Perfect Friendship Essay

In studying friendship through the lense of philosophy and philosophers, specifically Aristotle and Grunebaum, there’s been a lot of discussion about the ‘how’s and ‘what’s and ‘why’s of friendship-- what is a perfect friendship, and what is it based on? Why are friendships that focus on pleasantness or usefulness imperfect? Why do we feel obligations to our friends that we don’t feel to other people? We’ve had these questions answered-- a perfect friendship is, according to Aristotle, one based on the ‘virtuous’ qualities of both people-- ‘virtuous’, in this context, meaning the balance, the middle ground between excess and deficit. Pleasant friendships are ones that are only fun, no content, and useful friendships are ones where the parties just use each other for their possessions. Grunebaum told us that people believe they are more obligated to be good to their friends, rather than strangers, because there is more risk involved in treating those close to you unfairly. However, a question still lingers: why, exactly, do we befriend who we do? No matter if the friendship is perfect, useful, or pleasant, there must be more behind it, right? What makes us decide that a person will be good to have in our lives? It comes down

When meeting someone, one most commonly asks ‘What kind of music do you like?’ or ‘What’s your favorite kind of music?’ or some other easy question that establishes common interests. Aristotle would most likely call these friendships pleasant friendships, unless they later evolved into perfect friendships based on virtues. This is because having these common interests is pleasant-- it gives friends something to talk about and bond over, but rarely do common interests alone allow friends to encourage each other to be better people. Interests create strong friendships, but unless virtues come into play, interests don’t create lasting