The Nature and Value of Friendship

Abstract

Abstract This chapter presents an account of friendship built around two real-life cases of the author’s close friendships. The essentially historical nature of friendship is emphasized by showing how the other paradigmatic features of friendship—concern and affection, special knowledge, and a desire to share lives—depend upon and are a function of the past interactions of the friends. After a discussion of ways of thinking about friendship that ought to be avoided because they move a philosophical account beyond ordinary experience, the chapter concludes with a discussion of the ending of friendship. Even the very best of close friendships may be terminated, and examining the endings and exitings from friendships can tell us a great deal about the role of friendship in our lives: seeing what we lose and what we cause others to lose when a friendship is terminated reveals what friendship adds to our lives.