Aristotelian Friendship: Self-Love and Moral Rivalry
1993; Philosophy Education Society Inc.; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2154-1302
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval Philosophy and Theology
ResumoIN THE FIRST SEVERAL PARAGRAPHS of Nicomachean Ethics 9.8, Aristotle asks whether a man should love himself most (NE 1168a28),(1) and asserts that say that one ought to love best one's best (1168b1). Yet earlier (1159a27) Aristotle describes loving more essential to friendship than being loved; furthermore, he emphasizes that a man wishes well to his friend his friend's sake, a means to his own happiness (1155b31). Note also Aristotle's continued emphasis upon man a political animal. In the Politics well the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes the biological, even instinctive tendency of humans to seek each other's company. He considers absurd a man even to imagine living alone, since without no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods (1155a5-6). It only the human animal, however, who even capable of that genuine friendship which, although rare (1156b25), Aristotle considers not only necessary but also noble; . . . we think the same people that are good men and are friends (1155a28-31); these are alike in their excellence (1156b7), one loving as being the man he is (1156a11). We would argue that this implies that in loving a friend men thereby choose what good themselves: for the good man in becoming a friend becomes a good to his (1157b28-31), and, simultaneously, his friend a good to him. Aristotle states that the recognition of my friend's good character (known by his actions) that incites me, so to speak, to wish him whatever good. The same true in the other direction. Aristotle adds: it mutually known to them that well-wishing of this kind [also] reciprocated (1156a3-5). Just what are we wishing our friend? If one values the person and his welfare, should one take care to discern how best to serve him? It seems evident that the well-wisher (and well-doer) in a genuine friendship by definition cannot make serious blunders or be greatly unskilled. A developed sensitivity to needs seems assured. After all, one must know what the friend wants: genuine friendship requires time and familiarity to become established (1156b26). Friends trust only one another, but also (and especially) each other's ability to recognize and even anticipate what each does in fact need.(2) What each wants--being good, hence consistent (and weak-willed)--is that which good the other. That which good him precisely what good the well-wisher, he self. Since one's friend similarly a good man, one chooses him what one would wish oneself. The in Friendship. What kind of another the good man's friend? It noteworthy that Aristotle employs the noun (autos) very seldom, and only in his ethical treatises. Moreover, only in the chapters on friendship that Aristotle refers to self (allos autos) or considers self-love (philautia). Self Aristotle uniformly describes the human agent responsible his choices, the originating source of his own conduct. The term central to Aristotle's analysis of friendship. Self, we conclude, underlies the notion of what one when being a friend of the genuine sort, and what goes on in this friendship, namely, self-loving. Whenever one friend acts (and desires to act) his friend's sake, this definitive of genuine friendship (Rhetoric 1361b35-40). For Aristotle, to be aware of one's friend in effect to be that friend, by means of one's own activity of knowing him; one thereby knows one's self. In order to be able to know myself friend, however, I must recognize my self in my friend, becoming identical, so to speak, with him. I thereby become aware that he self while recognizing that I am one just like him, self. Aristotle's notion of self that of an impersonal, objective or transcendent mind; rather, the self simply the individual who thinks, acts, has affections, wishes, and chooses. …
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