Aristotle: Friendship as Virtue and Necessity

Quote

"Friendship is a virtue or involves virtue, and is besides most necessary for our life."

— Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, VIII.1, 1155a

Historical Context

Aristotle devotes more space to friendship than to any other single topic in the Nicomachean Ethics. Books VIII and IX — two full books out of ten — are given over to the subject, a allocation that reflects its importance in Greek social life and in Aristotle's ethical system. The Greek word philia is broader than the English "friendship": it encompasses the bonds between family members, political allies, business partners, and fellow citizens, as well as the close personal relationships we typically associate with the word. When Aristotle asks whether friendship is a virtue, he is asking about the full range of human bonds that hold communities together.

The opening of Book VIII situates the discussion within the broader argument of the Ethics. Aristotle has already argued in Book I that the highest human good is eudaimonia — flourishing or living well — and that flourishing requires activity in accordance with virtue. He has examined the virtues of character in Books II through V and the virtues of intellect in Book VI. Book VII addressed the problem of weakness of will. Now, at the threshold of the final third of the work, he turns to friendship, and the reason is clear: a flourishing human life is not something that can be achieved alone. It requires others — not just as instruments or conveniences but as partners in the shared activity of living well.

The cultural context of fourth-century Athens is important. The Greek city-state (polis) was a face-to-face community in which political life, economic exchange, and personal relationships were deeply intertwined. Aristotle's own experience — as a resident alien in Athens, a member of Plato's Academy, and later the founder of the Lyceum — gave him firsthand knowledge of both the satisfactions and the strains of friendship across difference. His treatment is not abstract but grounded in observation of how people actually relate to one another.

Meaning

Aristotle's opening claim has two parts. First, friendship is a virtue or involves virtue. The qualification "or involves virtue" is deliberate: friendship is not a single virtue in the way that courage or temperance is, but it either is itself a virtue or it necessarily presupposes virtue. The point is that genuine friendship requires moral character. A person who is vicious — who is deceitful, self-serving, or incapable of goodwill — cannot be a true friend, because friendship demands qualities that vice undermines.

Second, friendship is "most necessary for our life." Aristotle will spend the next two books explaining why, but the basic argument is that human beings are social by nature. No one would choose to live without friends, even if they possessed every other good. Friendship provides aid in youth and old age, enriches prosperity, and sustains us in misfortune. Without it, even the most fortunate life would be impoverished, because the goods of life are more meaningful when shared.

Aristotle distinguishes three types of friendship, based on the three objects for which people love: utility, pleasure, and virtue. Friendships of utility exist because each party is useful to the other — business partners, political allies, neighbors who exchange favors. These friendships are easily dissolved when the utility ceases. Friendships of pleasure exist because each party finds the other pleasant — companions in recreation, people who share a sense of humor or a taste for conversation. These too are fragile, because what is pleasant changes. Only the friendship of virtue — in which two people love each other for their own sake, because each is good — is complete and lasting. This third type requires time and familiarity to develop, because people must come to know each other's character before they can love each other for what they truly are.

Philosophical Interpretation

The claim that friendship is "most necessary" carries both a practical and a philosophical weight. Practically, Aristotle observes that friendship holds cities together: concord (homonoia) among citizens is a form of friendship, and lawgivers care more about friendship than about justice, because friendship produces the goodwill that makes justice unnecessary. When people are friends, they do not need rules to treat each other well; when they are not friends, rules are insufficient to prevent conflict. This political dimension elevates friendship from a private concern to a public good — a theme that connects the Ethics to Aristotle's Politics, where the health of the polis depends on the quality of the bonds among its citizens.

Philosophically, the necessity of friendship reflects Aristotle's understanding of human nature. Human beings are political animals (zoon politikon), shaped for life in community. A solitary person cannot achieve eudaimonia not because solitude is unpleasant but because flourishing requires the exercise of virtue, and the highest exercises of virtue — generosity, courage, justice — are other-directed. One cannot be generous without someone to receive the gift, just without someone to whom justice is done, courageous without someone to protect. Even the activity of contemplation, which Aristotle considers the highest human good, is deepened when shared with a friend who can engage in the same pursuit.

Book IX of the Ethics pushes the analysis further by exploring the relationship between friendship and self-love. Aristotle argues that the best friend is, paradoxically, a "second self" — someone whose good is experienced as one's own. This leads to his controversial claim that the virtuous person is a self-lover, but in the right way: not by grasping for external goods at others' expense but by assigning to themselves the noblest and best actions. The good person acts for the sake of what is noble, and in doing so benefits both themselves and their friends. This account challenges the common assumption that self-love and altruism are opposed; for Aristotle, genuine self-love — the kind that seeks the genuinely good — is the foundation of genuine friendship.

The enduring relevance of Aristotle's treatment lies in its refusal to reduce friendship to sentiment or utility. Modern discussions of relationships often oscillate between instrumental accounts (friendship as a network of mutual benefit) and purely emotional accounts (friendship as a feeling of affection). Aristotle's framework is richer: friendship is a moral achievement, requiring virtue, time, and mutual knowledge, and it serves as both the model and the foundation for political community. His insight that the quality of a society depends on the quality of the friendships within it remains as challenging today as it was in fourth-century Athens.

Relations

This quote opens Aristotle's most extensive ethical discussion in the Nicomachean Ethics, situated within the tradition of virtue ethics. The quote speaks to the wisdom of friendship, love, and virtue, and belongs to the collections on understanding yourself and ancient wisdom.

Sources

1. "Aristotle's Ethics." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-ethics/
2. Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Translated by Terence Irwin. Indianapolis: Hackett, 1999. VIII.1, 1155a.
3. "Aristotle's Social and Political Philosophy." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-politics/