Some of the preconditions of friendship is similarity. Self-love is one of the preconditions of friendship (Hermanson, 2019). Parties recognize the existence of something similar between them. Another condition is equality. For a mutual understanding between the parties, there is need to understand that the two parties are similar and there is no party superior than the other. The other precondition is duties. The parties in friendship understand their duties as friends.
According to Aristotle, there exists three types of friendship. The first one is the utility friendship. The parties derive some benefits from each other. If there is no usefulness of either of the parties involved, there exists no friendship and when they run out of benefits, the friendship gets dissolved (Koutsoubou, 2018). This kind of friendship is shallow and there exists no love between them. This is common in the old people who only pursue benefit. The second one is based on pleasure. One party has to be attracted to the other due to existing conditions such as wit or good looks among other factors. This friendship is dynamic in nature as what is pleasant will change with time. The third friendship is brought by goodness of the parties involved. The two parties have goodness quality and strive to elevate each other’s goodness.
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True friends are treated as ‘end in themselves’ as the friendship is developed by recognizing and understanding who they are. As a means, it means the friendship is used as a tool and can be left when not useful or in need. Complete friendship is one that is just and fair. The complete friendship has each party receiving as much as it provides. Happiness is connected to friendship in the sense that there is need for friendship for one to live a good life. Self-happiness is intertwined with the happiness of others. The shared happiness promotes friendship in itself. The friendship brought by goodness and that based on pleasure yield happiness (Saldarriaga et al, 2015). These kinds of friendship promote the virtuous recognition of the other people therefore promotes existence of good life.
References
Hermanson, L. (2019). Ideas of Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Classical Philosophy. In Friendship, Love, and Brotherhood in Medieval Northern Europe, c. 1000-1200 (pp. 20 40). Brill.
Koutsoubou, M. (2018). Friendship in the Philosophical Thought of Aristotle and Confucius: Convergences and Divergences. In Proceedings of the XXIII World Congress of Philosophy (Vol. 9, pp. 45-50).
Saldarriaga, L. M., Bukowski, W. M., & Greco, C. (2015). Friendship and happiness: A bidirectional dynamic process. In Friendship and happiness (pp. 59-78). Springer, Dordrecht.
