The Role of Shared Activity within Aristotelian Friendships. In terms of shared activity, Xxxxxxxxx claims that, in the case of friendship, it is necessary to not only share reciprocal love and engage in virtuous action, but spend time and pursue activities with friends. This is because engaging in activities, regardless of the type of friendship, is necessary for the association to not be called a mere exchange of goodwill, as per the discussion in Section X. Xxxxxxxxx claims, moreover, that performing the activities of friendship is an essential component for friendships to be maintained. For instance, although “distance does not break off the friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it,” it may nevertheless contribute to deepening the absence of the friend, which may actually “seem to make [individuals] forget their friendship; hence the saying ‘out of sight, out of mind’” (NE 1157b10-12). Thus, in order to have a sustained and active friendship, it is necessary for one to regularly engage with the friend. Xxxxxxxxx further claims that performing activities as a collective group, with friends, is necessary for friendship, since there is nothing “so characteristic of friends as living together (since while it is people who are in need that desire benefits, even those who are blessed desire to spend their days together, for solitude suits such people least of all); but people cannot live together if they are not pleasant and do not enjoy the same things, as who are companions seem to do)” (NE 1157b19-24). Here, Xxxxxxxxx is referring to a human need for companionship, as well as the necessity for agents to be pleasant to one another and share in enjoying the same things in order to be called friends. The significance of living together, spending time, and doing activities with the friend becomes more apparent when Xxxxxxxxx claims that those who merely “approve of each other, but do not live together seem to be well-disposed rather than actual friends,” exchanging goodwill rather than genuine love for each other’s characters (NE 1157b17-18). The good friend, then, seeks to live with and actually lives with his friend “for he does so with his pleasure, since the memories of his past acts are delightful and his hopes for the future are good, and therefore pleasant” (NE 1166a24- 26). In a true friendship, it would not be the case that true friends would leave or end their friendships once their goals have been achieved, since, by nature of their characters, their common motivation for the friendship is not mate...
