And the proverb 'what friends have is common property' expresses the truth; for friendship depends on community. Now brothers and [friends] have all things in common, but the others to whom we have referred have definite things in common-some more things, others fewer; for of friendships, too, some are more and others less truly friendships.
For the most part we in America do not practice this commonality of property except in the sort-of friendship we refer to as marriage (and even then not in every state). Even in marriage we usually maintain a sense that certain things belong to me rather than to us. One would be aggrieved if one's spouse sold one of those treasured possessions that belonged to me, even though legally they might be permitted to do so. That would seem like a betrayal.
We can see it even more clearly in the case of a friend to whom one had granted a durable general power of attorney. That was done because it was intended to be used for one's good, as for example because one was long absent on a military deployment abroad, or because of the possibility of medical issues disabling one's ability to make informed decisions for a while. If it were instead used to enrich the other at one's expense, it would seem like a violation even though such a usage is perfectly legal under the terms of the arrangement.
This gets to the point Aristotle is making about some relationships being 'more, and others less, than true friendships.' A very good marriage is one in which you can trust your spouse with both community property laws or a durable general power of attorney and know they will loyally defend your interests. A very good friend, a true friend, would be trustworthy to that degree.
And the claims of justice differ too; the duties of parents to children, and those of brothers to each other are not the same, nor those of [friends] and those of fellow-citizens, and so, too, with the other kinds of friendship. There is a difference, therefore, also between the acts that are unjust towards each of these classes of associates, and the injustice increases by being exhibited towards those who are friends in a fuller sense; e.g. it is a more terrible thing to defraud a [friend] than a fellow-citizen, more terrible not to help a brother than a stranger, and more terrible to wound a father than any one else. And the demands of justice also seem to increase with the intensity of the friendship, which implies that friendship and justice exist between the same persons and have an equal extension.
This is a common sense remark rather than a logical deduction, which I mean in the best sense of the term "common sense." I think almost any human being at any time in history would agree with that remark, which arises from our first nature and the consequent natural authority of family. It is not always the actual father who performs the role of protecting and providing for you when you are helpless as a baby and a child, but it is always someone: and that someone you owe a moral debt to that isn't due to strangers. Even if they did it poorly, you owe something to them for what they did for you when you needed them. Friendship is akin to that in that we each end up giving of ourselves and ours to help our friends, and they for us; this creates a special debt between us and our true friends by which we are glad to be mutually bound because it sacralizes our relationship.
However! Much of Modern and postmodern ethics would deny this basic, humane point. Probably Kant himself would not have, but Kantians often do: they reason from the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals that morality depends on universalizable maxims that can be framed as universal laws. Universal means that it doesn't matter if it's your father or your brother or a stranger; you should behave the same way towards everyone. The absurdity of that is quickly evident, but take it with the commentary above: would you trust just anyone with a durable general power of attorney over you? Only perhaps the truest Communist would even consider that possibility, and such a person would quickly find themselves in the place that Communists generally end up: that is, stripped of everything and starving.
Utilitarianism, the other major school of modern ethics besides deontology, likewise holds that what we are supposed to be doing is a kind of universal calculation of pleasure/pain -- and not for ourselves or our fathers or brothers or friends, but for all of humanity equally. If it increases pleasure for most, the one may be sacrificed to a greater or lesser degree; indeed, to the greatest degree if the increase is great enough. This universalizing impulse ends up sacrificing as well all these basic human connections. "Sorry, comrade, but the communal utility demands that we give you up; those organs could benefit all of them more than you."
This universalizing tendency in modern ethics is quite dangerous, even though it is well-intentioned: its advocates think that it will make our ethical decisions more rational, and less given to special-pleading for those we care about more than others. One can judge a tree by its fruits, however; no matter how lovely the tree, certain trees are poisonous. The common sense of humanity across millennia and many successful civilizations is more reliable here.
Now all forms of community are like parts of the political community; for men journey together with a view to some particular advantage, and to provide something that they need for the purposes of life; and it is for the sake of advantage that the political community too seems both to have come together originally and to endure, for this is what legislators aim at, and they call just that which is to the common advantage. Now the other communities aim at advantage bit by bit, e.g. sailors at what is advantageous on a voyage with a view to making money or something of the kind, fellow-soldiers at what is advantageous in war, whether it is wealth or victory or the taking of a city that they seek, and members of tribes and demes act similarly...
For some reason the translator chose to give the Greek word here rather than to translate it; the word is the root of "democracy," and refers to 'a people' in the sense of one that forms a political community rather than, say, as a genetic origin.
...(Some communities seem to arise for the sake or pleasure, viz. religious guilds and social clubs; for these exist respectively for the sake of offering sacrifice and of companionship. But all these seem to fall under the political community; for it aims not at present advantage but at what is advantageous for life as a whole)...
This is in line with Aristotle's conclusion that the political community, and not the family, is the most natural form of human organization because it is only in a political community that the highest forms of human life (e.g. the pursuit of philosophy) are attainable. This discussion is in Politics I, continuing to Politics II.
...offering sacrifices and arranging gatherings for the purpose, and assigning honours to the gods, and providing pleasant relaxations for themselves. For the ancient sacrifices and gatherings seem to take place after the harvest as a sort of first-fruits, because it was at these seasons that people had most leisure. All the communities, then, seem to be parts of the political community; and the particular kinds friendship will correspond to the particular kinds of community.
Greek, Roman, and Hebrew religions of the ancient period had a first-fruits festival; likely he is correct that it is common in agricultural societies (probably not, for the obvious reason, in pastoral ones). It is retained today also in some of the older forms of Christianity, such as at the Catholic feast of Lammas, named for the Old English word hlafmæsse.
In Politics III.9, Aristotle distinguishes a state by the existence of such festivals and brotherhoods, which form a friendship to go along with the mere living-together: "These are conditions without which a state cannot exist; but all of them together do not constitute a state, which is a community of families and aggregations of families in well-being, for the sake of a perfect and self-sufficing life. Such a community can only be established among those who live in the same place and intermarry. Hence arise in cities family connections, brotherhoods, common sacrifices, amusements which draw men together."
Yet we are left with the fact that, however similar friendship and politics might ideally be, the justice conditions are quite different between them. "Equality," as we have discussed at length, means something very different in a friendship from what it did in Book V's long consideration of justice. It may be that it is best if we have a society of family connections, brotherhoods, common festivals and amusements; that may indeed be a much better form of human life than a modern city full of strangers thrown together from different parts of the world, of different religions and worldviews, brought together only by commerce and the pursuit of wealth. It is not, however, the same thing as friendship.
