Autor: Purcell, Brendan M.

Buch: The Drama of Humanity

Titel: The Drama of Humanity

Stichwort: Aristoteles; Freundschaft: Definition, Merkmale (ob auf Nutzen, Vergnügen o. Gutheit basierend): substantiell, dauerhaft, Gemeinschaft

Kurzinhalt: Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship by suggesting that it is the concrete locus for all the preceding seven books' analysis of human virtue and happiness.

Textausschnitt: § 1 TOWARDS A DEFINITION OF FRIENDSHIP

5/5 Aristotle begins his discussion of friendship by suggesting that it is the concrete locus for all the preceding seven books' analysis of human virtue and happiness. It is within friendship that men can best perform the specifically human operations of thinking and acting: (132; Fs)

After what we have said, a discussion of friendship would naturally follow, since it is a virtue or implies virtue, and is besides most necessary with a view to living. For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods [...] with friends men are more able both to think and to act.(VIII, 1)

6/5 He lists a whole range of relationships exhibiting friendship in a broad sense, relationships between rich and poor, young and old, adults, parents and children, fellow-citizens, travellers, even among birds and most animals. Already in this preliminary description, Aristotle indicates the specific difference of human friendship-it is thought to occur between good men, and to involve character and feeling. (132; Fs)
7/5 His second chapter introduces two sets of criteria by which he can define human friendship. The first, 'objective' set, classify the objects of friendship, the second, 'subjective' set, determines which kind of human relationships can be called friendship from the viewpoint of the participants. (132; Fs)

8/5 'Objectively,' there is a scale of goods according to which we love different objects. So we love things insofar as they are useful, pleasant, or good in themselves-we will speak of these as material, emotional and specifically human goods respectively. (133; Fs)
9/5 'Subjectively,' there are the different modalities by which we relate to one another. Not all love can be reciprocated, and it is this quality of reciprocity that will characterize friendship. Even love for another for his own sake we can only call 'goodwill,' unless it is reciprocated. Nor is reciprocal love sufficient: (133; Fs)

But to those who thus wish good we ascribe only goodwill, if the wish is not reciprocated; goodwill when it is reciprocal being friendship. Or must we add 'when it is recognized'? For many people have goodwill to those whom they have not seen but judge to be good or useful; and one of these might return this feeling. These people seem to bear goodwill to each other; but how could one call them friends when they do not know their mutual feelings? To be friends, then, they must be mutually recognized as bearing goodwill and wishing well to each other for one of the aforesaid reasons.(VIII, 2) So we are conscious of one-sided relationships, but there are also relationships constituted by our mutual awareness of our relationship.

10/5 Aristotle now begins to apply these two sets of criteria, the 'objective' set dealing with the scale of goods, and the 'subjective' set dealing with the essential quality of reciprocal goodwill and knowledge, to the rough and ready range of relationships listed in chapter one: (133; Fs)

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.(VIII,3)

11/5 At the beginning of his Ethics, Aristotle had established that 'human good turns out to be activity of the soul in accordance with virtue [...] But we must add 'in a complete life.' For one swallow does not make a summer, nor does one day; and so too one day, or a short time, does not make a man blessed and happy.'(1,7) On the basis of his understanding of human substance and its gradual actualization over a lifetime, he can classify the various kinds of relationships in terms of (1) their personal substance, as outgoing to the good of the other; (2) their interpersonal substance as stable; and (3) their existence over a lifetime as a shared actualization of human goodness. (133; Fs)
Firstly, merely useful and merely pleasant relationships are:1

(1) not outgoing and humanly insubstantial

13/5 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 advantage or pleasure. (VIII,3) (134; Fs) (notabene)

(2) not stable

14/5 Such friendships, then, are easily dissolved, if the parties do not remain like themselves; for if the one party is no longer pleasing or useful the other ceases to love him. 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 [...] (134; Fs) (notabene)

15/5 [T]he 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 [...] this is why they fall in love and quickly fall out of love, changing often within a single day.(VIII,3) (134; Fs) (notabene)

(3) oriented towards life together?

16/5 [People related in terms of usefulness]-[S]uch people do not live much with each other [...] for sometimes they do not even find each other pleasant; therefore they do not need such companionship unless they are useful to each other [...]

[People related in terms of pleasure]-[T]hese people do wish to spend their days and lives together; for it is thus that they attain the purpose of their friendship.(VIII,3) (134; Fs)
Secondly, relationships based on goodness are:
(1) outgoing and humanly substantial

17/5 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 in themselves. Now those who wish well to their friends for their sake are most truly friends; for they do this by reason of their own nature and not incidentally.(VIII,3) (135; Fs) (notabene)

(2) enduring

18/5 [T]herefore their friendship lasts as long as they are good-and goodness is an enduring thing. And each 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 [...] And such a friendship is as might be expected permanent, since there meet in it all the qualities that friends should have.(VIII,3) (135; Fs)

(3) oriented towards life together

19/5 As in regard to the virtues some men are called good in respect of a state of character, others in respect of an activity, so too in the case of friendship; for those who live together delight in each other and confer benefits on each other, but those who are asleep or locally separated are not performing, but are disposed to perform, the activities of friendship [...] [T]here is nothing so characteristic of friends as living together, since while it is people who are in need that desire friends, even those who are supremely happy desire to spend their days together; for solitude suits such people least of all. (VIII,5) (135; Fs)

20/5 Through this judicious combination of empirical observation and theoretical insight, Aristotle is in a position to take as his primary instantiation of friendship the relationship between good persons who know and love one another as good and who share their goodness in a life lived together. 'There are several kinds of friendship-firstly and in the proper sense that of good men qua good, and by analogy the other kinds'(VIII,4). (135; Fs)