Do I bear the responsibility of my friend’s ‘soul’? I mean: Am I good only if I keep my friend on a good way? Can I be good while letting my friend turn to the dark way?
Thank you, Levente CsTóth, for such a thoughtful question.
There are two questions at play here. It will be helpful to distinguish them. The first question is: Do you bear responsibility for what your friend does? The second question is: What does morality require of you when your friend makes bad choices?
Let me start with the first question. Imagine that Clara thinks that Ann is a notorious liar. Clara knows that Ann and Beth are good friends. Therefore, Clara thinks that Beth is also a notorious liar.
Clara’s reasoning is an instance of the association fallacy. As you can guess from the term ‘fallacy’, most philosophers wouldn’t think too highly of Clara’s reasoning. For all we know, Beth might place great value on telling the truth. Her association with Beth does not prove her moral convictions either way.
An answer to the first question, then, is that one is not guilty by association simply in virtue of being a friend. In this sense, you are not responsible for your friend’s actions – you deserve neither praise for their virtues nor blame for their vices.
Now consider the second question. Does friendship require us to help our friends make good choices?
Philosophers have been discussing friendship for a very long time. For Aristotle, the defining feature of friendship was that friends care for each other for the other person’s sake. (Aristotle had a lot to say about friendship.)
What does it mean to care for others for their sake? For one thing, it means caring for their wellbeing. Sometimes, we are not in the best position to recognise what is best for ourselves. Friends can then help us take a different perspective. Ann can talk Beth out of texting her ex while drunk or persuade her to apply for a job that she isn’t too confident about.
Closer to your question, I think that caring for a friend for their sake can also mean caring for whether they behave in line with their values. Imagine that Ann thinks that fidelity is valuable but is tempted by an affair. Beth would do well to remind her friend of her values.
But now we enter tricky territory. People can reasonably disagree about what is good and valuable. I have friends who are ethical vegans and others who eat meat. The vegans might think that the meat eaters make bad choices, but constant nagging and blaming would make them worse rather than better friends. This is because caring for one’s friends means caring for them the way they are and not for an idealized version of them. Friendship can sometimes require accepting that your friend has different values from you.
What do you think? What makes someone a good friend? Let us know in the comments.
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Image credit: Illustration by Maurice Sendak from a vintage ode to friendship by Janice May Udry (credit)
I am a PhD student at the University of Southampton, having previously done an MRes Philosophy at the University of Reading and a BA in Philosophy and Political Science at Otto-Friedrich-University in Bamberg. I specialize in moral and political philosophy. Thinking about the future fascinates me, and I enjoy teasing apart concepts like rights, risk, harm, and benefit, and thinking about what they can tell us about challenges like climate change.