My philosophy professor challenged us all with the question, "Can you ever love a friend for nothing good in themselves?" Some 'splaining. First, "love" translates the Greek philia, which is the philo- in philosophy, "love of wisdom," but different from the eros in erotic, i.e. the kind of thing we think of as following upon romance (from the Latin for "Roman"). Philia in Aristotle's usage is the kind of affection you can have toward a dear friend, a classmate, a coworker, or just a fellow citizen. A friend, then, could be anyone who recognizes some common bond with you.
Aristotle says there are basically three kinds of friendship. The most basic are those of utility, where each person finds the other useful. This is like the relationship I have with a librarian or barrista or waiter. Then there is the friendship of pleasure, where each one enjoys spending time with the other. Many of my classmates, for instance, fall into this category. These are friends you like to have around but that, if you're honest, you probably won't keep up with once you part company. Then there's the best kind of friendship, that of virtue. This is where each friend is of such stuff that each likes the other for the goodness within them, not just for what they get from them. These friendships will probably be the most intimate, since that's how you would get to know the good in the other and learn to love it, as with a best friend or spouse.
But, says my famous philosophy professor, is not this best kind of friendship still qualified? That is, aren't you loving the friend for something he has now (goodness), but may not always have, or is not the same as himself? You love his goodness, not him.
Hmm...
Is there, then, another kind? Does he mean charity? Charity would seem to apply to cases where you do something for the other's sake, but not expecting reciprocation - and reciprocity is an important element in Aristotle's friendship. What does it mean, then, to love another for his own sake?
I can't think of a way in which having a real friendship doesn't involve loving something about the other person. Even when we say we take people with their faults and everything, we don't really think those faults should be left alone. To accept that no one is perfect need not entail rejecting perfection as an ideal, and in fact, when you really care about someone, you want them to be good people, to be the best they can be. And that's really the key. For Aristotle, "goodness" and "virtue" are terms for the flourishing of a person given the nature of persons - i.e. as thinking, feeling, physical beings. Hence the goodness of a person just is, in a sense, who that person is. If you are living up to your human potential, then you are a person with a personality and a set of skills and virtues ; if you are not, then you aren't much of a person, but acting more like a beast, simply following your impulses, or a plant, just sitting there growing - and we do not befriend plants in a philia way. So I always love what's good in a person because her goodness is what makes her who she is, is what best displays her special humanness to me and the world - and this is also why I desire her to become better, because she will become more herself.
This raises issue 2: is there one human nature, or are we fundamentally unique?
Hmm...
