Section 8: Loving is more the essence of friendship than being loved

Most people seem to wish to be loved more than to love, owning to their loving of being honored and respected. That is why most people love flattery. For the flatterer is a friend in an inferior position, or pretends to be a friend and to love _[15] more than he is loved. And being loved seems to be akin to being honored, and this is what most people aim at.

But it seems that people do not choose honor for its own sake, but incidentally. For most people enjoy being honored by those in positions of authority because of their hopes and expectations. For they think that if they want anything they will get it from people in authority. _[20] Therefore, they delight in honor as an indication of good things to come. In contrast, those who desire honor from good people, and people who are knowledgeable, are aiming at confirming their own opinion of themselves. They delight in honor, therefore, because they believe in their own goodness on the basis of the judgement of those who speak about them. People delight in being loved, however, for its own sake. Hence it would seem _[25] to be better than being honored, and friendship to be desirable in itself.

But friendship seems to be found more in loving than in being loved, as is indicated by the delight mothers take in loving their children. For some mothers hand over their children to be brought up by others, and as long as they know what happens to those children they love them and do not seek to be loved in return (if they cannot have both), _[30] but seem to be satisfied if they see them prospering. And they themselves love their children even if these, owing to their ignorance, give their mothers nothing of what they are owed.

Now since friendship depends more on loving than on being loved, and it is those who love their friends that are praised, loving seems to be the characteristic virtue of friends, so that it is only those in whom this is found in the right measure that are lasting friends, and only their friendship that endures.

It is by loving more than in any other way that even _[1159b1] unequals can be friends, since by loving they can achieve a kind of equality. Now equality and likeness are friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are similar in virtue. For being steadfast in themselves they remain steadfast to each other, and neither ask nor give degrading services, _[5] but, one could say, even prevent them. For it is characteristic of good people neither to go wrong themselves nor to let their friends go wrong. But the wicked have no steadfastness–since they do not even remain like to themselves–but become friends for a short time because they delight in each other’s wickedness.

Friends who are useful or pleasant _[10] to each other last longer–as long as they provide each other with enjoyments or advantages. Friendship for usefulness’s sake seems to be that which most easily exists between contraries–for example, between poor and rich, between ignorant and knowledgeable. For what a person lacks he aims at, and one friend gives something else in return. But when discussing this topic, we might also bring in lover and _[15] beloved, beautiful and ugly. This is why lovers sometimes seem ridiculous, when they demand to be loved as they love. If they are equally lovable their claim can perhaps be justified. But when they have nothing lovable about them it is ridiculous.

Perhaps, however, contrary does not even aim at contrary by its own nature, but only incidentally, the desire being for _[20] what is intermediate. For that is what is good–for instance, it is good for the dry not to become wet but to come to the intermediate state, and similarly with the hot and in all other cases. These subjects we may dismiss, however, for they belong to a totally different inquiry.