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Hayley and Jude are seven years old. They live in a new town north of London. Jude's dad decides to move the whole family to Cornwall after his mum has a stroke. Jude and Hayley are distraught at being parted; they have been best friends since they started nursery four years prior. They play together at school; they go to each other's houses after school and in holidays. Neither set of parents expect the friendship to last beyond a few months: "They'll both find new friends eventually". Hayley is upset and cries after the separation. Her dad tries to comfort her saying "You've got other friends. You'll have a new best friend one day". "But I don’t want another friend " says Hayley mournfully, "I want this one back". As a primary school teacher, I have found the most frequently asked question at parent consultation evenings to be not "How is my child doing in their work? What level are they at?" ' but "Does she have many friends? How does she get on with her friends? " Parents of young children seem to worry as much (if not more) about the happiness of their children and the relationships they make with others as they do with their academic progress; they acknowledge the importance of friendship in their desires for the well-being of their children. There is much empirical evidence that those with many friends and/or deep friendship bonds lead happier, healthier lives. A recent newspaper article 1 quoted from some new research from Gallop entitled "Vital Friends: The People You Can't Afford to Live Without " illustrating the empirical importance of personal friendship in such areas as health, poverty and social relationships. The concept of friendship, after a lull, has had a great deal of attention within recent years from philosophers. Whilst the majority of the attention has centred around the Aristotelian conception of friendship and related areas (Sherman, 1987, Pangle, 2003), there have been moves to reinterpret the concept in the light o