QuestionsWhat is love?There are three kinds of friendship, and only the friendship of virtue wills the friend's good for his own sake
What is love?Willing the other's good

There are three kinds of friendship, and only the friendship of virtue wills the friend's good for his own sake

Perfect friendship (Aristotle)

Aristotle 384 BC · 322 BCObserve, classify, reason: happiness through virtue.
See profile
What it claims

Only the friendship based on virtue is perfect: it is the only one in which we truly love the other, that is, wish his good for his own sake, and the only one that lasts. The others are friendships by resemblance.

Why

We can love for use, pleasure or virtue; only virtue, being stable, makes us wish the friend's good for his own sake.

The same idea through history
Aristotle335 BCNicomachean Ethics, books VIII and IX: the version presented here. The Greek word philia is wider than our "friendship": it also covers affection between parents and children, between spouses, between partners.
Cicero44 BCOn Friendship (Laelius): Cicero takes up the idea that true friendship can exist only between good people and is not reducible to self-interest. A standard reading, which we have not yet checked against the text.
Thomas Aquinas1272Summa Theologiae, II-II, question 23: Thomas calls charity a friendship (amicitia), in Aristotle's sense, between man and God. A standard reading, not checked against the text.
In short

"There are three kinds of friendship, and only the friendship of virtue wills the friend's good for his own sake" is an argument by Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, VIII 2-4 and IX 4, 9 (around 335 BC), 335 BC) on the question "What is love?" (answer: willing the other's good). Its claim: Only the friendship based on virtue is perfect: it is the only one in which we truly love the other, that is, wish his good for his own sake, and the only one that lasts. The others are friendships by resemblance. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P5). AskPhilosophy presents 4 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

Nicomachean Ethics, VIII 2-4 and IX 4, 9 (around 335 BC)
Valid with an implicit premise

For Aristotle there is not first a mysterious feeling: there are reasons for loving someone. We can love a person because they are useful to us, because they please us, or because they are good. In the first two cases we really love what they bring us, and the bond breaks when that stops. In the third case we wish the friend well for his own sake, and the bond lasts as long as his virtue. That is why this argument sits in the camp "willing the other's good": to love is first a will turned towards the other, not an emotion that comes and goes. Aristotle adds that the friend is "another self".

P1We can love someone for three reasons: because he is useful, because he is pleasant, or because he is good. So there are three kinds of friendship.
P2When we love for the useful or the pleasant, we do not love the other for what he is, but for the benefit or pleasure he gives us. These friendships break off when he stops being useful or pleasant.
P3When we love the other for his virtue, we wish his good for his own sake and not by accident. Since virtue is stable, this friendship lasts as long as the friends remain good.
P4In this friendship the friend is "another self": we behave towards him as towards ourselves.
P5 · implicit premiseA friendship is perfect if and only if in it we wish the other's good for his own sake and it lasts.
So only the friendship based on virtue is perfect: it is the only one in which we truly love the other, that is, wish his good for his own sake, and the only one that lasts. The others are friendships by resemblance.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P5, the computer finds a world in which friendship by virtue wishes the friend's good and lasts, in which the other two do not, and yet a friendship by utility is called "perfect": nothing forbids it if "perfect" has no precise meaning.
Valid with P5, a premise Aristotle does not state in this form but that sums up his passage: "perfect" means both "for his own sake" and "lasting". Without P5, nothing links the word "perfect" to the two criteria. To resist the argument one must deny P5 (for instance by saying a friendship can be perfect without lasting) or P1 (by saying there are other reasons to love than these three).
Analogy. It is like the difference between a loyal customer and a real friend of the house. The customer comes back as long as the prices are good: if a competitor does better, he leaves. The friend comes for the people who live there, and comes back even when the house has nothing left to offer him.

Objections

4

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

Michel de Montaigne 1580 · attacks premise 3

In "Of Friendship" (Essays, I, 28), Montaigne says that what we usually call friends and friendships are only acquaintances formed by chance or convenience. His friendship with La Boétie is of another nature: the souls mix until no seam remains where they were joined. If he is pressed to say why he loved him, he can only answer: "because it was he, because it was I." For him, no reason can be given for such a friendship, not even the friend's virtue.

no reply
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 1580, after the author's death (-322).
The debate goes on (our summary) Montaigne does not contradict Aristotle on everything: like him, he puts his friendship far above those of chance and convenience, and he wants it for its own sake. He only refuses to explain it by qualities that can be listed. Aristotle, for his part, asks for time: people cannot know each other before they have shared "the proverbial amount of salt", as the saying he quotes goes (VIII 3). That leaves room for an attachment that virtue alone does not explain. Our reading.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Both descriptions are still defended. The core disagreement is whether we love someone for reasons (their qualities, their virtue) or whether love comes first and the reasons appear afterwards. An open point.
Immanuel Kant 1797 · attacks premise 3

In the Doctrine of Virtue (§ 46), Kant defines perfect friendship as "the union of two persons through equal mutual love and respect". He keeps from Aristotle that friendship cannot rest on mutual advantage. But he adds a difficulty: love draws together, respect keeps apart, and the two are hard to balance. A friend who, out of goodwill, points out the other's faults may hurt his self-esteem. So wishing the friend well is not enough: one must also keep the right distance. Kant even quotes Aristotle: "My dear friends, there is no friend!", to say that perfect friendship is an idea we strive for, seldom reached.

no reply
No reply possible: objection raised in 1797, after the author's death (-322).
The debate goes on (our summary) Kant does not attack Aristotle: he completes his description. For Aristotle too, the friendship of virtue does not mean flattering the friend. The question that remains is whether respect is already contained in wishing the other's good "for his own sake", or is an extra requirement. Our reading.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Readers mostly see complementarity. The point of disagreement is whether goodwill is enough to define love, or whether a second element (respect, distance) must be added. An open point.
D
Diotima (in Plato's Symposium) 380 BC · attacks premise 3

In the Symposium, Diotima describes the ladder of love. One begins by loving one beautiful body, then understands that the beauty of one body is sister to that of others, and learns to slacken the passion for one by counting it a trifle. Love then rises to the beauty of souls, then to beauty itself. For her, love does not stop at one person: it uses the person as a rung towards the beautiful. That is not wishing the beloved's good for his own sake.

no reply
see the argument
We have not yet found a direct reply by Aristote in the texts.
The debate goes on (our summary) Plato's text is earlier than Aristotle and does not target him. Aristotle, who elsewhere criticises Plato's Idea of the Good, describes a friendship that attaches to a particular person, "another self". We found no direct reply to Diotima in these books. Our summary.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Both descriptions of love are still defended. The core disagreement is whether love aims first at a value (the beautiful, the good) through persons, or first at an irreplaceable person. An open point.
Søren Kierkegaard 1847 · attacks premise 4

In Works of Love, Kierkegaard notes that the beloved and the friend are called, "remarkably and profoundly", "the other self, the other I". But selfishness lies in the I. Loving "the other I" would then still be a form of self-love. He cites the phrase in general, without naming Aristotle in this passage. For him, chosen friendship, even devoted, keeps a trace of self-love.

Aristote replies
see the argument
Aristote Aristotle, on self-love (IX 8)
In book IX, Aristotle asks whether one should love oneself or others, and distinguishes two kinds of self-love: that of the bad man, who takes more money, honours and pleasures, and that of the good man. The latter is ready to do anything for his friends, even die for them. He gives up wealth and honours to secure for himself what is noble and honourable.
The debate goes on (our summary) Aristotle does not deny that the good man seeks himself: he says that what he seeks is the noble. Kierkegaard holds that any preference for a single being keeps some self-regard. The question is whether a "noble" self-love is still self-love. We found no passage where one discusses the other. Our summary.
Where the debate stands (our summary)The core disagreement is whether wishing someone well because he is "like me" is a gift or an extension of oneself. An open point.