Section 13: Principles to be observed in friendship between equals

There are three kinds of friendship, as we said at the beginning. And with respect of each kind of friendship, some people are friends _[35] in accordance with equality, whereas others are friends in accordance with superiority. For not only can people who are equally good become friends, but a better person can make friends with a worse. The same applies in friendships of pleasure or usefulness, _[1162b1] where the friends may be equal or unequal in the benefits they confer. This being so, friends who are equal to one another must bring about the required equalization on a basis of equality in love and in all other respects. Friends who are unequal, in contrast, must render what is in proportion to their superiority or inferiority.

Complaints and reproaches arise only or mostly in the friendship of _[5] usefulness, and this is only to be expected. For those who are friends on the ground of virtue are anxious to do good for each other, since that is a mark of virtue and of friendship. And between people who are emulating each other there cannot be complaints or quarrels. No one is offended by a person who loves him and does well by him. If someone is a person of refined feelings, he responds _[10] by doing well to him. And the person who excels the other in the good he does will not complain about his friend, since he gets what he aims at. For each person desires what is good. Nor do complaints arise much in friendships of pleasure. For both get what they desire at the same time, if they enjoy spending their time together. And a person who complained of another for not giving him enjoyment would seem ridiculous, since he is free not _[15] to spend time with him.

But the friendship of usefulness is prone to complaints. For since the friends make use of each other for their own interests, they always want to get more, and think they have less than they should, and blame their friends because they do not get all they want and deserve. Those who do good cannot help this sort of person as much as he wants. _[20]

Now since justice is of two kinds, one unwritten and the other legal, it seems that one kind of friendship of usefulness is based in custom and another other is legal in nature. And so complaints arise most of all when people do not dissolve the relationship in the spirit of the same type of friendship in which they developed it.

The legal type of useful friendship is that which is based on _[25] fixed terms. Its purely commercial variety is on the basis of immediate payment, while the more free variety allows time but stipulates for a definite quid pro quo. In this latter variety the debt is clear and not ambiguous, but in the postponement it contains an element of friendliness. And so some states do not allow suits arising out of such agreements, but think people who have bargained on a basis of credit ought to accept the consequences. _[30]

The type of useful friendship based in custom does not have fixed terms. It makes a gift, or does whatever it does, as to a friend. But one expects to receive as much or more, as having not given but lent. And if a person is worse off when the relationship is dissolved than he was when it began, he will complain. This happens because all or most people, while they wish for what is noble, _[35] choose what is advantageous. Now it is noble to do good to another without a view to repayment, but it is the receiving of benefits that is advantageous. _[1163a1]

Therefore, if we can we should return the equivalent of what we have received. For we must not make a person our friend against his will. We must recognize that we were mistaken at the first and took a benefit from a person we should not have taken it from–since it was not from a friend, nor from one who did it just for the sake of acting so–and we must settle up just as if we had been benefited on fixed terms. _[5] Indeed, one should agree to repay if one could. And if one cannot, even the giver would not expect one to do so. Therefore, if it is possible we must repay. But at the outset we must consider the person by whom we are being benefited and on what terms he is acting, in order that we may accept the benefit on these terms, or else decline it.

It is disputable whether we ought to measure a benefit by its usefulness to the receiver and _[10] make the return with a view to that, or by the benevolence of the giver. For those who have received say they have received from those who benefited them what meant little to the those who benefited them and what they might have received from others–minimizing the service. The givers, on the contrary, say it was the greatest thing they had, and something that could not have been received from others, and that it was given in times of _[15] danger or similar need.

Now if the friendship is one that aims at usefulness, surely the advantage to the receiver is the measure. For it is he that asks for the service, and the other helps him on the assumption that he will receive the equivalent. So the assistance has been precisely as great as the advantage to the receiver, and therefore he must return as much as he has received, or even more, _[20] since that would be nobler.

In friendships based on virtue, in contrast, complaints do not arise, but the purpose of the doer is a sort of measure. For in the purpose lies the essential element of virtue and character.