Friendship

Philosophical interest in friendship has revived after a long eclipse. This is due largely to a renewed interest in ancient moral philosophy, in the role of emotion in morality, and in the ethical dimensions of personal relations in general. Questions about friendship are concerned with issues such as whether it is only an instrumental value (a means to other values), or also an intrinsic value – a value in its own right; whether it is a mark of psychological and moral self-sufficiency, or rather of deficiency; and how friendship-love differs from the unconditional love of agapē. Other issues at stake include how – if at all – friendship is related to justice; whether the particularist, partialist perspective of friendship can be reconciled with the universalist, impartialist perspective of morality; and whether friendship is morally neutral.