by Aristotle
It is a further problem on which of two grounds we are to determine what is [15] just, whether by looking to the amount of service rendered, or to what was its character for the recipient; for, to borrow the language of Theognis, the service may be ‘Small to thee, O goddess, but great to me’. Or the opposite may happen, as in the [20] saying, ‘this is sport to you but death to me’. Hence, as we have said, come recriminations. For the benefactor claims a return on the ground of having done a great service, because he has done it at the request of the other, or with some other plea of the great value of the benefit to the other’s interest, saying nothing about what it was to himself; while the recipient insists on its value to the benefactor, not [25] on its value to himself. Sometimes the receiver inverts the position, insisting how little the benefit has turned out to him, while the doer insists on its great magnitude to him, e.g. if at considerable risk one has benefited another to the extent of a drachma, the one insists on the greatness of the risk, the other on the smallness of the money, just as in the repayment of money—for there the dispute is on this [30] point—the one claims the value of it when it was lent, the other concedes only the value of it now when it is returned, unless they have made an explicit provision in the contract. Civic friendship, then, looks to the agreement and the thing, moral friendship to the choice; here then we have a truer justice, and a friendly justice. The reason for the quarrel is that moral friendship is more noble, but useful [35] friendship more necessary; men start, then, by proposing to be moral friends, i.e. friends through excellence; but as soon as some private interest arises, they show clearly they were not so. For the multitude aim at the noble only when they have [1243b1] plenty of everything else; and at noble friendship similarly. So that it is clear what distinctions should be drawn in these matters. If the two are moral friends, we must look to see if the choice of each is equal; and then nothing more should be claimed by either from the other. But if their friendship is of the useful or civic kind, we must consider what would have been profitable lines for an agreement. And if one declares that they are friends on one basis, but the other on the other, it is not [5] honourable, if one ought to do something in return, merely to use fine language; and so too, in the other cases; but since they have not declared their friendship a moral friendship, someone must be made judge, so that neither cheats the other by a false pretence; and so each must put up with his luck. But that moral friendship is based on choice is clear, since even if after receiving great benefits one does not repay [10] them through inability, but repays only to the extent of his ability, he acts honourably; and a god is satisfied at getting sacrifices as good as our power allows. But a seller of goods will not be satisfied if the buyer says he cannot pay more; nor will a lender of money.
Recriminations are common in dissimilar friendships, where action and [15] reaction are not in the same straight line; and it is not easy to see what is just. For it is hard to measure by just this one unit different directions; we find this in the relation of lovers, for there the one pursues the other as a pleasant person, in order to live with him, while the latter seeks the other at times for his utility. When the love is over, one changes as the other changes. Then they calculate the quid pro quo;84 [20] thus Python and Pammenes quarrelled; and so do teacher and pupil (for knowledge and money have no common measure), and so Herodicus the doctor quarrelled with a patient who paid him only a small fee; such too was the case of the king and the lyre-player; the former regarded his associate as pleasant, the latter his as useful; and so the king, when he had to pay, chose to regard himself as an associate of the [25] pleasant kind, and said that just as the player had given him pleasure by singing, so he had given the player pleasure by his promise. But it is clear here too how one should decide; the measurement must be by one measure, only here not by a term but by a ratio; we must measure by proportion, just as one measures in the [30] associations of citizens. For how is a cobbler to have dealings with a farmer unless one equates the work of the two by proportion? So to all whose exchanges are not of the same for the same, proportion is the measure, e.g. if the one complains that he has given wisdom, and the other that he has given money, we must measure first the ratio of wisdom to wealth, and then what has been given for each. For if the one gives half of the lesser, and the other does not give even a small fraction of the [35] greater object, it is clear that the latter does injustice. Here, too, there may be a dispute at the start, if one party pretends they have come together for use, and the other denies this and alleges that they have met from some other kind of friendship.
11 · As regards the good man who is loved for his excellence, we must [1244a]1 consider whether we ought to render useful services and help to him, or to one who makes a return and has power. This is the same problem as whether we ought rather to benefit a friend or a virtuous man. For if the friend is also good, there is perhaps [5] no great difficulty, if one does not exaggerate the one quality and minimize the other, making him very much of a friend, but not much of a good man. But in other cases many problems arise, e.g. if the one has been but will no longer remain so, and the other will be but is not yet what he is going to be, or the one was but is not, and the other is but has not been and will not be . . .85 But the other is a harder question. [10] For perhaps Euripides is right in saying, ‘A word is your just pay for a word, but a deed for him who has given deeds’.86 And one must not do everything for one’s father, but there are some things also one should do for one’s mother, though a father is the better of the two. For, indeed, even to Zeus we do not sacrifice all [15] things, nor does he have all honours but only some. Perhaps, then, there are things which should be rendered to the useful friend and others to the good one; e.g. because a man gives you food and what is necessary, you need not give him your society; nor, therefore, need you give the man to whom you grant your society that which not he but the useful friend gives. Those who doing this give all to the object of their love, when they ought not, are worthless.
[20] And the various definitions of friendship that we give in our discourses all belong to friendship in some sense, but not to the same friendship. To the useful friend applies the fact that one wishes what is good for him, and to a benefactor, and in fact to any kind of friend87—for this definition does not distinguish the class of friendship; to another we should wish existence, of another we should wish the society, to the friend on the basis of pleasure sympathy in joy and grief is the proper [25] gift. All these definitions are appropriate to some friendship, but none to a single unique thing, friendship. Hence there are many definitions, and each appears to belong to a single thing, viz. friendship, though really it does not, e.g. the purpose to maintain the friend’s existence. For the superior friend and benefactor wishes88 the existence of that which he has made, and to him who has given one existence one [30] ought to give it in return, but not necessarily one’s society; that gift is for the pleasant friend.
Some friends wrong one another; they love rather the things than the possessor of them; and so they love the persons much as they choose wine because it is pleasant, or wealth because it is useful; for wealth is more useful than its owner. Therefore he should not be indignant, as if he had preferred his wealth to him as to [35] something inferior. But the other side complain in turn; for they now look to find in him a good man, when before they looked for one pleasant or useful.
[1244b1] 12 · We must also consider about independence and friendship, and the relations they have to one another. For one might doubt whether, if a man be in all respects independent, he will have a friend, if one seeks a friend from want and the [5] good man is perfectly independent.89 If the possessor of excellence is happy, why should he need a friend? For the independent man neither needs useful people nor people to cheer him, nor society; his own society is enough for him. This is most plain in the case of a god; for it is clear that, needing nothing, he will not need a friend, nor have one, supposing that he does not need one.90 So that the happiest [10] man will least need
a friend, and only as far as it is impossible for him to be independent. Therefore the man who lives the best life must have fewest friends, and they must always be becoming fewer, and he must show no eagerness for men to become his friends, but despise not merely the useful but even men desirable for society. But surely this makes it all the clearer that the friend is not for use or help, [15] but that the friend through excellence91 is the only friend. For when we need nothing, then we all seek others to share our enjoyment, those whom we may benefit rather than those who will benefit us. And we judge better when independent than when in want, and most of all we then seek friends worthy to be lived with. But as to [20] this problem, we must see if we have not been partially right, and partially missed the truth owing to our illustration. It will be clear if we ascertain what is life in its active sense and as end. Clearly, it is perception and knowledge, and therefore life in society is perception and knowledge in common. And self-perception and [25] self-knowledge is most desirable to every one, and hence the desire of living is congenital in all; for living must be regarded as a kind of knowledge. If then we were to cut off and abstract mere knowledge and its opposite92—this passes unnoticed in [30] the argument as we have given it, but in fact need not remain unnoticed—there would be no difference between this and another’s knowing instead of oneself; and this is like another’s living instead of oneself. Now naturally the perception and knowledge of oneself is more desirable. For we must take two things into consideration, that life is desirable and also that the good is, and thence that it is [35] desirable that such a nature should belong to oneself93 as belongs to them. If, then, of such a pair of corresponding series there is always one series of the desirable, and [1245a1] the known and the perceived are in general constituted by their participation in the nature of the determined; so that to wish to perceive one’s self is to wish oneself to be of a certain definite character,—since, then, we are not in ourselves possessed of [5] each of such characters, but only by participation in these qualities in perceiving and knowing—for the perceiver becomes perceived in that way and in that respect in which he first perceives, and according to the way in which and the object which he perceives; and the knower becomes known in the same way—therefore it is for this reason that one always desires to live, because one always desires to know; and this is because he himself wishes to be the object known. The choice to live with [10] others might seem, from a certain point of view, silly—(first, in the case of things common also to the other animals, e.g. eating together, drinking together; for what is the difference between doing these things in the neighbourhood of others or apart from them, if you take away speech? But even to share in speech of a casual kind [15] does not make the case different. Further, for friends who are self-dependent neither teaching nor learning is possible; for if one learns, he is not as he should be: and if he teaches, his friend is not; and likeness is friendship)—but surely it is obviously so, and all of us find greater pleasure in sharing good things with friends [20] as far as these come to each—I mean the greatest good one can share; but to some it falls to share in bodily delights, to others in artistic contemplation, to others in philosophy. And the friend must be present too; whence the proverb, ‘distant friends are a burden’, so that men must not be at a distance from one another when there is [25] friendship between them. Hence sensuous love seems like friendship; for the lover aims at the society of his beloved, but not as ideally he ought, but in a merely sensuous way.
The argument, then, says what we have before mentioned, raising difficulties; but the facts are as we saw later, so that it is clear that the objector is in a way misleading us. We must see the truth from what follows: a friend wants to be, in the [30] words of the proverb, ‘another Heracles’, ‘a second self; but he is severed from his friend, and it is hard to find in two people the characteristics of a single individual. But though a friend is by nature what is most akin to his friend, one man is like another in body, and another like him in soul, and one like him in one part of the body or soul, and another like him in another. But none the less does a friend wish to [35] be as it were a separate self. Therefore, to perceive a friend must be in a way to perceive one’s self and to know a friend to know one’s self. So that even the vulgar forms of pleasure and life in the society of a friend are naturally pleasant (for perception of the friend always takes place at the same time), but still more the communion in the diviner pleasures. And the reason is, that it is always pleasanter [1245b1] to see one’s self enjoying the superior good. And this is sometimes a passion, sometimes an action, sometimes something else. But if it is pleasant for a man himself to live well and also his friend, and in their common life to engage in mutually helpful activity, their partnership surely would be above all in things included in the end. Therefore, men should contemplate in common and feast in [5] common, only not on the pleasures of food or on necessary pleasures; such society does not94 seem to be true society, but sensuous enjoyment. But the end which each can attain is that in which he desires the society of another; if that is not possible, men desire to benefit and be benefited by friends in preference to others. Thus it is [10] clear that friends ought to live together, that all wish this above all things, and that the happiest and best man tends especially to do so. But that the contrary appeared as the conclusion of the argument was also reasonable, since the argument said what was true. For it is because of the comparison of the two cases that the solution is not found, the case compared being in itself truly enough stated. For because a [15] god is not such as to need a friend, we claim the same of the man who resembles a god. But by this reasoning the virtuous man will not even think; for the perfection of a god is not in this, but in being superior to thinking of anything beside himself. The reason is, that with us welfare involves a something beyond us, but the deity is his own well-being.
[20] As to our seeking and praying for many friends, while we say that the man who has many friends has no friend, both are correct. For if it is possible to live with and share the perceptions of many at the same time, it is most desirable that these should be as numerous as possible; but since this is most difficult, the activity of joint perception must exist among fewer. So that it is not only hard to get many friends—for testing is necessary—but also to use them when you have got them. [25]
Sometimes we wish the object of our love to be happy away from us, sometimes to share the same fortune as ourselves; the wish to be together is characteristic of friendship. For if the two can both be together and be happy, all choose this; but if they cannot be both, then we choose as the mother of Heracles might have chosen, [30] i.e. that her son should be a god rather than in her company but a serf to Eurystheus. One might say something like the jesting remark of the Laconian, when some one bade him in a storm to summon the Dioscuri.
It appears to be the mark of one who loves to keep the object of his love from sharing in hardships, but of the beloved to wish to share them; the conduct of both is [35] reasonable. For nothing ought to be so painful to a friend as not to see his friend, but it is thought that he ought not to choose what is for his own interest. Therefore men keep their friends from participation in their calamities; their own suffering is enough, that they may not show themselves studying their own interest, and choosing joy at the cost of a friend’s pain, . . .95 again, being relieved by not bearing [1246a1] their troubles alone. But since both well-being and participation are desirable, it is clear that participation with a smaller good is more desirable than to enjoy a greater good in solitude. But since the weight to be attached to participation is not [5] ascertained, men differ, and some think that participation in all things at once is the mark of friendship, e.g. they say that it is better to dine together than separately, though having the same food; yet others would not wish it. And since if one takes extreme cases . . . they agree that they suffer great adversity together or great good fortune apart . . .96 We have something similar in the case of ill-fortune. For [10] sometimes we wish our friends to
be absent and we wish to give them no pain, when they are not going to be of any use to us; at another time we find it pleasantest for them to be present. But this contradiction is quite reasonable. For this happens in consequence of what we have mentioned above, and because we often simply avoid the sight of a friend in pain or in bad condition, as we should the sight of ourselves so [15] placed; yet to see a friend is as pleasant as anything can be (because of the above-mentioned cause), and to see him not ill if you are ill yourself. So that whichever of these two is the pleasanter decides us whether to wish the friend present or not. This also happens, for the same reason, in the case of the worse sort [20] of men; for they are most anxious that their friends should not fare well nor even exist if they themselves have to fare badly.97 Therefore some kill the objects of their love with themselves. For they think that if the objects of their love are to survive they would perceive their own trouble more acutely, just as one who remembered that once he had been happy would feel it more than if he thought himself to be [25] always unhappy . . .98