Is friendship necessary for the good life? Compare Plato and Aristotle on virtue, flourishing, and self-sufficiency.
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“What are we holding onto, Sam? … That there is some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.” – J.R.R. Tolkien
Does one need friendship to live a good life? Both Aristotle and Plato present their own theories on the nature of friendship, its value, and whether we can still flourish without it. Plato argues that a self-sufficient person does not need friends, while Aristotle claims that friendship is an essential part of the good life. Whether friendship is necessary remains open to debate, but one shouldn’t underestimate the risks. Friendship can shape our lives for better or worse, regardless of whether it is good in itself.
The Good Life
To understand both Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of friendship, one must first consider the context and perspective from which friendship is viewed. The good life is the central aim of ancient philosophy. And in The Republic¹, Plato explains that in order to achieve the good, the three parts of the soul: Rationality, Spirit, and Desire, must come into harmony. The rational must train the spirit in order to control desire. For Plato, someone who has reached the good does not need friendship, for he is fully self-sufficient and does not need anything external.
In Ancient Greece, friendship was strongly identified with the good. And for Aristotle, it is an essential part of the good life, which he called eudaimonia.² This can be translated as flourishing², and its conditions are: sensual pleasure, political achievement, and intellectual contemplation. Finding deep satisfaction is not possible without virtue. Aristotle claims that virtues are intrinsic to the person, not merely instrumental. The highest form of friendship is based on virtue, and friendship is intrinsically good.
The English and modern term friendship has no direct translation in ancient Greek. In ancient Greek, three types of love were distinguished⁴: agape (the creation of value in an object), eros (a passionate, and often sexual desire for an object), and philia (an affectionate desire, like for a friend). Our concept of friendship is closely related to philia, but unlike friendship, philia is also applied to family, business partners, and one’s country. Philia is, therefore, our gateway to understanding friendship through the lens of the ancients.
Plato on Friendship
Who Can Be Friends?
In one of Plato’s earlier dialogues,⁵ Socrates discusses the nature of friendship with a boy named Lysis. He examines who can be friends and differentiates between them into three categories: the good, the bad, and that which is neither good nor bad. Socrates presents the following example: illness is bad, the body is neither bad nor good, and medicines are good. He also presumes that which is alike must always be friends with that which is alike, and friends naturally want that which is good for one another.
He first rules out that bad people cannot be friends, because they will wrong one another. Those who are neither good nor bad also cannot be friends with someone who is good either, because the friendship then seems to arise from lack. When someone is, for example, in good health, he’s not friends with a doctor, while a sick person is friends with a doctor, for the sake of his health. The body (neither good nor bad) is thus friends with the doctor (the good) only in the case of illness (the bad). So that which is neither good nor bad cannot be friends with the good either.
Last is the good, and that surely must have a friend. Yet, a good person is self-sufficient, which means lacking nothing non-essential. This is achieved by creating harmony in the soul: training one’s spirit not to fall into desire, but to serve reason. Friendships are non-essential because to desire popularity, social approval, or anything that’s external is not to have realized the good. By the end of the dialogue, Lysis admits that he does not know what friendship is, since it does not seem to occur among any of these groups. Socrates does not resolve the question, but instead encourages the boy to practice philosophy, which can help him realize the good. But Plato also suggests that the one who is good cannot remain wholly detached from political and social life.
Philosopher king
Plato asserts that a philosopher-king who has attained the good must return to society to bring order through his goodness. The philosopher-king is then a friend of society, assuming that he succeeds in bringing order. And without society, it is not possible to be a philosopher-king. After all, what would one be king of? And since this is such a central point in Plato’s philosophy, we can question the claim that a good person needs no friends. After all, Plato himself tried several times to influence rulers in Syracuse to become philosophers. And why would he leave Athens three times if he did not desire to do so? A good person must remain connected to society in some form, but might not desire to do so.
We might also question whether humans need other people in order to realize goodness. For instance, in The Symposium⁷, a later dialogue by Plato in which his metaphysics takes center stage, the concept of the ladder of love emerges. Socrates asserts that: “The only things I know … is the art of love.” ⁸ He argues that all the stories told by the symposium guests are masquerades of love itself. This is because they can only perceive particular beauties, such as the beauty of a young man, and not true Beauty itself. Through these particulars, one can transcend them and come to know the Form of Beauty. Someone who has transcended the particulars no longer needs the particulars, such as the beauty of a boy, the company of a friend, or status in society, and can become self-sufficient.
The good is thus characterized by self-sufficiency. The natural intuition in ancient Greece, however, is that friendship is something good and to be desired. Plato rejects this belief and instead explains that friendship is but a shadow of the good itself. We are then left with the conclusion that the good person remains outwardly in relationship with society, yet inwardly is completely detached from it. Aristotle, however, offers a different account of self-sufficiency, in which friendship becomes necessary for the good life.
Aristotle on Friendship
Self-sufficiency
Regarding the good, Aristotle says the following: “Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general public and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness.”⁹ True happiness is the attainment of eudaimonia, and according to Aristotle, this goes hand in hand with self-sufficiency, because the final good is self-sufficient. Both philosophers regard the ultimate good as the ultimate goal, that is, self-sufficient, and that it must be something definitive that we desire for its own sake and not for the sake of something else.
Where Aristotle differs from Plato is in his view of self-sufficiency. He defines it as that which, by itself, makes life desirable and lacking in nothing. It includes everything required for flourishing, and a self-sufficient person is therefore not solitary, since he remains connected to “[his] parents, children, wife, and, in general, for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is born for citizenship.”¹⁰ While Plato holds self-sufficiency to be no longer dependent on external goods, Aristotle claims it is essential to have some externalities, and friendship is an essential part of the good life.
Three kinds of friends
In order to be friends, people must show goodwill toward one another: they wish the other well and are aware of the other’s goodwill. He distinguishes three types of friendships.¹¹ Friendship based on what is useful, what is pleasant, and what is good. An example of a relationship based on utility is a carpenter who builds a house for someone, or a doctor who heals someone. A relationship based on pleasure means that people are friends because they enjoy each other’s company. An example is two friends who dance together, drink beer, or simply enjoy each other’s company. What characterizes both utility-based and pleasure-based friendships is that when the friendship is no longer useful or brings pleasure, it comes to an end.
The third, the true form of friendship, is a relationship based on the good, and that is, a person’s virtue and character. What characterizes this friendship and makes it special is that “in loving a friend, one loves what is good for oneself; for the good man, in becoming a friend, becomes a source of good to his friend.” ¹² When someone is good, that character trait can rarely be taken away or disappear from a person. Therefore, if a friendship is of the highest form, it is almost always lifelong.
A good person needs friends
“It is said that those who are supremely happy and self-sufficient have no need of friends,”¹³ here Aristotle likely gives a remark to Plato. First and foremost, a good person ought to be happy, and it is better to spend your days with good friends than with strangers or chance persons. Friendship is one of the most valuable external goods that exist, and we would attribute those goods to a happy person. This is because a human being is a social creature, made to live in groups.
A happy person, therefore, does not live a completely solitary life. True friendship, however, can only exist between good people. Such friendships are rare because virtuous people are scarce, and cultivating this kind of friendship takes time. This is because a “friend, being another self, provides what a man cannot provide by his own effort.”¹⁴ In both good times and bad, a good person should need friends. After all, in bad times, he could receive aid from his friends. In good times, a good person would still need friends to be able to do good, for a good person is not good if he can never do good. We can thus actualize our goodness through friendship.
In other words, Aristotle’s point is this: even the most self-sufficient person needs friends. We are social beings, and a friend is another self: someone through whom we can both receive support in difficult times and express our goodness in better ones. Friendship is not a luxury, but a condition for a fully lived life.
Is friendship a good thing?
According to Aristotle, true friendship can only exist between good people. One example of such an ideal friendship is that between Frodo and Sam. In their relationship, these friends embody virtues such as courage, and they bring out the best in each other throughout their journey. Together, they save the world, something they could never have done alone. Although this is a positive example of true friendship, it can lead us to the conclusion that friendship must be good. But we could be making a naive mistake here. “Without an objective account of the good like Aristotle’s, we cannot move from the desire to do right by our friends to actually doing so. Genuine friendship depends more on our intentions, feelings, and attitudes than on the results of our behavior.”¹⁶ Because Aristotle uses this definition of the good, friendships become very vulnerable.
Thelma & Louise¹⁷ is s a perfect example of a genuine friendship that leads to a disastrous outcome. This is a story about two women who travel together from America to Mexico and, along the way, shoot someone, rob a store, assault a police officer, and ultimately commit suicide. Their friendship, however, is genuine; both wish nothing but the best for each other, and their affection for one another is sincere and present throughout their entire journey.
Although their internal attitudes are “right,” they inflict significant harm on the people around them and commit many immoral acts. So even even if our attitudes and intentions are right, and love for the other is sincere, we cannot know whether we are better off. This is what Aristotle thus fails to incorporate into his theory of friendship. The negative influence within a friendship.
As Nehamas said, “We become who we are in great part because of the friends we have.”¹⁸ Friendship is essentially a mechanism of individuality, because when we enter into a friendship, we commit to change. After all, a friend can be another version of yourself, which means that person influences who you are, and if they change, you change, and vice versa. We can never fully control this change, because friendship is a joint endeavor.
And even if we are good and have attained virtue, our actions can still turn out to be immoral through friendship. It is, of course, entirely possible that, like Frodo and Sam, we actualize our goodness through friendship, but the opposite of evil deeds is equally possible. Friendship is not necessarily good, but it is one of the most powerful forces shaping who we become.
Footnotes
Complete Works: The Republic, Plato, John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson, Jonathan Barnes, 1997, Hackett, 504a–e
The Nicomachean Ethics Revised Edition, Aristotle, Lesley Brown, W. D. Ross, 2020, Oxford University Press, 1095a
Friendship, Bennett Helm, 2023, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Complete Works: Lysis, Plato, John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson, Jonathan Barnes, 1997, Hackett, 214b–d
Complete Works: Republic, Plato, John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson, Jonathan Barnes, 1997, Hackett, 519a–e
Complete Works: Symposium, Plato, John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson, Jonathan Barnes, 1997, Hackett
Complete Works: Symposium, Plato, John M. Cooper, D.S. Hutchinson, Jonathan Barnes, 1997, Hackett, 177e
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1095a
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1097b
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1156a
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1157b
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1169b
Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle, 1169b
The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien, 2005, Harper Collins
On Friendship, Alexander Nehamas, 2016, Basic Books, 198
Thelma & Louise, Ridley Scott, 1991
On Friendship, Alexander Nehamas, 2016, Basic Books, 189–196
Footnotes
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