Aquinas on Friendship

208 Pages·2007·1.31 MB·English

by  Daniel Schwartz

AQUINAS ON FRIENDSHIP
OXFORD PHILOSOPHICAL MONOGRAPHS
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anita avramides r.s. crisp
michael rosen christopher shields
ralph c.s. walker
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Aquinas on Friendship
DANIEL SCHWARTZ
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Preface and Acknowledgements
In the last few decades philosophers have rediscovered friendship as a
distinct topic of interest. Aristotle’s thought has been, justifiably, the
starting point for most philosophical work on friendship, and often
its focus. This renewal of philosophical interest has seldom, however,
translatedintointerestinwhatAquinasandothermedievalphilosophers
hadtosayaboutfriendship.InterestinAquinas’sviewsonfriendshiphas
sofarremainedconfinedmainlytotheologians.¹ThefactthatAquinas’s
viewsonfriendshiparenoteasilyapproachable(wefindthemscattered
throughouthiswork,oftenwithinhighlytheologicaldiscussions)bears
part of the blame for this state of affairs. Probably, though, we should
laysomeoftheblameonthewidespreadperceptionthattheChristian
notion of friendship is far too removed both from the friendship
theorizedbytheGreeksandfromthatwhichweexperienceinourlives.
This book can best be described as a journey into the territory of
Aquinas’s views on friendship. While the purpose of the book is to
acquaint the reader with some of Aquinas’s views on friendship, there
¹ AlistofworksonAquinasonfriendshipfromthelasttwentyyearsshouldinclude:
C.Steel,‘ThomasAquinasonPreferentialLove’,inT.A.F.KellyandP.W.Rosemann
(eds.),Amoramicitiae:OntheLoveThatIsFriendship:EssaysinMedievalThoughtand
BeyondinHonoroftheRev.ProfessorJamesMcEvoy (Leuven:Peeters,2004),437–58;
J.McEvoy,‘TheOtherasOneself:FriendshipandLoveintheThoughtofStThomas
Aquinas’, in J. McEvoy and M. Dunne (eds.), Thomas Aquinas: Approaches to Truth
(Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2002), 16–37,and his ‘Amitie´, attirance et amour chez
S Thomas d’Aquin’, Revue philosophique de Louvain, 91 (1993), 383–408; A. W.
Keaty, ‘Thomas’s Authority for Identifying Charity as Friendship: Aristotle or John
15?’,Thomist,62(1998),581–601;W.H.Principe,‘LovingFriendshipAccordingto
Thomas Aquinas’, in D. Goicoechea (ed.), The Nature and Pursuit of Love (Buffalo:
Prometheus, 1995), 128–41; C. Osborne, Eros Unveiled: Plato and the God of Love
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), chs. 6 and 8; W. Cizewski, ‘Friendship with God:
VariationsonaThemeinAristotle,Aquinas,andMacmurray’,PhilosophyandTheology,
6 (1992), 369–81; J. Porter, ‘De Ordine Caritatis: Charity, Friendship, and Justice
inThomasAquinas’SummaTheologiae’,Thomist,53(1989),197–213;P.J.Wadell,
FriendshipandtheMoral Life (NotreDame:University ofNotreDamePress,1989);
F.Kerr,‘CharityasFriendship’,inB.Davies(ed.),Language,MeaningandGod:Essays
inHonourofHerbertMcCabe(London:GeoffreyChapman,1987),1–23;G.L.Jones,
‘TheologicalTransformationofAristotelianFriendshipintheThoughtofStThomas
Aquinas’,NewScholasticism,61(1987),373–99;J.Bobik,‘AquinasonFriendshipwith
God’, NewScholasticism,60(1986),257–71and his‘Aquinas onCommunicatio,the
FoundationofFriendshipandCaritas’,ModernSchoolman,65(1986),1–19.
viii PrefaceandAcknowledgements
is no attempt to provide an exhaustive description of Aquinas’s theory
of friendship (if we can, at all, speak of such a thing). This is more a
terrestrialexpeditionthanareconnaissanceflight.
TheaimisnotmerelytopresentAquinas’sobservations,comments,
andreflectionsonfriendship,butrathertoengagethemphilosophically.
To do so, Aquinas’s arguments are sympathetically reconstructed and
subjected to critical examination. I also seek to collect along the way
those of Aquinas’s thoughts that may be helpful in guiding our own
reflectionsonfriendship.
ThisbookisintendednotonlyforstudentsofAquinas’stheological,
moral, and political thought and historians of ideas, but also for those
readerswho,whilenotprimarilyinterestedinAquinas,wishtodiscern
the possible roles performed by friendship within the realms of ethics
andpolitics.
My own interest in Aquinas and in friendship developed gradually
as I grew acquainted with his works. It was only when I managed to
transcendmyownprejudicesabouttheologyandscholasticphilosophy
that I became able to appreciate the beauty of Aquinas’s thought, its
breadth, rigour, and depth. Aquinas is far from infallible, but it is
easiertoidentifytheflawsinhisworksifoneapproacheshistextswith
sympathyratherthanhostility.
From the cluster of interrelated problem-based investigations emer-
ges—Icontend—anotionoffriendshipthatismoreflexibleandmore
abletoaccommodatedisagreementandlackofmutualknowledgethan
that proposed by Aristotle. I argue that Aquinas’s reworking of the
elementsofAristotelianfriendshipispartlyaresultofchallengesposed
byChristianideasoffriendshipwithGodandoffriendshipwithfellow
believers(charity).
Aquinas’s deviations from Aristotle also stem, of course, from his
owngeniusandfromhisreceptivenesstonon-Aristoteliantreatmentsof
friendshipandlovesuchasthosefoundinpaganandChristianStoicism
and Neoplatonism, biblical and patristic sources, and in the works of
hiscontemporaries.
From a historical point of view, Aquinas’s thoughts on friendship
help further discredit romanticized images of European medieval soci-
ety which picture these societies as cohesive and close-knit. Aquinas’s
views on friendship can be seen to some extent as a reaction to the
shadowofdoubtwhichconflict,misunderstanding,disagreement,and
split, both at ecclesiastical and political levels, cast over the reality of
Christian friendship. According to Aquinas, such conflicts are often
PrefaceandAcknowledgements ix
consistentwith a form of friendship and involve no moral fault, stem-
ming,rather,fromineliminablefeaturesofthehumancondition(mostly
epistemologicallimitations).
Aquinas’s friendship may also provide a model of friendship that is
more suited to present-day societies than that which Communitarian-
mindedtheoristsfindandpraiseinAristotle.Foronething,Thomistic
friendship seems to require less in the way of unanimity or shared
opinionsthanthatofAristotle.ButevenifwefailtoendorseAquinas’s
model of friendship,his discussions of friendshipremain exemplary in
thattheybeartestimonytotheeffortsofabrightmindsetonenriching
andmodifyingAristotelianfriendshiptosuittherealitiesandintellectual
andspiritualpreoccupationsofhisowntime.
This book is based on the dissertation I wrote for my doctorate at
Oxford. Two of the original chapters have been thoroughly rewritten
(Chapters6and7)andanewchapterhasnowbeenadded(Chapter1).
In addition I have introduced many changes to the rest, making
alterationstocontentsaswellasremovingmuchinessentialmaterial.
ThebookopensinChapter1withanoverviewofthelargerthemes
towhich belongthemorefocused studiesthatmake up therest of the
chapters. Chapter 2 focuses on concord, or union of wills, as a central
featureofAquinas’snotionoffriendship.NextI addressfourdifferent
problems engendered by the view that friends will the same things:
(i) we may not know what the friend wills or why he wills it; (ii) we
may know what he wills, but we find ourselves in circumstances that
makeitunfittingforustowillthesame(Chapter3);(iii)thefriendmay
tellusofhiswillbut wecannotbesure ofhissincerity;(iv) wedonot
know what the friend will will, which is important because friendship
is future oriented, largely based on future expectations (Chapter 5).
Chapter 4 examines the following question: if, as is shown, friendship
is compatible with many different sorts of disunion of wills, when do
we actually fail to satisfy the requirement of union of wills? Further,
inwhichcasesissuchfailuremorallyblameworthy?Theanswertothis
questionevolvesintoadiscussiononthenatureandeffectsofpride.
Thepopular perceptionthatfriendshipisoflittlepoliticalrelevance
becauseitconcernsarealmotherthanthatofjustice—thepre-eminent
political virtue—impels me to probe into the relationship between
friendshipandjustice.Doesfriendship,forAquinas,excluderecourseto
justice? What can belearned about theconnectionbetween friendship
andjusticefromAquinas’sviewthat‘thereisnomeritwithoutcharity’
(Chapter6)?Chapter7explorestheroleplayedbypenitentialformsof