Friendship between good men of similar virtue or excellence who possess intrinsic rather than incidental goodness and who wish the good of each other for the other's sake and not for any lesser motive. This and the other two pieces, … Of these three, only complete friendship is the real thing.
Aristotle: Nicomachean Ethics study guide contains a biography of Aristotle, literature essays, a complete e-text, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis.
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, brings up what the best kind of friendship is. The second is friendship based on pleasure, where both people are drawn to the other’s wit, good looks, or other pleasant qualities. Friendship is one of the essential components of the good life, and the value of friendship … in the political form of friendship the shoemaker gets a return for his shoes in proportion to his worth, and the weaver and all other craftsmen do the same. 1 In all friendships between dissimilars it is, as we have said, proportion that equalizes the parties and preserves the friendship; e.g. Aristotle details three types of friendships—of usefulness, of pleasure, and complete friendship. When the law is insufficient to deal justly, we have recourse to another virtue—equity—which helps us to perfect law and bring us to a higher level of justice. The concept of friendship and what makes a friendship may seem simple depending on what people look for in friendships. Aristotle says that just as virtuous behavior improves an individual, friends have the potential to generate improvements upon each other’s lives. While it is realm of ethics not usually explored in modern times, our ancient greek philosopher took it very seriously. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is perhaps one of the most influential treatise on moral philosophy. Aristotle 's Nicomachean Ethics : Friendship. There are three kinds of friendship. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle is a great book, evryone one should read it because Aristotle manages to think of individual happiness in connection with the happiness of the city. And what's more, we have to be more interested in loving than being loved. It is by their likeness to the friendship of virtue that they seem to be friendships (for one of them involves pleasure and the other utility, and these characteristics belong to the friendship of virtue as well); while it is because the friendship of virtue is proof against slander and permanent, while these quickly change (besides differing from the former in many other respects), that they appear not to be friendships; i.e. It is important that friendship be active, since Aristotle treats friendship as an energeia, akin to pleasure and happiness.