The Idea Of Friendship In Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics

If you know a friend is good then you can trust him or her. You can trust a friend when he or she has a good character. Later on, Socrates says what if good equals to self sufficient? Because that way you need nothing, but of course that cannot be human beings since human beings cannot be self sufficient. We cannot serve someone who has no need.

Friendships are complex relationships, but I would agree will Aristotle that there are three broad categories for friendships: utility, pleasure and virtue. However, I do not believe that these categories are mutually exclusive. Instead, I believe that friendships can be categorized into subcategories, where they can have characteristics from both utility and pleasure. The only pure type of friendship is a virtuous one because this is about caring for the other person’s well being, and not about superficial characteristics. Aristotle believes that this is the only type of friendship that can contribute Eudaimonia, and that utility and pleasure friendships are not essential to a person’s personal happiness.

If in my Applied Morals class at Oberlin someone were to propose friendship as a significant moral paradigm and essential aspect of ethical consideration, I am sure their proposition would be met with scoffs and laughter. So how did we end up at a point in society where friendship is not taken into moral consideration if some of the most important Hellenic minds were so adamant about its importance? I would argue that friendship must return to post-modern life as a tool of improvement to our society, without stripping friendship of its inherent purity. Friendship is an ontological need for humans but also an overlooked political device and possibly the only solution to the many social issues in our current Trumpian era. As Nicgorski says “friendship

A friend is someone who cares for you and supports you. The three most important qualities for a friend to possess are trust, care, and being nonjudgmental. Trust is important because you should be able to tell your friend anything. A friend should be trustworthy. You should trust that your friend would not share information that you share with them.

Aristotle asserts that contemplation in and of itself is separate from virtue, but that “in so far as he is a human being and a member of society [the contemplative man] chooses to act in accordance with virtue” (Aristotle 274). While there is much scholarly debate over the exact relationship between morally virtuous activity and contemplation, there is a sense of agreement that “a commitment to contemplative activity is a necessary feature of moral activity,” and thus contemplation is the “end of morally virtuous activity” (Bush 54). Essentially, the purpose of a virtuous activity is to achieve contemplation, which is happiness. As Aristotelian happiness is achieved by choosing to live a contemplative life and through contemplation itself, it is much different from the more materialistic 21st-century view of

The friendship of David and Jonathan in the Old Testament parallels with Aristotle 's ideal and complete and true friendship. Aristotle discusses three types of friendship in Nicomachean Ethics; Friendships of utility, pleasure, and "complete" friendship. What differentiates complete friendship from friendships of utility and pleasure is that true friends are not self-centered. Friendship based on utility and pleasure is not lasting; when there is no longer pleasure or usefulness, the friendship ceases. With true friendship, friends love each other for their own sake (not for pleasure or usefulness), and they wish good things for each other.

Existential psychologist, Rollo May, saw it as being authoritarian in nature, in that it maintains that all problems have clear solutions and that Frankl simply provides patients with meaning if they can’t pinpoint their own. However, Frankl maintained that logotherapy teaches patients about their responsibility, rather than taking authority from them. (https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/types/logotherapy). Some argue that the concepts which are at the core of logotherapy, namely meanings and values, are simply defence mechanisms and reaction formation. Frankl argued that one would not be willing to live or die for the sake of one’s defence mechanisms, but countless people have done so for the sake of meaning, thus meaning can’t simply be a defence mechanism.

I’m going to take a rather rational ethical approach, I find that it is important to bring up what Ayn Rand elaborated on when she was referring to Rational Ethical Egoism in which “humans are rational and fundamentally solitary individuals each pursuing his or her own personal self- interests (Rand 20). This is important in understanding the basis of trying to understand why people do what they do. Benjamin as well as the other brothers of the fraternity took it upon themselves to purse partying out of their own self- interest. I want to refer back to my point I made earlier in this paper in regards to the two types of models, one being the disease model of addiction and the other being the moral model of addiction. After underlying each of the aspects to each of the models, I’ve come to the conclusion that the disease model of addiction cannot be used, or in play for understanding if someone should be held morally

As not stated previously, what can make a cause good, and worthy of being loyal? He must have a personal value towards it, love it, and as well be pleased with the cause. However, his emotion of love for the cause never defines loyalty. It also never means to follow your own desire. The cause has to not only be about your private self, but it should include a view by you as something outside of you.

As a result, ethics would be crumbling without foundation as good and evil is not justified and accounted for. Professor John Lennox clearly shows here that it is not possible for atheist to derive their ethics from anywhere else besides God, the absolute moral giver. The fact that we have a common set of morality across humankind is in itself evidence that we are moral beings made in the image of our