The Friend as “Another Self” in the Selfishness-Altruism Controversy (Nichomachean Ethics IX 4 and 8).
Keywords:
Friendship, Other selves, Altruism, EgoismAbstract
For several decades, scholars have debated whether the Aristotelian conceptualization of friendship is framed by egoistic or altruistic ethical conceptions. Although the Stagirite holds that the virtuous love and wish the good of their friend "for the sake of the friend himself", and that they are capable of altruistic acts such as sacrificing themselves for their neighbor, he also makes claims consistent with egoism, namely, that friendly relations and the marks of friendship originate and are eminently found in the relationship that the good man maintains with himself, that love for friends proceeds from love for oneself, that everyone is the best friend of himself, and that we should love, first and foremost, ourselves. In this paper, I propose to analyze the passages that have given rise to the polemic in question (IX. 4 and 8) by focusing on the argumentative function played by the premise of the friend as "other self." Since both altruistic and egoistic readings presuppose this premise, an examination of the most relevant interpretations of the friend as "other self" is essential. In short, whether one defends an egoistic or an altruistic conception of virtuous friendship, the crux of the debate is to clarify the Aristotelian conceptualization of the friend as "other self" and the role played by friends in eudaimonia. Here I argue for an "analogical" reading of the friend as "other-self," according to which love for the friend is analogous and irreducible to self-love, which is compatible with the recognition that friendship has as a condition of possibility, the love of the noble self.
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