Three kinds of friendship

Feb 05, 2016

According to Aristotle, there are three kinds of friendship based on three kinds of affection that unite people. First, in a friendship of utility , the affection is based on the benefit or use the friends derive from the relationship. Each person gets something out of the friendship that is to his advantage, and the mutual benefit of the relationship is what unites the two people as friends.

Many work-related friendships fall under this category. Let’s say Bob owns a construction company in Boston. He has a friendship with Sam in San Francisco because Sam sells the kind of nails that Bob needs, at the best price. For their business exchanges, Bob and Sam see each other a few times a year, talk on the phone about once a week, and e-mail each other regularly. Over the years of doing business together, they have learned about each other’s careers, families, and interests. They get along well and sincerely wish each other all the best in life. They are friends, but what unites them is the particular benefit they each receive from the friendship: nails for Bob and sales for Sam.

Second, in a pleasant friendship, the basis of affection is the pleasure one gets out of the relationship. One sees the friend as a cause of some pleasure for himself. This friendship is primarily about having fun together. The friends may listen to the same music, play the same sport, enjoy the same form of exercise, live in the same dormitory, or hang out at the same nightclub. The two people may sincerely care about each other and wish each other well in life, but what unites them as friends is primarily the good times they experience together.

Fragile Foundations
Aristotle notes that while useful and pleasant friendships are basic forms of friendship, they do not represent friendship in the fullest sense. Useful and pleasant friendships are the most fragile. They are the least likely to stand the test of time because when the mutual benefits or fun times no longer exist, there is nothing left to unite the two people. For example, if Sam leaves the nail selling business to sell books, what will happen to his friendship with Bob now that he no longer sells nails? Sam and Bob may still exchange Christmas cards and e-mail every once in a while, but since they no longer need to communicate regularly for their business transactions, their friendship most likely will begin to dissolve. The relationship is no longer mutually useful.

Similarly, in the pleasant friendship, when one person’s interests change or one’s friend moves away and is no longer around to share good times, the friendship is likely to fade. This helps explain why friendships among young people shift so often. As they move from high school to college to the professional world, they mature, and their interests, values, moral convictions, and geographical locations change. If their friendships in these transitional years are not based on something more profound than the fact that they happened to live in the same dorm or play the same sport or have fun together, their friendships are likely to dissolve over time. Such friendships based on having good times together are unlikely to continue when one friend is no longer able to share those pleasurable experiences.

Sadly, many people today are very lonely. They never experience friendships that rise above utility or pleasure— that rise above sports, beer, gossip, the office, or hanging out. Many never really have friends with whom they can share what’s deepest on their hearts and what matters most in life. As one young adult expressed, reflecting on the people he hung out with in the past, “The only reason I was friends with those people is that we’d go out, drink, and watch sports. We never really talked. We just didn’t want to go out alone. But two years later I’m not in touch with any one of them.” Another young adult put it more starkly: “I’m not sure I’ve ever had real friends. There were just people around me.”

“True friends are primarily concerned not with what they get out of the friendship but with what is best for the friend.”

Virtuous Friendship
For Aristotle, the third form of friendship is friendship in the fullest sense. It can be called virtuous friendship because the two friends are united not in self-interest but in the pursuit of a common goal: the good life, the moral life that is found in virtue.

The problem with useful and pleasant friendships is that the emphasis is on what I get out of the relationship. However, in the virtuous friendship, the two friends are committed to pursuing something outside themselves, something that goes beyond each of their own self-interests. And it is this higher good that unites them in friendship. Striving side by side toward the good life and encouraging one another in the virtues, true friends are primarily concerned not with what they get out of the friendship but with what is best for the friend and with pursuing the virtuous life with that friend. -- By Edward Sri, author of Men, Women, and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility.