Notes on: Aristotle on Friendships

'Aristotle on Friendships is taken from the course 'Managing Happiness,' by Arthur Brooks on edX.org.

The Nicomachean Ethics

Around 350 BC Aristotle wrote one of his most influential works, 'The Nicomachean Ethics,' in which he shares his thoughts on happiness, virtue, prudence, and ethical behavior. In the book he also argues that there are three types and levels of friendships.

1. Friendships based on utility. These relationships tend to be transactional in nature, like some of the ones at work which tend to be based on agreements and rarely into meaningful topics like politics, love, or religion.

2. Friendships based on pleasure. These relationships function because both people simply like spending time together. If a person finds their friend funny, interesting, and a source of enjoyment, it is likely a friendship of pleasure.

3. The “perfect” friendship. This type of friendship is based on a bond of virtue and love for an outside source of meaning. Friends enjoy watching soccer together is not enough, by Aristotle’s standards, perfect friendships also elevate your behaviour to virtue. A relationship is perfect when it is based on improving the circumstance of the other person.

Deal Friends and Real Friends

The Greek word telic means to have a goal or end. Atelic means without a goal or end. Similarly, we have telic (based on utility or pleasure) and atelic (based on improving the good of others) friendships. This is the difference between “deal friends” and “real friends.”

According to research, atelic relationships are what bring us true happiness. Our telic relationships ("deal friends”) can bring joyful experiences or perhaps financial prosperity, but these relationships are surface and rarely produce true happiness.

Atelic relationships are based on love for something outside yourself and do not have any terms attached to them. They are not a means to an end, but rather an end in themselves.

Since "real friendships" do not depend on the material success or an end goal, these types of friendships provide unconditional love that is constantly renewable, leading to a deeper sense of satisfaction and longterm source of happiness.