18. Self-Love, Friendship, and the Nature of True Affection
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Lecture Notes
Main Topics #
Self-Love as Foundation and Obstacle to Friendship #
- Proper self-love: The love one has for oneself is the source and model for loving others; a friend is “another self”
- Excessive self-love (pride): Prevents friendship through disdain and scorn; makes one incapable of recognizing another’s worth
- The paradox: Self-love can both enable friendship (when properly ordered) and destroy it (when excessive)
- Divine model: God’s self-love enables His love for creation, as seen in how God loves what others do by first loving Himself
Sin of Self-Love and Self-Knowledge #
- Pride as complete self-absorption prevents any transformation required for love
- The Oracle at Delphi’s wisdom: “Know thyself” (γνῶθι σαυτόν) - self-knowledge reveals one’s true worth and unlovableness
- When the mirror of truth shows one’s actual self, excessive self-love should give way to humility
- Sin of self-love “possesseth all mine eye, and all my soul, and all my every part” - it has complete dominion
Likeness as a Cause of Love #
- Portia reasons from effect to cause: if Bassanio loves Antonio greatly, they must be very alike
- Friends who spend time together develop “equal yoke of love” and must share “like proportion”
- Apparent contradiction: Similar people sometimes conflict (potters competing with potters), yet different craftspeople with proportional similarity (painters and poets) often have sincere friendships
- Resolution: Likeness in one aspect (profession, principle) can either cause conflict or harmony depending on whether it creates competition or complementary expression
Friendship Among Different Types of People #
- Two friends may each be like oneself in different aspects: one in history/politics, another in science/philosophy
- They may be unlike each other yet both be friends to the same person
- This does not contradict likeness as a cause of love because likeness is partial and specific
Time as Essential to True Friendship #
- Romantic love: Can arise at first sight (“whoever loved that loved not at first sight”)
- Friendship: Cannot be instantaneous; requires time to mature
- Formation: Friendship is formed by choice, but matured by time
- Shared memories: Long acquaintance creates “many images in common” - a source of conversation unavailable to new companions
- Fraternal bonds: Siblings who grew up together have a particular advantage in friendship; they share earliest associations and habits
Knowledge and Mutuality in Friendship #
- Friendship requires not only that each wishes good to the other, but that they know they have mutual goodwill
- One can wish well to another without their knowledge, but this is not yet friendship
- Aristotle: “It is not possible to know each other before they have taken the required amount of salt together”
Stability of Virtuous Friendship #
- Unstable friendships based on passion: When passion ends, the purpose ends
- Passion-based proposals: “To ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending doth the purpose lose”
- Rooted friendship: Must be grounded in virtue, which is stable
- Love that is “rooted in virtue’s ground” has “leaves and fruit maintained by beauty’s sun”
- True friendship “bears it out even to the edge of doom” (lasts until death)
Friendship as Revealing One’s True Self #
- A friend is someone with whom one can be free (related etymologically to “friend” and “freedom”)
- Familiar, free, and friendly conversation distinguishes true friendship from formal or declining affection
- When love “begins to sicken and decay, it uses an enforced ceremony”
- Friendship shows when one can “unbosom” oneself, speak without pretense
The Problem of Apparent Friendships #
- Gerich the actor: Had friends but no friend - no one intimate to whom he could unbosom himself
- Because he received universal applause, he had no need for a true friend
- True friendship’s purpose: One who supports and comforts when others do not; a “cordial drop to make the nauseous draft of life go down”
- When all is sweet, there is no need for such comfort
Friendship Among Unequals #
- Aristotle discusses friendship not only among equals but among those of different status (father-son, master-servant, husband-wife)
- The husband should typically be older than the wife to provide stability
- Such friendships require proportional equality of goodwill, not absolute equality
Key Arguments #
Why Proper Self-Love Enables Rather Than Prevents Friendship #
- The commandment “love your neighbor as yourself” presupposes right self-love
- One carries over to another the kind of love one has for oneself
- The man who dies for another still loves himself more truly - he has chosen the nobler, more glorious act
- What appears to be greater love for the other is actually deeper self-love rightly ordered toward one’s true good (the soul and will, not merely the body)
Why Excessive Self-Love Destroys Friendship #
- Excessive self-love (pride) creates disdain and scorn for others
- It prevents the “metamorphosis” that love requires - taking on the shape of what one loves
- The heart grounded in stubborn self-love is hardened against receiving another
- Those who think no face so gracious as their own and no worth above their own cannot value another as worthy
Why Likeness Causes Love But Sometimes Causes Conflict #
- Harmony when dissimilar in direct competition: Painters and poets, though both artists with similar principles of taste, do not compete because their arts are different yet mutually illustrative
- Conflict when similar and competing: Two novelists (Thackeray and Dickens) competed for the same market because they were similar artists in the same field
- The resolution: Likeness is necessary but not sufficient; one must also have complementary rather than conflicting aims
Why Friendship Cannot Be Instantaneous #
- One cannot know another’s virtue (the basis of true friendship) immediately
- Habit and familiarity are necessary to establish trust
- Shared memories create bonds deeper than first impressions
- “Salt taken together” (time spent together) is necessary to know if the other is worthy of love
Important Definitions #
Self-love (philauteia): Not inherently sinful; the proper love of oneself based on one’s true good (soul, virtue, will) rather than merely bodily or animal nature
Excessive self-love (pride): When one’s estimation of oneself prevents recognition of another’s worth; makes genuine love and transformation impossible
Friend (friend/phios): Etymologically connected to freedom and the ability to be oneself; one with whom you can “unbosom” yourself
Familiar, free, and friendly conversation: The natural expression of true friendship, contrasting with formal, ceremonious, or strained interaction
Likeness: A cause of love, though not when it creates direct competition or conflict
To take salt together: A proverb meaning to spend time together in common meals or experience; necessary for friendship to develop
Bosom friend/lover: An intimate friend, one privy to secrets and closest affections; from the intimacy of being held to one’s bosom
Unbosom: To reveal oneself fully without pretense; possible only with a true friend
Rooted love: Love grounded in virtue and thus stable, in contrast to passion-based love which withers when circumstances change
Examples & Illustrations #
From Shakespeare #
Beatrice (Much Ado About Nothing): Exemplifies excessive self-love and pride. She is described as a woman whose “wit values itself so highly that to her all matter else seems weak.” She cannot love because she cannot transform herself to receive another; she is “so self-endeared” that her disdain makes her incapable of affection.
Portia and Bassanio (The Merchant of Venice): Shows how one reasons from the effect of love back to the cause (likeness). Portia has never met Antonio but reasons: “Since I dearly love Bassanio for the kind of man he is, and since Antonio is his very dear friend, Antonio must be like my husband, and therefore I would like him.” She recognizes the friendship in the way Bassanio is “so upset by this news.”
Lorenzo’s praise of friendship: Calls the friendship of Bassanio and Antonio “God-like amity” - friendship itself is divine in nature.
Portia’s reflection on her husband’s friend: She calls Antonio the “semblance of my soul” - identifying him with her husband because the husband and wife are “like soul and body.” The friend of her soul must be like her soul’s companion.
Viola and the Duke (Twelfth Night): The Duke argues that husbands should be older than wives because “our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn than women’s are.” The husband’s greater stability gives the friendship equilibrium.
Helena and Hermia (A Midsummer Night’s Dream): Despite magic causing them to fall in love with different people, Helena reminds Hermia of their childhood friendship: they “like two artificial gods have with our needles created one flower,” “sitting on one cushion,” “both warbling of one song.” They are like “a double cherry seeming parted, but yet in union… two lovely berries molded in one stem, so we with two seeming bodies but one heart.” Time together creates bonds of extraordinary intimacy.
Cassius and Brutus (Julius Caesar): Cassius notes that Brutus has grown cold, no longer showing “a gentleness and show of love as I was wont to have.” When love “begins to sicken and decay, it uses an enforced ceremony.” True friendship is marked by familiarity and freedom; its decline is marked by formal politeness.
Timon (Timon of Athens): Generously gives to all, but when he falls into misfortune, all abandon him except Flavius. This illustrates that utility-based friendships dissolve when usefulness ceases. Timon initially thought himself “wealthy in my friends” but discovers he is “very poor in his friends.” As Boethius noted, misfortune reveals who your true friends are.
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116: “Let me not to the marriage of two minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when an alteration finds… Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom.”
Shakespeare’s Sonnet 74 and Sonnet 55: Emphasize that the spirit (the better part) remains with the friend even when the body dies. “Be contented when that fell arrest without all bail shall carry me away… My spirit is thine, the better part to me.”
From Literature and Biography #
Irving on two artists (Life of Oliver Goldsmith): Explains why painters and poets make sincere friends more readily than two painters or two poets: “Possessed of the same qualities of mind governed by the same principles of taste and natural laws of grace and beauty, but applying them to different yet mutually illustrative arts, they are constantly in sympathy and never in collision with each other.”
Thackeray and Dickens: Two of the most famous 19th-century novelists in England, they were in direct competition. Thackeray’s own daughter asked why he didn’t write more like Dickens, suggesting the awkwardness of their rivalry.
Boswell on Johnson and Wilkes: Boswell managed to be friends with both Samuel Johnson and John Wilkes, “two men more different could perhaps not be selected out of all mankind.” Sir John Pringle observed: “It is not in friendship as in mathematics, where two things, each equal to a third, are equal between themselves.” Boswell agreed with Johnson on middle qualities, and with Wilkes on different middle qualities, but Johnson and Wilkes would not agree with each other.
Samuel Johnson’s letters to Bennet Langton: “I consider our friendship not only as formed by choice, but as matured by time.” And: “We have been long enough acquainted to have many images in common… the friend, you talk over something in the past… to have a source of conversation which neither the learning, nor the wit of a new companion can supply.”
Jane Austen on siblings (Sense and Sensibility or similar): “All the evil and good of their earliest years could be gone over again, and every former united pain and pleasure retraced with the fondest recollection.” Fraternal bonds are strengthened by shared earliest associations.
Johnson to another correspondent: “It is now long since we saw one another… to let friendship die away by negligence and silence… is certainly not wise.” Friendship requires continued contact and communication, like virtue requiring repeated acts to maintain.
Johnson’s reflection on friendship: “It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage, of which when it is, as it must be finally taken away, he that travels on alone will wonder how his esteem could be sold at all. Do not forget me… It is pleasing in the silence of solitude to think that there is one at least, or ever distant, of whose benevolence there is little doubt.”
Gerich the actor: Had friends but no friend - a man who received universal applause and thus had no need for someone “who supports you and comforts you while others do not.” He had no one to whom he wished to “unbosom” himself.
From Homer and Classical Literature #
Achilles and Patroclus (Iliad): The exemplary friendship in classical literature; mentioned several times in the lecture as a model of virtue-based friendship between warriors.
The apostles as brothers: Berquist notes something striking about Christ’s first disciples: Peter and Andrew were brothers, James and John were brothers. All were in the same occupation. This suggests that natural bonds (shared earliest years, shared work) can provide foundation for deepest friendships.
Questions Addressed #
Does self-love contradict loving others? #
No. Proper self-love (loving one’s true good - soul, virtue, will) enables loving others, since one carries over to another the kind of love one has for oneself. The commandment to “love your neighbor as yourself” presupposes right self-love.
Does the man who dies for another love the other more than himself? #
Not necessarily. If one chooses a glorious, noble deed, one is choosing the better part - one is still loving oneself rightly. Even Christ dying on the cross has chosen a nobler thing. The confusion arises because most people think of “self” as primarily the body; in truth, the self is soul and will.
How can likeness cause love if similar craftspeople sometimes compete? #
Likeness is necessary but not sufficient. When two craftspeople are similar in the same field and compete for the same market (like two novelists), conflict arises. But when they are similar in principle (painters and poets both understanding beauty and grace) yet apply their talents to different arts, they support and appreciate each other without collision.
Can I be friends with two people who are not friends with each other? #
Yes. You may be like each person in different aspects of your character - one friend shares your interest in history and politics, another in science and philosophy. They are not friends with each other, but each is your friend. Likeness is partial and specific, not total.
Why is friendship different from romantic love in requiring time? #
Romantic love can arise at first sight based on physical attraction (pleasure). But friendship requires knowing the other’s virtue, which is invisible and only revealed through time, common experience, and shared memory. “Whoever loved that loved not at first sight,” but friends “need salt taken together.”
What makes a friend different from a mere acquaintance or useful associate? #
A true friend is someone with whom you can be free - someone to whom you can “unbosom” yourself without pretense. A friend is not merely someone useful or pleasant, but someone whose virtue you recognize and respect. Formal ceremony marks the decline of friendship into mere acquaintance.
Does friendship require equal status? #
Arristotle addresses friendship among unequals (father-son, husband-wife, master-servant), but with a principle of proportionality. The lecture notes that husbands are typically older, providing stable foundation for the friendship.
Notable Quotes #
“My friend is my next self” - On the proverb that a friend is another self
“Love is a metamorphosis” - Describing love’s requirement to take on the shape of what one loves
“Nature never framed a woman’s heart of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice. Disdain and scorn ride sparkly in her eyes.” - Shakespeare, showing how pride prevents love
“For this sin there is no remedy. Why? Because it’s so grounded inward in my heart” - On excessive self-love
“The knoweth thee sauton. Know thyself” - The Oracle of Delphi, cited as wisdom that reveals one’s true worthiness
“Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love… We must be like each other” - On likeness as necessary to deep friendship
“He had friends but no friend” - On Gerich the actor, illustrating the difference between many associates and a true intimate friend
“Friendship is a cordial drop to make the nauseous draft of life go down” - On friendship’s purpose when all is not sweet
“I consider our friendship not only as formed by choice, but as matured by time” - Samuel Johnson, showing friendship requires both choice and duration
“We have been long enough acquainted to have many images in common” - On shared memory as a source of conversation unique to old friends
“To ourselves in passion we propose, the passion ending doth the purpose lose” - Shakespeare, on why passion-based attachments dissolve
“Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, but bears it out even to the edge of doom” - Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, on true friendship’s constancy
“This love was an eternal plant, whereof the root was fixed in virtue’s ground” - On friendship rooted in virtue rather than transient qualities
“My spirit is thine, the better part to me” - Shakespeare, showing true friendship is of souls, not bodies
“It is not in friendship as in mathematics, where two things, each equal to a third, are equal between themselves” - On why you can be friends with two people who aren’t friends with each other
“It is now long since we saw one another… to let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. In this sense, friendship resembles a virtue, because virtue… is acquired by repeated acts” - Johnson, on friendship requiring maintained contact