Valentine's Day and Friendship

This Valentine's Day, as I was considering the best way to show my appreciation for my loved ones, I began to think about the nature of love and friendship. In the last article we discussed the importance of putting friendship on our to-do list for the year. Spending time with friends is a way to live a more hyggelig life. And consequently a good life. The good life is the subject of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. In this work he explores the best way in which every person can achieve eudaimonia, or happiness. He spends a large portion of the work on the subject of friendship. Thus friendship must be a key component of happiness according to Aristotle. 

Meik Wiking (author of The Little Book of Hygge) undergoes a similar search for the best way that every person may achieve happiness in his work on Lykke (the Danish word for happiness). He uses Aristotle’s idea of eudaimonia as a measure for happiness. He asks in the happiness survey if people think they have achieved eudaimonia. Eudaimonia is happiness that is intrinsically tied to the idea of end. It is not a fleeting moment of happiness but long lasting. Meik Wiking also states that friendship is a key component of achieving happiness. 

So, what is friendship? Once we understand the nature of friendship a little better then perhaps we can see how it is an important stone in the building of happiness we are building. Aristotle says that even if a man possessed all other goods, he would not choose to live without friends. (Ethics,VIII) But friendship is of three kinds according to Aristotle. The useful, the pleasurable, and the beneficial or virtuous friendship. But, the only true kind of friendship is the virtuous friendship. 

The virtuous friendship is sought for its own sake and has no other motives. This friendship is formed through a desire for the health and well being of the other person involved. Whereas friends of utility are only friends insofar as they provide some benefit for another. And the friends of pleasure constantly think of themselves and how the other person makes them feel. True friends put one another first and do not consider themselves in their actions towards the other. They are truly selfless. The virtuous friendships encompass the useful and pleasurable friendships.

Perhaps in our efforts to make resolutions for this year we can add a resolution to learn more about how to be a good friend to those around us. We can only love what we know, thus we need to learn more about our friends before we can love them properly. Experiences are the best way to grow closer to our friends and discover more things that we love about them. I think we can all agree that a cozy hygge night around the fire is only enhanced by the presence of friends. A night spent talking and asking get-to-know-each-other questions is always rewarding and surprising. I have often been surprised by the things I can learn about people that I have known for years. 

This year and specifically this February I am committed to living the good life through an exploration of the role of friendship in happiness. The hyggelig life, just like the good life, seems to require friendship. Good friends only make us better and help us to know ourselves. And they also make life more enjoyable. They participate in the happiness that we all desire. I have resolved to love my friends according to the standards of the virtuous friendship, through a selfless motive, wishing for their best good. And to get to know them better simply so that I may love them more.