Marilyn Friedman: Friendship and Moral Growth

1. Marilyn Friedman: Friendship and Moral Growth Friendship is important to morality and to moral development.

2. The nature of commitment to particular persons • Friendship is a relationship of “approximate equality…a mutuality of affection, interest, and benevolence.” (3) • But friends don’t have “claims on our resources.” Instead, the help we want to give results from feeling. • Does this seem like a good definition? • How does it differ from Aristotle’s definition?

3. Friendship within morality • “Commitment to a person is unlike commitment to an abstract moral guideline, such as the moral rules which dictate right or wrong action, the moral values which encompass desirable goals or aspirations, and the moral principles which define methods by which we are to justify rules and values…” (4) • Friendship is about particularlity: “It acknowledges the uniqueness of the friend, and can be said to honor or celebrate that uniqueness. The interests and best interests of the friend become central…to determining which actions are right or wrong…” (4) • What we should do depends on the specifics of the friend.

4. Friendship and values • What is the role of values within a friendship. • We value our friend. But we also are inclined to “take seriously what our friends care about.” (5) If we disagree with a friend’s values, we may change our mind upon seeing how a friend lives.

5. Affection and respect • What is the difference between affection and respect? • Affection is feeling and does not have an evaluative component. One does not judge. • Respect can be of 2 kinds. (1) Is to respect a person as a moral equal. We owe this respect to everyone. Everyone has a basic worth. (2) Is to respect a person based on their qualities and excellences. It is particular, rather than oewed to everyone because they are a person. • A person ‘earns our respect’ “by measuring up to standards we consider worthwhile…”

6. Friendship and Morality • Should our commitment to our friends ever take precedence over our commitment to abstract moral guidelines? • What are some reasonable cases of this?

7. The moral possibilities presented by special relationships • Moral growth can be a result of friendship. • How does this growth occur?

8. Moral growth • (1) “We learn to grasp our experiences in a new light or in different terms.” • (2) We see how other people live and can better grasp how morality works in someone else’s life. Our own experience is limited but seeing how another person lives can give us “experiential or conceptual resources.”

9. Moral growth • (3) Our friends “needs, wants, fears, experiences, projects and dreams” can give us new perspectives to explore “the significance and worth of moral values and standards.” (7) • How does this happen? Can anyone think of examples?

10. Moral witnessing • (4) Friends can be “moral witnesses.” They can share past experiences, give their perspectives. As long as they honestly give their account of what they have done and realized we can use their epxerience as an “’empirical’ base for evaluating..the abstract moral guidelines we already hold and alternatives we might consider.” (7) • (Does it always have to be abstract moral guidelines? What about examples in actions? E.g., if a friend is very unselfish we might learn something about what it is to act altruistically.)

11. We need to test our moral beliefs • We need to get out in the world and see if our moral beliefs are true. Friedman thinks friendship can do this. • “Friendship is a close relationship in which trust, intimacy, and disclosure open for us whole standpoints other than our own.” (8)

12. Examples of 2 kinds of inductive moral knowledge • See bottom of page 8. • Induction—Roughly, knowledge gained from experience in inductive. • (1) You can see how a friend “is affected by various social arrangements in which she lives and by the behavior of others toward her.” (8-9) • (2) You can “observe how the course of her life ‘tests’ the moral guidelines according to which she herself lives…” (9) What is life like for someone who may have different values from oneself?

13. Literature v. friendship • M any moral theorists have seen literature as a path to moral growth. F. wants friendship to also be considered in this way. • How might literature be a path to moral growth?

14. The risks of commitment to particular persons • “…one is as likely to follow a sinner as a saint…” (10) • We may have to consider our friends reliability. • We may have to consider how much to commit to a friend as opposed to morality. • F. won’t resolve these things—but what do you think?