The Views of Aristotle and the Gospel on Friendship

Aristotle argues that we are each responsible for our own character, It follows, then, that each person is responsible for his or her own happiness or unhappiness. This rests the blame on the individual when he is not happy, Agency is one of the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel We can choose happiness and eternal life by accepting Christ and following his ways, or misery and death by following Satanr In today’s society there is the idea that we don’t have agency — that we can‘t choose our behaviors.

If that were true then it would follow that people are not responsible for their actions and can avoid consequences From this, it is apparent that the Gospel doctrines and Aristotle’s philosophies are irritants to those who promote equality by default. Friendship is a virtue For the young and old, it saves them from error and for those in their prime, it helps them perform noble actions, Aristotle argues that there are different types of friendships There are those who love each other because the other is pleasing to them These friendships dissolve when one person changes, as people are prone to do, and that person is no longer pleasing to the other.

The perfect friendship is between those who are similar in their virtue, For even when one person changes interests or behaviors, if he is still constant in his virtue, the friendship will remain. In real life application, I have found that it is easier to remain friends with someone who has the same moral standards as myself However I can agree with Aristotle when he argues that with an issue of distance in a friendship, the friendship gets harder to maintain Is it better to love yourself or to love someone else? This is the question that Aristotle raises in Book 9, He argues that a bad person will only do things for himself, but that a good person will do noble things for the benefit of others Aristotle makes a very good point that rings true with Latter Day.

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Saints when he says that “one’s best friend is someone who, when he wishes for good things for a person, does so for that person’s sake, even if no one will know about it” (Bartlett 200). In typical Aristotle fashion, however, he doesn‘t completely side with this point of view. He points out that this type of person is a friend of self and so he should love himself most The good man, as Aristotle argues, would employ both of these things. The good man loves himself, but his aspirations are filled with virtue and nobility that his acts not only benefit himself, but those that surround him. In contrast, the corrupt person will do harm to himself and those around him because he follows his base desires.