Another question that arises is whether friendships should or should not be broken off when the other party does not remain the same.<\/p>\n
Perhaps we may say that there is nothing strange in breaking off a friendship based on usefulness or enjoyment, when our friends no longer have the relevant attributes. For it was because of these attributes that we were the friends. When these are gone, it is reasonable to be friends no longer.<\/p>\n
But we might complain if, when someone was friends with us for our usefulness or pleasantness, he pretended to like us because of our character. For, as we said at the outset, most differences arise between friends when they are not friends in the spirit in which they think they are friends. So when a person has deceived himself and has thought that a friend liked him for his character, when the friend was doing nothing of the kind, that person must blame himself. But when someone has been deceived by the pretenses of the other person, it is just that he should complain against such a deceiver. He will complain with more justice than one does against people who counterfeit money, inasmuch as the wrongdoing is concerned with something more valuable.<\/p>\n
But if one accepts another person as good, and then that person turns out badly and is seen to do so, must one still be friends with him? Surely it is impossible, since not everything can be loved, but only what is good. What is evil neither can nor should be loved; for it is not one’s duty to be a lover of evil, nor to become like what is bad; and we have said that like is dear to like. Must the friendship, then, be forthwith broken off? Or is this not so in all cases, but only when one’s friends are incurable in their wickedness? If they are capable of being reformed, one should rather come to the assistance of their character or their property, inasmuch as this is better and more characteristic of friendship. But a person who breaks off such a friendship would seem to be doing nothing strange. For he did not become friends with a bad person. When his friend has changed, therefore, and he is unable to save him, he gives him up.<\/p>\n
But if one friend remained the same while the other became better and far outstripped him in virtue, should the latter treat the former as a friend? Surely he cannot. When the interval is great this becomes most plain. For example, in the case where the people were friends as children, if one friend remained a child in mind while the other became a fully mature, how could they be friends when they neither approved of the same things nor delighted in and are pained by the same things? For not even with regard to each other will their tastes agree, and without this (as we saw) they cannot be friends; for they cannot spend their lives together. But we have discussed these matters.<\/p>\n
Should one, then, behave no differently towards him than one would if he had never been one’s friend? Surely not. Instead, one should remember one’s former intimacy, and as we think we ought to oblige friends rather than strangers, so to those who have been our friends we ought to make some allowance for our former friendship, when the breach has not been due to excess of wickedness.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":249,"menu_order":16,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":[],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[48],"contributor":[],"license":[],"class_list":["post-225","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","chapter-type-numberless"],"part":220,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/249"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":654,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/225\/revisions\/654"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/220"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/225\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/nicomacheanethics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}