Position:Home>Philosophy> The moral standing of friendship for Hobbes and Kant?
Question: The moral standing of friendship for Hobbes and Kant!?
Hi!. I've been asked to write an essay that compares the accounts of Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant in regards to the moral standing of friendship!. I'm not a philosophy major and I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how to answer these questions within the body of my essay:
1!. How would Hobbes and Kant respond to Aristotle's claim that friendship of the highest kind requires mutual moral virtue, and represents the best use of it as well!?
2!. Would Hobbes or Kant consider the idea of friendship to be included in moral behavior at all!?
3!. Who do Hobbes and Kant say we have moral duty to!?
The texts used are Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics", Hobbes' "Leviathan" and Kant's "The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals!."
I'm not asking for an incredibly detailed answer!. I just need to be pointed in the right direction!Www@QuestionHome@Com
Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:
Hobbes conceived of humans as naturally unfriendly, to put it mildly!. Friendship for him is contractual, and so it only exists in so far as both parties get something out of it!. Kant didn't see any moral importance in friendship!. He thought rational duty was the basis of moral virtue!. Friendship is acceptable, but it should not be the basis of moral decisions!.
1!. Hobbes would not see friendship as requiring moral virtue, beyond perhaps not violating the contract, because it is rooted in both party's selfish desires!. Kant, I think, thought that real friendship required both to be rational and autonomous (and so necessarily possessing mora virtue)!. So for him friendship requires mutual morality and rationality!. But friendship is not the "best use" of moral virtue because moral decisions are to be made strictly on a rational, objective basis!.
2!. I don't think either would!.
3!. Kant thinks we have universal rational duties!. Our duty is to other rational individuals and to reason itself!. Immoral behavior for Kant is irrational behavior!. We should treat others as ends and never as means!. Hobbes saw our duties as contractual, and so the duty of the individual is to uphold his or her end of the social contract by following the laws of the sovereign!.
Www@QuestionHome@Com
student of life put it quite nicely!. Hobbes had a very cynical outlook on life, where every human relationship was an unstated contract to prevent mutual slaughter!. Your friends were means to a larger goal (i!.e!. peaceful living) rather than ends in themselves!. Aristotle, of course, would have disagreed!.
You have to keep in mind that Hobbes lived in very dangerous times (17th century England), with people killing each other left and right!. Only the government seemed to be able put any order into our society In other words, his view of human nature was empirical, based on observation, but also very subjective!.
Kant, on the other hand, had no friends to speak of!. His famous saying is "My friends! I have no friends!"!. I'm not sure if that was voluntary or just a sign of his psychological problems!. He wasn't a loner though and had a lot of acquaintances!. Just no one close!.
He justified it with saying that we have a moral obligation to be nice and helpful to all humans, and special treatment simply doesn't make any sense!. If you treat one person one way and another person differently, then you are belying your own moral principles, regardless of who those people are (saint or murderer)!. That's at least my understanding of it!.
Both of these attitudes are very much different from that of Aristotle, whose idea of friendship as a virtue is now a classic, if not a stereotype!.Www@QuestionHome@Com