Every one of the 150 persons that make up our full capacity is in some level of friendship with us, but we can take on no more without letting some go. We have only a finite number of friends, close friends, and friendly acquaintances. This makes the task of finding and maintaining our friends quite important. The college experience is rich with opportunities for students to form good friendships. Serving on a college campus also affords faculty and staff a special occasion to build friendships. The integrated form of life at a typical American college affords the opportunity for students, faculty, and staff to forge some of the deepest, most enduring and life-giving friendships of their lives. Yet few of us have taken enough time to reflect on the magnitude and meaning of developing these relationships. One of the best things all of us can do is to rediscover the classical understanding of friendship.³

Aristotle on Friendship

Even though the famous Greek philosopher Aristotle lived more than 2000 years before the discovery of the Dunbar number, he understood the importance of having friends and wrote extensively on the topic. “Everyone needs friends” is the subtext of much of what he has to say on the topic. “For without friends no one would choose to live, though he had all other goods….”⁴ Aristotle, like Dunbar, distinguishes between those closest to us and people further removed. “Every form of friendship,” he remarks, “involves association.”⁵ Associations come in a variety of forms, but he categorizes them under two broad headings: that of your close friends and that of your regular acquaintances. According to Aristotle, a person’s inner circle is what he calls “the friendship of kindred and that of comrades,” containing immediate family and best friends.⁶ We rely on these people for our emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. The regular acquaintances that fill our lives and populate our wider range of experiences are one’s “fellow-citizens, fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like.”⁷ All of these people matter, thinks Aristotle, because life is dynamic and hard, and times are not always prosperous and full of glee.

Given the harsh realities of life, friendship offers humans some very tangible assistance. According to Aristotle’s extensive discussion of topic, the following benefits of friendship can be observed:

1. It makes life worth living.
2. It provides the opportunity for beneficence.
3. It guards and preserves prosperity.
4. It provides solace in poverty and calamity.
5. It keeps one from error.
6. It supplements the needs of failing abilities of old age.
7. It stimulates noble actions from persons in their prime.
8. It engenders thinking and acting.
9. It connects members of the same species.
10. It binds together travelers.
11. It holds states together.
12. It unifies people in agreement.
13. It expels enemies.
14. It promotes the truest form of justice.
15. It provides proof against slander.⁸

This is an extraordinary list! Friendship can do so much for us that one is hard pressed to overstate its value.

For Aristotle, the value of friendship is not an issue of quantity, but quality. Friendship enhances the quality not only of our life, but also of our dispositions. Honesty, charity, courage, and loyalty are all examples of virtues that good people cultivate and that friendship enhances. Friendship, however, is a special sort of virtue. Think of it as the hub of the wheel of virtue. It allows the other virtues to flourish, unites them together for a common purpose, and offers a corresponding measure of happiness or “justice.” Aristotle describes friendship as a form of practical wisdom that connects the virtues of two persons. In this way, friendship enhances our life and the life of those with whom we come into contact. This is the main reason why Aristotle emphasizes friendship as integral to the quest for personal growth in virtue and the pursuit of the good life.

The pursuit of the good life involves all sorts of friends. Aristotle defines two types of friendship culminating in his discussion of a third—what it means to be good friends. One might think of these three types as levels of friendship that a person might achieve in life. The entry level of friendship is one of pleasure. The next is friendship of utility. The most mature form, for Aristotle, is the good friendship.

1. Friendships of Pleasure

The first level of friendship is based on “pleasure.” Typically, people are drawn together because of some pleasure they share in common. Perhaps they have a similar sense of humor, are attracted to each other’s good looks, or enjoy each other’s company because of compatible personalities or interests. Some college students enjoy intramural sports, such as basketball or flag football; others take regular advantage of the local theater options or join the cappella choir. Friends of this sort gravitate towards others with similar interests. These friends help us enjoy life by enhancing the joy that we get out of many different experiences. Pleasure, in this sense, is a core ingredient in a good and happy life. Even though my own pleasure may be a legitimate reason for maintaining a relationship with another person, by seeking my own pleasure as the end of the friendship, I cannot help but turn my friend into a mere means. In this case I am putting myself before my friend. If the immediate pleasure I receive from being in a friendship with another person is the highest good of that friendship, then the friendship will likely not last and, for Aristotle, becomes the lowest kind of friendship.

2. Friendships of Utility

The second level of friendship is based on what Aristotle calls “utility.” By this, Aristotle is referring to friendships in which each person helps the other achieve some goal, not because we want to see each other prosper as people, but because of what we hope to get from the relationship. Whereas in the case of pleasure, my friend becomes a means for my own pleasure, in this case my friend becomes a means of attaining some form of practical utility. It is about getting from point A to point B and utilizing the other person to help get me there. Aristotle calls friendships of this type “incidental” because it is not in “being the man he is” that a person is loved but only for use. Such friendships are easily dissolved because the love is easily lost. This is not to say that friendships of utility are inherently bad. We need to get from one place to another and people can help us (and we in turn can help them). Nevertheless, such relationships are always contingent on our current needs, and thus not permanent but prone to the winds of change.

3. Good Friendship

The third level of friendship is higher and better than the others. This kind of friendship is based on seeking what Aristotle called “the good.” The good, of course, goes back to Plato. It is the highest form or the source of all that exists. A person is good inasmuch as he or she strives for and thereby participates in the highest good. For Aristotle, good friendship seeks to love another person as a bearer of virtue and as one who is capable of growing in virtue and thus is worthy of happiness. In friendships of this kind, each person seeks the well-being of the other not for the sake of the self, but for the sake of the other. This form of friendship is based on actively loving other people for being who they are and with a view to fostering who they might become. Yet if such goodwill is not received or returned, goodwill fails to culminate in friendship. Friendship requires a pact between two persons based on goodwill flowing in both directions. Good friendship arises when a relationship gradually forms between two good people who are looking for the highest good for each other and thus choose to inhabit shared environments in order to achieve this end. This type of friendship is rare, for it requires shared time and space, and good people reciprocally committed to loving each other more than themselves.