European University Institute Library

Friendship for virtue, Kristján Kristjánsson

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

Friendship for virtue

electronic resource

dictionaries

1269618026

Kristján Kristjánsson

Oxford scholarship online.

Voluminous bodies of literature continue to be published on Aristotle-inspired virtue ethics within philosophy and social science. No less than two of the ten books of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics are devoted to the topic of friendship, in particular its 'complete' or most developed type as 'friendship for character or virtue'. Yet the salience accorded to friendship within the current virtue ethics literature is not proportionate to the importance accorded to it by Aristotle. Furthermore, in current moral education, where Aristotelianism is all the rage, friendship is rarely mentioned. This book has four main aims. The first is to give the virtue of friendship the pride of place it deserves in contemporary Aristotle-inspired virtue ethics. The second is to integrate Aristotelian theory with recent social scientific research on friendship through mutual adjustments. The third is to retrieve Aristotelian friendship as a moral educational concept, where 'friendship for virtue' is to be understood as 'friendship for virtue development'. The fourth is to offer a more detailed and realistic account than Aristotle did of why even the best of friendships can go stale and dissolve and why the human relationships they represent are so precarious-for example in circumstances where erotic love and friendship clash. Through its revised and applied Aristotelianism, this book makes a contribution to various ongoing debates within moral philosophy, moral psychology and moral education about the salience of friendship-addressing the topic in a way that is accessible both for academics and general readers.--, Provided by publisher

Acknowledgements -- Preface: Motivation, Four Aims and a Roadmap -- List of Tables -- 1. Setting the Scene: Friendship from Aristotle to Contemporary Psychology -- 1.1 The Concept of Friendship and Aristotle's Typology -- 1.2 The Background Theory of Virtue, Flourishing and Education for Character -- 1.3 Aristotle's Naturalism -- 1.4 The History of Friendship from Aristotle Onwards -- 1.5 Contemporary Psychological Research on Friendship -- 2. Fragile Friendships: Instabilities and Terminations -- 2.1 Introduction: Clarifications and Deck-Clearing -- 2.2 Five Potential Problems Affecting Character Friendships between Equals -- 2.3 Five Potential Problems Affecting Character Friendships between Unequals -- 2.4 Where Eros and Philia Clash -- 2.5 Concluding Remarks -- 3. Friendship with a Filter: The Role of Phronesis -- 3.1 Introduction: The Implications of Friendship Not Being a Master Virtue -- 3.2 Williams Redux: Some Reflections on the Problem of Alienation -- 3.3 Phronesis as an Intellectual Filter -- 3.4 Is the 'Extra Thought' in Virtue Ethics also 'One Thought too Many'? -- 3.5 Concluding Remarks -- 4. Grounding Friendships: Reconciling the Moralised and Aestheticised Views -- 4.1 Introduction: Two Views of Grounding -- 4.2 The Moralised View -- 4.3 The Aestheticised View -- 4.4 Towards an Individuality-Adjusted Moralised View of Close Friendships -- 4.5 Concluding Remarks -- 5. How Friendship Cultivates Virtue: Retrieving Friendship as a Moral Educational Concept -- 5.1 Introduction: Resurrecting Aristotelian Friendship for Moral Education -- 5.2 Learning from Character Friends (Soulmates and Mentors) versus Learning from Role Models -- 5.3 The Mechanisms of Learning from Character Friends -- 5.4 How Socially Equal and Unequal Friendship May Lose Their Educational Value and Become Dissolved5.5 Concluding Remarks -- 6. Friendships for Utility: Their Moral Value and an Online Example -- 6.1 Introduction: Context and Questionable Assumption -- 6.2 Some Aristotelian Concepts and Complexities Regarding Moral Development -- 6.3 Levels of Friendships Beneficial for Flourishing, Including Friendships for Utility -- 6.4 A Brief Online Example -- 6.5 Concluding Remarks -- 7. Online Character Friendships: The Example of Epalships -- 7.1 Introduction: Character Friendships and the Cyberworld -- 7.2 Some Problematics of Aristotelian Friendships in Online Contexts -- 7.3 For and Against Online Aristotelian Character Friendships -- 7.4 Penpalship as Character Friendship and How It Can Be Augmented as State-of-the-Art Epalship -- 7.5 Concluding Remarks -- 8. Concluding Remarks: Some Retrospective Reflections on Friendships -- 8.1 Introduction: The Four Aims Revisited -- 8.2 Some Further Insights from Literature -- 8.3 Friendships as a 'Method' of Moral Education -- 8.4 Friendships within the Family -- 8.5 Future Research Directions -- References -- Index