Friend is the word that warms the cold reality and indifferent society. We have friends since infancy. We grew up gaining and losing friends. Everyone has their own interpretation of this bittersweet experience. We gradually form our definition of friends and prudently choose who we are going to interact with. Friendship seems to be a hard term to have clear universal definition. Thousands of years ago, the Aristotle as an incredible philosopher in the Greek has come up with his definition of the friendship. Through exploring the phenomenal philosopher’s insights, we may be able to gain a higher understanding of the friendship and solve the practical problems using the more developed knowledge.
Generally, in my opinion, Aristotle’s theory
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Friendship can be based on usefulness, pleasure and goodness. Friendship based on utility is that both side are friend for the sake of the use they provide each other. For example, the study mate is the friendship based on utility. The friendship based on pleasure is that both parties are friend for the sake that they provide pleasure for each other. For example, people who only party and drink together. The friendship based on the goodness is that people are friends for each other’s own sake. It consists of the mutual aware good will towards each other. Also, the two party has to be equally virtuous. This is the most favourable friendship for Aristotle. He called it the complete friendship.
There are several differences comparing the complete friendship and the other two. First, the complete friendship has to exist between virtuous agents, who resembles each other’s excellence. Friendship based pleasure or usefulness can exists among not virtuous people. Second, friendship based on usefulness and pleasure does not last for long, because once the use and pleasure the friend bring for each other is gone, the friendship is over. The use and pleasure can easily be gone, because people are changing. The complete friendship is long-lasting, because goodness of people does not change as