Philsosphy

This paper examines a “complete friendship” in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. A complete friendship in Aristotle’s understanding has three vital components: pleasure, utility, and the good. How do these three factors work together to form a complete friendship? This paper explores these areas: the three aspects of a complete friendship and how working together, they constitute a stable complete friendship; why a complete friendship is beneficial; and what does not constitute a complete friendship. I will first illustrate the component of pleasure in a complete friendship, and how there is a lack of stability in pleasure itself. Second, I will examine how utility is part of a complete friendship, and how there is also a lack of stability in utility. Third, I will discuss what can be considered the most important component, the good, which, because it contains Aristotle’s concepts of love and virtue, is stable. Finally, I will examine how the three factors add up to a complete stable friendship, meaning that none of these components alone will create a complete friendship, but a complete friendship will only be created if all of the aforementioned components appear in a relationship together. Additionally, I will describe two examples of an incomplete friendship. The first component, pleasure, strongly influences Aristotle’s understanding of a complete friendship. Complete friendship has an aspect of essential pleasure to it. Friends in a complete friendship can stay together if both people in the relationship are seeking what is pleasant. This is valid because, “the good are pleasant to one another as well” (1157a1-2).
Although Aristotle recognizes the role of pleasure in friendship, friendships can easily dissolve when the person who is the source of pleasure changes. Therefore, a complete friendship cannot be based on pleasure alone. Bodily pleasures are fleeting and constantly changing. As Aristotle states, “these sorts of friendships, then,