Eudemian Ethics by Aristotle

Author:Aristotle [Aristotle]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781647920074
Publisher: Hackett
Published: 2021-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

VII 11

Where the good person, and the friend in accord with virtue, is concerned, we must investigate |1244a1| whether it is to him that one should provide useful services and help or to the one who is capable of returning them.618 This is the same problem as whether one must benefit the friend or the excellent person more. For if someone is a friend and also excellent, it is presumably not a very difficult one, |1244a5| provided that one does not amplify the one factor and diminish the other, doing a lot {133} for him as a friend, but little for him as decent. But if not, many problems arise—for example, if one person was a friend but won’t be in the future, while another will be one but isn’t yet; or if one person became a friend but is not one now, while another is a friend now but was not one nor will be one in the future.619

But the first problem is more difficult.620 For perhaps Euripides was on to something when he wrote: |1244a10|

Words are just wages if words you bring,

But a deed for him who a deed supplies.621

Also, not all things are owed to the father, but there are others that are owed to the mother, even though the father is better; for not all sacrifices are owed to Zeus, nor does he receive all the honors, but [only] some. Perhaps, then, some things are owed to the useful person, |1244a15| others to the good one. For example, if someone provides food and necessities, he is not owed being lived with; accordingly, one who is owed being lived with is also not owed the things that the utility friend provides but he does not. But those who do this, giving everything to their beloved when not owed, are worthless.622

Also, all the defining marks of friendship in our accounts are certainly in a way |1244a20| of friendship, but not of the same kind of friendship.623 For it is a defining mark of a utility friend and a benefactor and, indeed, of a friend of any sort to wish to do what is good for the other person (for this definition of friendship does not distinguish the sort); but to wish that another exist, to wish to live together with him, and to wish to be pained and pleased together with a friend in accord with pleasure [are different marks]. All these defining marks, though, |1244a25| are said of things in accord with certain kinds of friendship, but none in accord with just one kind. That is why there are several, and why each—for example, the deliberate choice of existence—seems to be, but none really is, that of a single sort of friendship. For the superior party and benefactor also wishes his own work to exist; and to the one who gives existence a return is also owed, but it is not with this person that one wishes to live together, but with the pleasant person. |1244a30|

Some friends do injustice to each other; for they love the things at issue more than the one who possesses them.

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