Friendship: A Central Moral Value

Excerpt Philosophers in the ancient world took friendship seriously. Among contemporary philosophers, not so much. But that seems to be changing. In recent years there have been a few serious articles and books written by philosophers on various aspects of this apparently central concept. The change might be due to the fact that Aristotle found the concept to be of utmost importance (he dedicated more chapters to friendship than to any other in his major book on ethics) and there has clearly been a renewed interest in the sort of ethics of virtue developed by Aristotle among contemporary philosophers. The change might also be due to the fact that most human beings desire friendship, but so few are currently finding it in any meaningful form. Why write about what we all have and what we all take for granted? Perhaps current books on friendship are like SOS signals for desperate cultures