Section 4: Friendship based on relationship to oneself

Friendly relations with one’s neighbors, and the marks by which friendships are defined, seem to have proceeded from a person’s relationship to himself. For we define a friend (1) as someone who wishes and does what is good (or what seems to be good) for the sake of his friend, (2) as one who wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake (which mothers do to their children, and friends do who have come into conflict). And others define a friend (3) as someone who one lives one’s life with, (4) as someone who has the same tastes as another, and (5) as someone who grieves and rejoices with his friend (and this too is found in mothers most of all). It is by these characteristics that friendship too is defined.

Now each of these characteristics is true of the good person’s relationship to himself (and of everyone insofar as they think they are good). Virtue and the good person seem, as has been said, to be the measure of every class of things. For good people’s opinions are harmonious, and they desire the same things with all their soul. And therefore they wish for themselves what is good and what seems good, and do what is good. For it is characteristic of the good person to practice what is good, and to do this for its own sake. For the good person does what is good for sake of the thinking part of himself, which is what each of us seems to be. And he wishes himself to live and be preserved, and especially the aspect in him by which he is conscious.

For existence is good to the virtuous person, and each person wishes what is good for himself, while no one would choose to possess the whole world if he has first had to become someone else (for even now God possesses the good). The good person wishes what is good for himself only if he can be whatever he is. But it would seem that the intellect is what each of us is, or what each of us is most of all.

The good person also wishes to spend his life with himself, since he enjoys being with himself. For his memories of his past actions are gratifying and his hopes for the future are good, and therefore enjoyable. His mind is also well stored with things he can contemplate. And more than anyone else, he grieves and rejoices with himself. For the same thing is always painful, and the same thing always pleasant, and not one thing at one time and another at another; he has, so to speak, no regrets.

Therefore, since each of these characteristics belongs to the good person in relation to himself, and he is related to his friend as he is to himself (for his friend is another self), friendship too is thought to be one of these attributes, and those who have these attributes to be friends.

Whether or not friendship can exist between a person and himself is a question we may dismiss for the present. There would seem to be friendship insofar as he is two or more, to judge from the afore-mentioned attributes of friendship, and from the fact that the extreme of friendship is similar to one’s love for oneself.

But the attributes named seem to belong even to the majority of people, poor creatures though they may be. Are we to say then that insofar as they are satisfied with themselves and think they are good, they share in these characteristics?

Certainly no one who is thoroughly bad and impious has these characteristics, or even seems to. These characteristics hardly belong even to inferior people. For such people are at variance with themselves, and have appetites for some things and reasonable desires for others. This is true, for instance, of people who lack self-control. For they choose what is pleasurable but harmful, instead of what they themselves think is good; while others, through cowardice and laziness, shrink from doing what they think best for themselves.

And those who have done many terrible deeds and are hated for their wickedness sometimes even shrink from life and destroy themselves. And wicked people seek for others with whom to spend their days, trying to escape from themselves. For when such people are alone, they remember many grievous deeds they have done and anticipate doing others like them. But when they are with others they forget. And having nothing lovable in themselves they have no feeling of love for themselves. Therefore, such people don’t rejoice or grieve with themselves, since for their soul is torn in different directions by factions. One part of their soul grieves because of its wickedness when it abstains from certain acts, while another part is pleased; and one part draws them this way and the other that way, as if these parts of their soul were pulling them into pieces. If a person cannot at the same time be pained and pleased, at all events after a short time he is pained because he was pleased, and he could have wished that these things had not been pleasant to him. For bad people are burdened with regret.

Therefore, the bad person does not seem to be friendly even to himself, because there is nothing in him to like. If being this way is the height of unhappiness, we should strain every nerve to avoid wickedness and should endeavor to be good, since in that way, and only in that way, can one be either friendly to oneself or a friend to another.