Abstract: Friendship plays an interesting role in debates in value theory. There is a shared consensus in the psychological and philosophical literature that friendship contributes substantially to well-being, but much disagreement about how exactly it contributes. In moral philosophy, theories that do not recognize the value of friendship or the legitimacy of the obligations that friendship entails are often thought to be thereby deficient. Eudaimonism seems well-placed to be able to explain both the prudential value of friendship and to accommodate its norms into a conception of the ethically good life. But how exactly does friendship contribute to well-being on eudaimonist theories? Is its value ultimately derivative, dependent on the value of virtue? In this paper, I propose to sketch three distinct ways in which friendship contributes to well-being: indirectly, as the beneficiary of our friend’s virtuous actions; directly, as agent of benefit for our friends; and substantively, as mutually reinforcing values and the joint subjects of well-being.
Franco Trivigno is professor of philosophy at IFIKK.