Friendship: Bridging the gap between self and other

Abstract

Friendship is a significant aspect of our lives. We make friends, engage in activities with them, and share an emotional bond with them. However, despite its familiarity and prevalence, there is no common agreement regarding what constitutes friendship and what its proper role in our lives is. Some people consider it an intrinsically good relationship and prioritize it in their lives and conduct, and others view it as a valuable relationship, alongside other relationships, having no primacy or priority of its own. My purpose in this dissertation is to critically examine friendship and to determine its proper nature, content and value in our lives. I discuss the above issues with specific reference to three major moral-political traditions. These are virtue ethics, deontology, and utilitarianism. I focus on a leading representative of each tradition, namely, Aristotle, Kant and Mill. Both deontology and utilitarianism, Kant and Mill, construe friendship in terms of certain abstract universal moral principles. They contend that, as a moral person, one must accord equal considerations to both friends as well as non-friends. That is, one must act impartially in friendship. Against Kant and Mill, Aristotle holds that a friendship is a personal relationship, and that it is inherently incompatible with impartiality. He argues that friendship either is virtue or necessitates virtue, and as such, it is an essential constituent of a good life and flourishing existence. Aristotle's view that a good friendship and a good life require effective moral co-operation with others in society has generated interest in the present times. On the one hand, it is argued that Aristotle provides us with a fulfilling account of friendship and a good life. On the other hand, it is claimed that Aristotle's view is in disagreement with an individual's freedom of choice, and inconsistent with the central tenets of present-day liberalism. In this thesis, I argue that Aristotle provides us with an enriching account of friendship, and that his view of friendship and the good life is fully compatible with an individual's free choice and moral autonomy. I further argue that Aristotle's view complements liberalism; hence, it is a mistake to see these views as adversaries.