This chapter definitely makes all the work til now worth it. He even touches on when the parties in a friendship view it differently. Both have to be aligned for a complete friendship. We’ve probably all had friendships where one is more invested than the other or views a closeness that the other doesn’t experience.
Nice chapter. I'm sure most of us have heard about the multiple-generation spanning Harvard study on happiness that ultimately concluded the best predictor of happiness was a healthy set of relationships with other people (the amount needed seems to differ from person to person) - aka, friends and family. Connection with other humans is important, and we must not forget that in our individualistic pursuits.
I think that this chapter is very timely. There has been a lot of talk about the loneliness epidemic and the value of having friends.
Most of my friends are coworkers (thus friends of utility). We seem to care about each other and follow each other’s trials and triumphs, but we rarely, if ever, see anyone outside of work.
It seems cynical to classify my work friends as friends of utility. The satisfaction with their friendship, doesn’t seem to be related to what we can do for each other, but more on proximity and having a common task. The most frequent way these friendships seem to end is when someone changes jobs.
I'm not sure how to reach you on this issue, but it does concern Virtue Ethics. I hope you will find my post and that you will find it useful.
As part of a literature search for another project, I came across the following article: "Reclaiming Virtue Ethics for Economics," by Luigino Bruni and Robert Sugden, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 27, Number 4, pages 141-164. You can get this article using JSTOR, which is free.
The authors note that economics has neglected virtue ethics, despite the strong philosophical roots of economics, and they seek to remedy this neglect. They note that philosophers often criticize the market economy and (jumping ahead a little) argue that economics is complicit in an attack on virtue and on human welfare. (Economists are instead deeply engaged with attempts to solve poverty, inequality, deaths of despair, and so on. In fact many academics have given up much more lucrative private sector jobs to work on solving various social problems.)
In their article Bruni and Sugden argue that virtue ethics implies a set of genuine virtues on the part of participants in the market. See their article for more details.
A question on the chapter. Aristotle refers to "young" and "old". I think he says old people can be a bit "sour". I am curious as to ages associated with these words - what was he thinking? Is a young man 16 or 30? Is old 50, 60, 80?
This is a very good question. We tend to assign the concept of young and old based on our own age at the time. Maybe that could be a point of reference here: What was Aristotle’s age at the time this was written?
I liked Book VIII too and I felt Aristotle really nailed it with the three forms of friendship. After I retired I began to take the time to look up my Type 3 Friends--the complete friends as Aristotle puts it. To my surprise, there were many, going back to school days, college, and graduate school. That does not include my wife, who is the best friend that I have ever had, and one friend of hers who took the time to visit me when I was in hospital. I want to contrast these complete friends with some coworkers I have had. You remember Alexandre Dumas, where in The Three Musketeers the musketeers exclaim "All for one, one for All"? Some of these coworkers instead cried out "All for none, None for All"! They also mistranslated the title, Les Trois Mousquetaires, as The Three Mosquitos. Complete friends: we need them at work and elsewhere.
Ok, now I'm categorising all of my friends. Mercifully, it's not too onerous a task..
This chapter definitely makes all the work til now worth it. He even touches on when the parties in a friendship view it differently. Both have to be aligned for a complete friendship. We’ve probably all had friendships where one is more invested than the other or views a closeness that the other doesn’t experience.
Nice chapter. I'm sure most of us have heard about the multiple-generation spanning Harvard study on happiness that ultimately concluded the best predictor of happiness was a healthy set of relationships with other people (the amount needed seems to differ from person to person) - aka, friends and family. Connection with other humans is important, and we must not forget that in our individualistic pursuits.
I think that this chapter is very timely. There has been a lot of talk about the loneliness epidemic and the value of having friends.
Most of my friends are coworkers (thus friends of utility). We seem to care about each other and follow each other’s trials and triumphs, but we rarely, if ever, see anyone outside of work.
It seems cynical to classify my work friends as friends of utility. The satisfaction with their friendship, doesn’t seem to be related to what we can do for each other, but more on proximity and having a common task. The most frequent way these friendships seem to end is when someone changes jobs.
The older I get, the more I appreciate the world in my own head.
Hi Jared,
I'm not sure how to reach you on this issue, but it does concern Virtue Ethics. I hope you will find my post and that you will find it useful.
As part of a literature search for another project, I came across the following article: "Reclaiming Virtue Ethics for Economics," by Luigino Bruni and Robert Sugden, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Volume 27, Number 4, pages 141-164. You can get this article using JSTOR, which is free.
The authors note that economics has neglected virtue ethics, despite the strong philosophical roots of economics, and they seek to remedy this neglect. They note that philosophers often criticize the market economy and (jumping ahead a little) argue that economics is complicit in an attack on virtue and on human welfare. (Economists are instead deeply engaged with attempts to solve poverty, inequality, deaths of despair, and so on. In fact many academics have given up much more lucrative private sector jobs to work on solving various social problems.)
In their article Bruni and Sugden argue that virtue ethics implies a set of genuine virtues on the part of participants in the market. See their article for more details.
Thanks for the suggestion!
A question on the chapter. Aristotle refers to "young" and "old". I think he says old people can be a bit "sour". I am curious as to ages associated with these words - what was he thinking? Is a young man 16 or 30? Is old 50, 60, 80?
This is a very good question. We tend to assign the concept of young and old based on our own age at the time. Maybe that could be a point of reference here: What was Aristotle’s age at the time this was written?
I believe he was in his 50s
You were right... this chapter made all the confusing paragraphs I encountered previously totally worth it!
I liked Book VIII too and I felt Aristotle really nailed it with the three forms of friendship. After I retired I began to take the time to look up my Type 3 Friends--the complete friends as Aristotle puts it. To my surprise, there were many, going back to school days, college, and graduate school. That does not include my wife, who is the best friend that I have ever had, and one friend of hers who took the time to visit me when I was in hospital. I want to contrast these complete friends with some coworkers I have had. You remember Alexandre Dumas, where in The Three Musketeers the musketeers exclaim "All for one, one for All"? Some of these coworkers instead cried out "All for none, None for All"! They also mistranslated the title, Les Trois Mousquetaires, as The Three Mosquitos. Complete friends: we need them at work and elsewhere.