In all dissimilar Footnote 1Or heterogeneous,
i.e., friendships between dissimilar people, e.g. one pleasant and the other useful, so that the benefits they confer on each other are different in kind. This class of friendship has not been named before, thought it has been recognized, e.g. 8.4.1, 2. It is however incorrectly stated here that the notion of proportion has been applied to it; for the benefits exchanged in such friendships, though different in kind, are not proportional,
but actually equal in amount or value, just as much as in the friendships where they are the same in kind; see 8.6.7. The term proportion
has hitherto been used of unequal
friendships, where the superior party bestows more benefit (of whatever kind) than he receives, and equality is only restored by his receiving more affection than he bestows: see 8.7.2, 13.1 (and also 14.3, to which at first sight this passage might be taken to refer). No doubt a friendship might be both dissimilar
and unequal.
That between a good man and a superior in rank who also surpasses him in goodness, which seems to be contemplated at 8.6.6, is a complex example of this nature; the great man confers both material benefit and moral edification, the good man returns moral edification only, but makes up the deficit by the greater regard which the great man’s superior goodness enables him to feel. friendships, it is proportion, as has been said, that establishes equality and preserves the friendship; just as, in the relations between fellow-citizens, the shoemaker receives payment for his shoes, and the weaver and the other craftsmen for their products, according to value rendered.
In these business relationships then a common measure has been devised, namely money, and this is a standard to which all things are referred and by which they are measured. But in sentimental friendships, the lover sometimes complains that his warmest affection meets with no affection in return, it may be because there is nothing in him to arouse affection; while the person loved frequently complains that the lover who formerly promised everything now fulfils none of his promises.
Such disputes occur when pleasure is the motive of the friendship on the lover’s side and profit on the side of the beloved, and when they no longer each possess the desired attribute. For in a friendship based on these motives, a rupture occurs as soon as the parties cease to obtain the things for the sake of which they were friends; seeing that neither loved the other in himself, but some attribute he possessed that was not permanent; so that these friendships are not permanent either. But friendship based on character is disinterested, and therefore lasting, as has been said. Footnote 28.3.7.
Differences arise when the friends do not obtain what they desire, but something else; for not to get what you want is almost the same as not to get anything at all. For instance, there is the story of the man who hired a harper, and promised that the better he played the more he would pay him; but next morning, when the harper asked him to fulfil his promise, he said that he had already paid for the pleasure he had received by the pleasure he had given. Footnote 3Plutarch, Plut. De Alexandri fortuna 2.1, tells the story of the tyrant Dionysius, who promised the musician a talent (there seems no particular point in the sliding scale of payment which Aristotle’s version introduces) , but next day told him that he had already been sufficiently paid by the pleasure of anticipation. This would have been all right if both had wanted pleasure; but when one wants amusement and the other gain, and one gets what he wants and the other does not, it would not be a fair bargain; for it is the thing that a man happens to need that he sets his heart on, and only to get that is he ready to give what he does.
Which party’s business is it to decide the amount of the return due? Should it be assessed by the one who proffers the initial service? Or rather by the one who receives Footnote 4Lit. the one who receives first,
and now has to give a service in return. it, since the other by proffering it seems to leave the matter to him? This we are told was the practice of Protagoras Footnote 5Cf. Plat. Prot. 328b. ; when he gave lessons in any subject, he used to tell his pupil to estimate the value he set upon his knowledge, and accepted a fee of that amount.
In such matters however some people prefer the principle of the wage stated.
Footnote 6Hes. WD 370, μισθὸς δ’ ἀνδρὶ φίλῳ εἰρημένος ἄκριος ἔστω
, let the wage stated to a friend stand good.
But people who take the money in advance, and then, having made extravagant professions, fail to perform what they undertook, naturally meet with complaints because they have not fulfilled their bargain.
Perhaps however the sophists are bound to demand their fees in advance, since nobody would pay money for the knowledge which they possess. Footnote 7i.e., after he has found out in the course of the lessons what the knowledge amounts to. Persons paid in advance then naturally meet with complaints if they do not perform the service for which they have taken the pay.
But in cases where no agreement is come to as to the value of the service, if it is proffered for the recipient’s own sake, as has been said above, Footnote 8Cf. 8.13.2. no complaint arises, for a friendship based on virtue does not give rise to quarrels; and the return made should be in proportion to the intention of the benefactor, since intention is the measure of a friend, and of virtue. This is the principle on which it would seem that payment ought to be made to those who have imparted instruction in philosophy; for the value of their service is not measurable in money, and no honor paid them could be an equivalent, but no doubt all that can be expected is that to them, as to the gods and to our parents, we should make such return as is in our Power.
When on the other hand the gift is not disinterested but made with a view to a recompense, it is no doubt the best thing that a return should be made such as both parties concur in thinking to be what is due. But failing such concurrence, it would seem to be not only inevitable but just that the amount of the return should be fixed by the party that received the initial service, since the donor will have recovered what the recipient really owes when he has been paid the value of the service to him, or the sum that he would have been willing to pay as the price of the pleasure.
For in buying and selling also this seems to be the practice Footnote 9The price is fixed by what the buyer is willing to pay. ; and in some countries the law does not allow actions for the enforcement of voluntary covenants, Footnote 10Cf. 8.13.6. The phrase occurs in Plat. Rep. 556a: cf. the voluntary private transactions
of 5.2.13. on the ground that when you have trusted a man you ought to conclude the transaction as you began it. For it is thought fairer for the price to be fixed by the person who received credit than by the one who gave credit. Footnote 11This sentence seems to come in better at the end of the chapter. The sentences immediately preceding and following have been plausibly rejected as interpolations. For as a rule those who have a thing value it differently from those who want to get it. For one’s own possessions and gifts always seem to one worth a great deal; but nevertheless the repayment is actually determined by the valuation
of the recipient. But he ought no doubt to estimate the gift not at what it seems to him to be worth now that he has received it, but at the value he put on it before he received it.