Letter From The Editors

This year we endeavored to highlight a wide variety of philosophical topics, as a kind of love-letter to the discipline, with its various far-reaching areas of inquiry. We have chosen papers that sparked our curiosity, challenged us to think differently, and fostered the kind of conversations which require us to critically assess the assumptions which inform our everyday lives. Many thanks to our editors, artists, and writers who made this edition possible.

Anamnesis begins with an examination of how - if at all - legal punishment can be justly administered within predominant ethical conceptions of justice and utility.

John Hanson from Colby College considers the conceptual complexities separating legal and non-legal punishment, and how, in teasing apart the difference between these kinds of cases, the concept becomes increasingly elusive.

The next essay in Anamnesis challenges us to consider whether our understanding of the phenomenon of time precludes the existence, or at least intellectual appropriation, of certain kinds of knowledge. Cadenkumar Hise from California State University, Fullerton grapples with the epistemological implications of A- and B-theories of time, and whether we are cognitively and linguistically equipped to comprehend "eternal truths."

As an introductory piece to examine the dynamic intercourse of philosophy and life, William Kim from University of Notre Dame layered out for us the socratesian tradition of a formative relationship between friendship and identity; with an abstractive overview of atimeless debate that spans out our two-thousand-years of intellectual history, we try to record the process of how pure philosophical contemplations strive to structuralize, review, and reinvent the dynamics of life within this intercourse.

We hope you enjoy.

-Adley Vogel, Alexix (Yuan) Cao, and Hannah Zhao

Mission Statement & Acknowledgements

This year's edition is once again dedicated to and in memory of Hank Bedingheld, who not only paved the way for this volume of Anamnesis but also enriched the lives and philosophic hearts of those around him.

Anamnesis is the student-edited philosophy journal of Colorado College. The journal publishes philosophical undergraduate essays from colleges and universities worldwide. Colorado College students founded the journal in order to give their peers a taste of what the discipline can be at its best. In line with this goal, we aim to publish clearly written, elegantly argued essays. We also strive to publish essays that tackle the most interesting, dithcult, and pressing issues in both philosophy and our lives.

We would like to thank Cutler Publications and the Colorado College Philosophy Department for making the journal possible this year. Special thanks to Karen West, Zeke Lloyd, Sienna Busby, Helen Daly, Doug Edlin, Alberto Hernandez-Lemus and Jonathan Lee for their support.

We would also like to acknowledge that Colorado College is located within the unceded territory of the Ute Peoples.

Punishment: Definitions, Justifications, Applications

What are we doing when we punish criminals, and how might it be

justified? Must the punishment fit the crime?

John Hanson • Colby College

I. Introduction

The murder of George Floyd in the Summer of 2020 ignited a nationwide wave of protests, riots, and proposed political changes. Among these political reactions was the movement to “defund” the police, related to but distinct from movements to abolish either the police, prisons, or the criminal justice system as a whole. What these movements share is a skepticism of punitive, carceral police power as a way to manage public life and promote security. While little time has passed since and we can therefore not be sure of the political outcome of the protests of the Summer of 2020, it is undeniable that Floyd’s killing threw into sharp relief not just the justice (or lack thereof) of our criminal justice system, but also the objections to that system’s claim to utility. In this paper, I hope to show how the relationship between the ethical values of justice and utility informs how–indeed whether at all–legal punishment can be justly administered. To that end, in this essay I will evaluate ethical accounts of punishment, definitions of punishment, and applications of punishment theory.

Definitions and Terms

I wish to begin with a differentiation between two related but distinct philosophical questions on punishment: first, there are varying legal or definitional accounts of punishment–seeking to explain what it is we are doing when we punish people legally, and how the act of punishment differs from imposition of force or violence more generally. There are also contrasting ethical theories of just punishment, which explore when and how punishment can be just. The former disagree over what constitutes punishment, the latter over what constitutes just punishment. It would be naïve to assume that there is no connection between the questions of what punishment is on the one hand, and when punishment is justified on the other. Therefore, throughout this piece I will evaluate arguments on both issues, being careful all the same not to conflate the two. 

To the first question, punishment at the very least “involves the imposition of something that is intended to be burdensome or painful, on a supposed offender for a supposed crime, by a person or body who claims the authority to do so.” The utilitarian punishment theory justifies punishment “​​as a cost-effective means to certain independently identifiable goods.” Utilitarians typically see deterrence (incentivizing people against committing crimes), incapacitation (incarcerating criminals to prevent them from committing more crimes), and reform (rehabilitating criminals so that they are less likely to offend once freed) as valid functions of punishment. 

Utilitarians need not include criminal desert in their calculus; any instance of criminals “getting what they deserve” is incidental. Retributivists disagree. They argue that criminals should receive punishment commensurate with their offense; we can think of retributivists as accepting the premises of the following two questions: “why do the guilty deserve to suffer [. . .] and what do they deserve to suffer?” Finally, prison abolitionists believe legal punishment “cannot be justified and should be abolished.” Far from exhaustive accounts, these encyclopedia definitions only scratch the surface of what is a contentious and evolving debate. 

What I Will Argue and How

Punishment theorist and ethicist Steven Sverdlik’s view of punishment, although it sticks to a single definition of punishment, is the most appealing political account because it explains legal punishment without resorting to a preconceived notion of a legal offense. While utilitarian claims make sense on the general aim of punishment as promoting social order and deterring against crime, retributivist arguments on the minimalistic principle–that nobody should be punished more than they deserve to be–are satisfactory for the distribution of punishment among the guilty. In the following sections, I will bring out what I believe to be a good starting-point definition of punishment; I will then examine this definition, noting ways that scholars have convincingly (Sverdlik) or unconvincingly (Feinberg) objected to it. I will also look at a different definition of punishment (McCloskey) which starts from different categorical assumptions on legal punishment specifically. The first set of definitions are paradigmatic insofar as they hold that legal punishment is a special or exemplary case of punishment as a concept, and that all other uses in everyday language are inaccurate. McCloskey’s non-paradigmatic definition, on the other hand, rejects the notion that legal punishment is privileged. I will then move on to discuss retributivist theories of just punishment, and what I perceive to be some faults with those theories. Next I will turn to utilitarian theories of just punishment, and some objections raised to those theories. Throughout the paper I will try and make clear why I subscribe to Steven Sverdlik’s definition of punishment as: harm intentionally inflicted by an authority; on the basis of a harmful act; on the doer of that harmful act; where the actor had both fair opportunity and capacity not to commit the act.

II. On the Nature of Punishment

Surveying various contested definitions and accounts of punishment makes clear the difficulties in positing a rigid conception of punishment. I will try to show how the contested nature of punishment weighs heavily on debates over the justification of punishment, and on real-life applications of those debates. Any thorough definition of punishment must explain the nature of an offense, the nature of an excuse, and the way punishment is imputed. With that in mind, Sverdlik’s representational definition based around harmful acts, allowing for excuse-based exceptions, is the most convincing.

H. L. A. Hart’s Paradigmatic Definition of Punishment

We start with the definition of punishment promulgated by H. L. A. Hart. Seeking to support his thesis that any count of punishment must describe it as a ”compromise between conflicting principles,” Hart’s definition does not point to a necessarily utilitarian or retributivist conclusion. He lists five necessary conditions of punishment: It must consist of unpleasant consequences; It must be for an offense against legal rules; It must be of an actual or supposed offender for their offense; it must be intentionally administered by others; and it must be administered by a legal system or authority against which the offense was committed. 

One must then, according to Hart, consider the following cases not to be true punishment, but rather to be “parasitic” on the real meaning of the term: punishment for the breach of “non-legal rules,” that is to say, punishment outside of legal institutions, in the classroom or the family for instance; “vicarious” or “collective” punishment; and punishment of those not supposed to have offended. The latter two cases follow Hart’s contention that punishment is necessarily of the guilty (or supposed to be guilty), and that punishment of those not supposed to be guilty is by definition not punishment. We will see, in criticisms from retributivists and utilitarians alike, that Hart’s is not an exhaustive account of punishment. Take first, from the work of moral philosopher Elizabeth L. Beardsley, the point that we cannot assume that we “suppose” guilty those whom we subject to punishment. Anyone would admit that the history of criminal justice is rife with cases of planted evidence, manipulated testimony, and dubious verdicts and rulings. To that end, Sverdlik adopts Beardsley’s clarification that we “represent” the punished as guilty; we do not necessarily suppose them to be guilty. 

Legal philosopher Richard A. Wassterstrom objects to Hart’s account of punishment on the grounds that Hart does not sufficiently address the intuitive distinction between criminal punishment and civil damages or restitution. In the case of the latter, there is not usually an implied desire to punish the defendant except for as a means to make the plaintiff whole. Reflecting a focus on criminal as opposed to civil wrongdoing, Wassterstrom’s definition of punishment lists the following conditions: there must be a “deprivation essential to the act,” that is, the treatment must be unpleasant for unpleasantness’ sake; there must be a supposition (“representation'' if we take Beardsley’s amendment) of wrongdoing; and the criminal must be aware that the unpleasantness is for the wrongdoing. Under this account, the (represented) criminal acts of the punished subject induce the application of punishment for its own sake. Wasserstom’s definition, though it speaks not of the justice of punishment, comes off as retributivist insofar as it makes the descriptive assertion that punishment is necessarily admonishing and therefore never merely instrumental. It is therefore incompatible with utilitarianism, which cannot claim that the harm of punishment is essential to the act. Imagine a utilitarian criminal justice system which only claims to punish criminals, and yet occasionally spares them their punishment, on the condition that the criminals never reveal this secret leniency, so that the deterrent effect of the punishment remains in place. It is unclear how such a system, if maintained, could be said not to promote a greater total good than a system in which punishment is actually carried out. It is clear, then, that the harm of punishment in a utilitarian conception of criminal justice is only ever instrumental, typically as a deterrent against would-be criminals.

Sverdlik’s own definition of punishment, however, pays special attention to the exceptions to general rules of punishment. His first four conditions are reminiscent of the preceding accounts. Sverdlik goes on to add two conditions that address the issue of exceptions to legal rules. The first is that, when X punishes Y, X “represents Y as having had a fair opportunity” to avoid committing the harmful act. Second, in punishing Y, X also “represents Y as having had the capacity” to avoid committing the harmful act. The first of these excuse conditions excludes cases beyond reasonable precaution, where we do not hold people criminally liable for the consequences of their actions they had no fair opportunity to foresee. The second covers longer-term impairments on people’s abilities such as critical-thinking skills or maturity–impairments which we accept as rendering these people (children, the insane, etc.) not responsible for their actions.

Finally, Joel Feinberg’s response to Hart’s account of punishment argues that Hart fails to appropriately distinguish a punishment from a penalty. According to Feinberg there is an intuitive difference between something like a traffic ticket or parking fine on the one hand and the carceral punishment of imprisonment on the other, a difference he seeks to capture through the “condemnatory aspect” of punishment which is absent from a penalty. Punishment contains both a rational judgment that the offender has transgressed a serious norm or rule, what Sverdlik calls the “cognitive,” and the “emotive” reaction–call it contempt, disgust, etc.–that the offense provokes, and which the punishment seeks to communicate. I do not think that punishment is uniquely positioned to communicate that reaction. Criminals are often ostracized socially when their heinous acts are made public, but we do not think of that social backlash as punishment.

It seems difficult to come up with a universal definition of an “offense” other than that class of actions which incite punishment by an authority. Punishment must be for an offense, and offenses are those things by whose commission we expose ourselves to punishment. To his credit, Sverdlik declines to include “offense” in his definition of punishment, opting instead for a “harmful act” and avoiding the redundant statement that a punishment must be for an offense. Yet the substitution of a concept entailing guilt (offense) for one entailing merely harm (“harmful act”) is not entirely satisfactory. We often punish people for victimless crimes, but I do not see an easy way to define “offense” without the concept of punishment other than that it typically involves a harm.

Applications of Sverdlik’s Definition

Having been most convinced by Sverdlik’s definition of punishment, I will now turn to three of its applications to real life. The first is the issue of punishment of innocent people. Using Beardsley’s language of the “representation” of guilt, we see that punishment of the innocent necessarily constitutes fraud by the punishing authority. To knowingly punish the innocent, even if justified by other (utilitarian) considerations, will always mean declaring guilty a victim known not to be guilty. Second comes the issue of punishment on strict liability, which exists where defendants are liable for their actions regardless of intent. How might Sverdlik’s definition cover punishment of people who had no intent to act unlawfully? Would those people have had “fair opportunity” to avoid their offenses? Sverdlik gets around this problem by arguing that the time-scale relevant for “fair opportunity” extends much further back in those instances that typically fall under strict liability than it otherwise does. For example, milk producers are strictly liable for spoiled or otherwise contaminated milk. The fact that this is known to milk producers and to those who wish to become milk producers, however, means that all of us have a fair opportunity to avoid prosecution for selling contaminated milk products–the liability and risks involved are clearly stated.

Finally, Sverdlik tackles the ethical and constitutional discourse over pre-trial detention. Because the Eighth Amendment forbids “cruel and unusual punishment” and is interpreted as requiring conviction before punishment can be inflicted, defining pre-trial detention as punishment would seem to constitutionally forbid the practice. Perhaps to acknowledge the massive utility gained by the state’s ability to incapacitate suspected criminals before they can abscond, U.S. courts have historically declined to label pre-trial detention as punishment. However, upon further inspection, we see that we cannot group pre-trial detention together with those other, non-punitive government policies which take from or otherwise disadvantage the innocent. Conscription in the military and medical quarantine are two examples of government impositions on the innocent. According to Sverdlik, however, these cases are distinguished by the government typically attempting to “make up the losses” incurred by those imposed on. Leaving aside possible exceptions to this trend, we can accept that a government’s direct intent in the draft or in quarantining people is not harmful. 

Consider as well the example of taxation, in which the government takes from people on pain of fine or imprisonment. The government does not in fact attempt to “make whole” its taxpayers, and the harm inflicted is sometimes directly intended, in cases of taxes designed to disincentivize certain behaviors (carbon taxes, for example.) In the case of punishment, however, the harm is always directly intended and essential to the act; the legal maxim that no person is to profit from their wrongdoing bears this out, exemplified by murderers being unable to inherit from their victims. Applying the above considerations to pre-trial detention, we do not see any government attempt to “make whole” those it detains before trial; the state does not, for example, compensate on acquittal. This suggests that if pre-trial detention is not punishment, then it is something close to taxation: a government imposition which does not necessarily represent the victim as having done wrong, but which does not attempt to repair the harm it inflicts.

On Sverdlik’s Exceptions and Free Will

At this point I will comment briefly on the relation of Sverdlik’s definition to the topic of free will. Robert Sapolsky recently argued that free will, even in its “mitigated” form, holds little water in light of recent insights from neuroscience which support a deterministic outlook over a metaphysical libertarianism. Similarly, Harry G. Frankfurt’s thought experiments show us that free will cannot always equate to moral responsibility, because we can imagine scenarios in which an agent’s free will and intent do not prevent their actions from being overdetermined. To fit Sapolsky and Frankfurt’s contributions into Sverdlik’s model, let us say that Frankfurt brings up the case of intentional criminal acts without fair opportunity to avoid them, and Sapolsky holds that criminals do not have the capacity to avoid committing their crimes.

I do not think that either of these scholars’ points pose a real problem for Sverdlik’s definition of punishment. The account he gives is descriptive, and says little explicitly about just and unjust punishment. More importantly, the emphasis on “representation” removes any pretense of objective fact from punishment. Even if Sapolsky is correct that free will does not exist, that does not necessarily stop courts from representing it to exist; in order to hold that legal punishment is always unjust, one would have to believe that representing a falsehood–in this case the existence of free will and the criminal’s possessing it–is sufficient to render a punishment unjust. Doing so would require, in other words, a normative judgment, something Sapolsky and Frankfurt’s descriptive accounts of determinism avoid. 

H.J. McCloskey’s Non-Paradigmatic Definition of Punishment

Against Hart’s concept of standard (legal) and sub-standard (non-legal) forms of punishment, H. J. McCloskey rejects the idea of a paradigmatic case of punishment. He details the similarities and differences between punishment as it appears in various institutions, including but not prioritizing legal punishment. To take one of McCloskey’s examples, education allows punishment in the absence of a clear, determinate offense. This is because when dealing with children, it is not as if all possible offenses can be announced or indicated in advance. Anybody who has worked with kids of a certain age will tell you that they excel at finding loopholes to any rules spelled out explicitly. In sports and games, the distinction between the penalty and the punishment seems especially relevant. Most sports with officiating have a schedule of offenses, the lower of which barely disrupt gameplay and typically do not come with the condemnation or “emotive aspect” Feinberg discussed. Many sports do, however, have punishments in the form of ejections or technical fouls which clearly do carry some disavowal of the behavior by the referee. McCloskey argues that, concerning Distribution of Amount, sports and games are usually much more concerned with consistency than with commensurability, e. g. we do not assume that ejection from a baseball game is an inherently appropriate punishment proportional to disrespecting the umpire, but we do expect all managers to be held to the same standard of what is and is not grounds for ejection. 

McCloskey makes a compelling case for examining more closely the rules of punishment outside the criminal justice system; Sverdlik's account, because it identifies specific procedural conditions of punishment, like the imputation of guilt one the one hand and a specific guilty subject on the other, seems most appropriate for the concept of punishment as a legal phenomenon. 

III. On Retributivist Justifications for Punishment

In this section I will present different and contrasting attempts to define retributivism, calling attention to different ideas under the retributivist umbrella. Along with these accounts I will discuss objections to those definitions of retributivism, much as I did with the varying definitions of punishment.

John Cottingham’s work identifying different varieties of retributivism demonstrates the difficulty in pinning down one universal retributivist theory. Of the nine that he catalogs in his list, two spring to mind as especially significant. The first is minimalism, the idea that punishment should never exceed what is warranted by the offense. Minimalism opposes the utilitarian deterrence theory, which in certain situations might call for outsize punishments to deter potential criminals.

The second and more theoretically fraught form of retributivism is unfair-advantage theory, which argues that criminals take an advantage over law-abiding citizens in the commission of crimes, and that punishment ought to nullify this unfair advantage. Michael Davis has proposed one controversial method to index the relative unfair advantage taken in the commission of different crimes. He imagines an auction for licenses to commit certain crimes, where criminals could buy licenses functionally similar to fish and game hunting licenses which make otherwise criminal acts legal. The goal of this thought experiment is that the relative prices of those licenses, determined by the relative demand criminals have for licenses excusing different crimes, would reveal the unfair advantage criminals expect to gain from the commission of those respective crimes.  However, Scheid writes, the basic problem with the auction model is that it begs the question of the inherent desert attached to specific crimes. Criminals would only want to buy crime licenses to avoid the punishments that already exist, so the auction model assumes an already-existing schedule of punishment. Since the entire purpose of the model is to determine what punishments ought to be, this question-begging presents a fatal flaw in the unfair-advantage theory of punishment.

Other theorists have tried different concepts of retributivism. David Dolinko distinguishes “bold” retributivism from “modest” retributivism, where the former takes criminal desert and the inherent goodness of punishment as both the moral and rational justification for punishment, and the latter considers criminal desert only the moral justification of punishment, saying nothing about its rational justification. Modest retributivism acknowledges what Dolinko calls the “gap between the inherent goodness of punishment and the permissibility of prosecuting punishment,” in which we accept the fact that criminals deserve to be punished but do not claim we are always justified or permitted to bring about that punishment. Ultimately, I think these retributivist accounts of punishment struggle to avoid confusing retribution with restitution. The unfair advantage theory of punishment suggests that the unfair advantage the criminal takes comes at the expense of law-abiding citizens, but criminal retribution need not have a specific subject who is harmed. Real retributivists must argue the crime is wrong in itself, regardless of the criminal’s gain or the victim’s loss, and are therefore not in a position to account for restitution as a function of punishment.

IV. On Utilitarian Justifications for Punishment

While utilitarians may disagree on the right actions to bring about maximum happiness, there is considerably less theoretical variation than in the retributivist camp; whether for purposes of deterrence, incapacitation, or reform, punishment is viewed by utilitarians with relative consensus compared to retributivists. 

Hart’s utilitarian theory of punishment, which takes as the General Justifying Aim of punishment the furtherance of order, safety, and planning for the future, still leaves room for retributivist principles surrounding the severity of punishment for a given crime (Distribution in Amount.) Consider, however, as a different approach to utilitarianism, the summary of deterrence theory offered by David Dolinko: “it’s right to punish criminals because doing so minimizes the net level of suffering.” McCloskey, for his part, thinks that utilitarianism cannot compromise with retributivist ideals.

In his piece “Utilitarian and Retributive Punishment,” McCloskey also argues three inevitable consequences of utilitarianism, the first being that utilitarians may be compelled to punish those not responsible for their actions, if doing so would restore faith in the rule of law. Second, utilitarians may be forced to punish innocent people, if the citizenry prefer that they do so. Lastly, utilitarians may have to give out punishments greater than what is deserved, in order to deter criminals. McCloskey’s criticism is that while utilitarians can recognize the harm brought by these miscarriages of justice, it cannot conceive of them as bad in themselves, just like it cannot conceive of criminal offenses as bad in themselves.

Saul Smilansky levels a similar criticism of utilitarianism as promoting unjust outcomes in punishment, based more on real-life policy issues. Through standards like reasonable doubt, due process, and rules on the admissibility of evidence, our criminal justice system makes it very difficult to convict innocent people, even if doing so results in some guilty criminals walking free. Smilansky takes as his premise that some amount of loosening of these rules of procedure would result in a gain in utility (more criminals are imprisoned, the deterrence against crime is greater, etc.) and also result in a few more innocent people being convicted. A utilitarian, Smilansky argues, would be forced to admit that a policy change that improves overall utility–loosening rules of procedure–would cause unjust outcomes, namely more convictions of innocent people.

V. In Summary 

Retributivism and Utilitarianism, however defined and regardless of their internal coherence, provide interesting counterarguments to the idea of criminal justice system abolition, insofar as they propose scenarios in which punishment would be justified. The complexity of punishment also prompts us to reconsider non-legal cases of punishment, institutional or otherwise, and suggests that legal punishment, if not a paradigmatic case, is at least a distinct case of punishment, with its own rules and standards. It invites us to look at family, education, and other social groups through the lens of how they promulgate written or unwritten rules. From this perspective it may even appear plausible that the nature of punishment in a given institution is essential to the nature of that institution—might we say that a family that sets out in writing all its rules and punishments has transgressed against what it means to be a family? Punishment shows itself to be a slippery concept that eludes both definition and justification. Lawmakers, criminologists, and others ought to investigate first their own beliefs about punishment before assuming them to be universal. 

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 Against Eternal Truth in the Metaphysics of Time

Cadenkumar Hise • California State University, Fullerton

Introduction

An ongoing debate within contemporary metaphysics of time involves discerning which theory of time is real. The two most popular contenders within this debate are the A-theory of time and the B-theory of time. The A-theory consists of a series of positions of time as running from past to present to future or the opposite. Time can be understood here as a linear trail that traces the continuity of time. The B-theory consists of a series of positions of time as either earlier or later than another position of time. Time in the B-theory does not ‘move’ in the same way as in the A-theory, but is rather understood to be relational. Both theories of time have robust defenses and take on many different forms. 

Adapting Michael Devitt’s definition of metaphysical realism, a given theory of time must hold that the two following premises are true in order to be classified as real:

1. Time can be said to exist.

2. Time exists objectively, and independently of our cognitive activities. 

A given theory of time is true iff both of the premises above are true. I will argue that the B-theory of time is real, but cannot and ought not reach toward eternal truth. In Section 2, I will explicate the A-theory and show that it does not meet premise (1) or premise (2). In Section 3, I will show how the B-theory solves the problems of the A-theory and meets premise (1) and premise (2). In Section 4, I will argue that the B-theory problematically reaches toward eternal truth. I will show that it cannot reach eternal truth, and is therefore not real by its own standards. I will conclude from here that, in order for any theory of time to be real, it must not reach toward eternal truth. 

§2: Indexicals and Truth-Values

The version of the A-theory that I will be focusing on in this paper is presentism. Recall that the A series of time consists of events running from far past, to near past, to present, to near and far future. The presentist will argue that only the present is real, that it is unique and privileged in the sense that it is the only real, actual world. A. N. Prior argues for this by saying that “the reality of the present consists in what the reality of anything else consists in, namely the absence of a qualifying prefix.” A qualifying prefix justifies, or qualifies, the reality of a statement. Prior gives us the example of a hypothetical professor named Scott lecturing. To say that Scott will lecture in the future, we must say, “It will be the case that Scott is lecturing.” To say that Scott has already lectured, we must say, “It was the case that Scott is lecturing.” To say that Scott’s lecturing is taking place in the present, we say, “Scott is lecturing.” To Prior, the lack of a qualifying prefix in “Scott is lecturing” constitutes the reality of the present over the past or future. Fictional, mythological, or imaginary objects and objects from the past or future need qualifying prefixes for us to discuss them in the present. Therefore, according to Prior, they are not real. A past fact may qualify as real and a fact at the present qualifies as real. Put differently, insofar as something remains true or is true, it is real and exists in the present. This conception of reality is constantly shifting and changing, as present facts shift and change as time progresses.

Dean Zimmerman also defends presentism through the use of a “serious tenser” approach. Because propositions are tensed entities, they are not always true or false, but are, were, or will be true or false. Their truth or falsity is a tensed matter. For example, take:

1. The apple is (presently) green.

2. The apple was green.

Imagine the apple starts out green at t1. At t2 the apple begins to turn red, and at t3 the apple is red. At t1, (a) is true and (b) is false. But, at t3 (a) becomes false and (b) becomes true. On this view, one’s having a property (in this case, greenness) is, metaphysically speaking, always something that occurs in the present. Put differently, one can make claims about the past, present, and future insofar as they are speaking from the point of view of the present. The reason why (b) is true at t3 is because of the past tense ‘was,’ which positions the speaker in the present making claims about the past in relation to the present.

J. J. C. Smart critiques the A-theory on similar semantic grounds. He argues that the A-theory relies too heavily on tenses and indexicals to make true claims about the reality of time. According to Smart, tenses and indexicals relativize the truth of a sentence to a person and time. Recall the sentence (b) above. The truth of this sentence is relative to an entity x making a claim about the apple’s greenness in the past from the point of view of the present. As such, the truth value of (b) is relative to x. What of (a), then? That sentence incorporates the verb is, which seems to be tenseless. This is not the case, as in presentism, verbs are always tensed. “Even the tenseless ‘is’ of mathematics gets thought of as ‘always was, is, and always will be’, thus sullying the purity of mathematics with temporal reference.” As such, we run into the same problem as (b), where tense relativizes the truth of (a) to the person making the claim from the point of view of the present about the present. Furthermore, recall the utterance, “Scott is lecturing.” The truth of this sentence is relative to the indexical ‘Scott.’ The presentist, then, is not referring to intrinsic properties of events or objects in describing them as present but is incorporating tense and indexicals to make claims with a relative truth value.

This charge is sufficient for us to conclude that claims within presentism are true only relative to the person making them. Put differently, claims in presentism do not hold truth value outside of our cognitive activities. But, this is not sufficient for us to claim that time itself in presentism does not exist independently of our cognitive activities. To prove this, I will turn to McTaggart’s famous argument against the reality of time. If A-theory properties of events are relational, then past, present, and future must be incompatible properties. No event can be more than one at the same time. A defender of the A-theory might try to solve this incompatibility by claiming that, since time is successive, no event will be past, present, and future at the same time. But, in saying that time is successive, the defender assumes the existence of time. It is not given to us that time is real, since that is exactly what we are trying to prove. As such, McTaggart shows that we find ourselves in a vicious circle of begging the question. In other words, we rely on the A-theory to argue for the existence of the A-theory. We can conclude from here that the A-theory cannot exist nor make true claims about reality outside of our cognitive activities. 

If we accept the arguments above, presentism cannot exist independently of our cognitive activities. Presentism relies on outside entities, tenses, and indexicals to make true claims about reality. As such, all truth is relative to a particular individual making claims about time. Time cannot exist objectively outside of that subjective experience. We can conclude from here that the A-theory does not exist independently of our cognitive activities and therefore does not satisfy premise (1) or premise (2). Time is therefore not real within the A-theory.

§3: Towards a Tenseless Model of Time

In this section, I will briefly explicate Smart’s defense of the B-theory to show that it meets premise (1) and premise (2). This will show that Smart’s B-theory exists and exists independently of our cognitive activities. 

Recall that the B-theorist criticizes the A-theorist for using indexicals and tensed language, relativizing the truth of claims made within the A-theory. Smart believes we can tweak the semantics of A-theory language to tenseless B-theory language and avoid relativizing the “truth of a sentence to a person and a time.” Borrowing from Donald Davidson’s ‘date theory,’ Smart shows that “sentences such as ‘I am tired’ is true as (potentially) spoken by person P at time t if and only if P is tired at t and ‘I was tired’ is true as (potentially) spoken by person P at time t if and only if P is tired at a time earlier than t.” Using Davidson’s date theory, Smart semantically shifts tensed language in the A-theory to tenseless B-theory language. Without relying on tense and indexicality, the truth of claims within the B-theory, insofar as they are expressed in the metalanguage, avoid cosmic parochiality. Put differently, the truth of a given claim in the B-theory is not relative to our cognitive activities, but eternal. We can conclude from here that premise (2) is met, but what of premise (1)?

McTaggart argues that change is not possible within the B-series. Since change is not possible, and time necessarily involves change, the B-series is not real and cannot exist. Change is not possible in McTaggart’s B-series because, for him, change can only happen to events. Since Event M will always be earlier than Event N, and N always later than M, there is no change. Smart argues against this by saying that “things and processes can change, events happen.” The B-theorist can therefore elucidate change as “immediately adjacent temporal stages of a thing or process having different properties.” By changing the subject of change from events to things or processes, Smart allows for change to exist in the B-series. Avoiding McTaggart’s charge, the B-series can be said to exist, thus meeting premise (1). 

§4: Rejecting Eternal Truth

In this section, I will attempt to show that, despite meeting premise (1) and premise (2), Smart’s B-theory is not real by its own standards. I will do so by introducing a problematic third premise that Smart’s B-theorist misguidedly argues for. I will conclude from here that Smart’s  B-theory cannot, and ought not aim toward eternal truth. 

The B-series meets premise (1) and premise (2). Therefore, the B-series is real by Devitt’s definition of realism. Since the A-theory does not meet premise (1) or premise (2), it is not real. Beyond these two premises, Smart argues that another reason to prefer the B-theory over the A-theory is because truths within the B-theory “are, in a sense, eternal truths, not sempiternal ones as the A-theorist will contend.” Sempiternal here can be understood as eternal and unchanging, but within the bounds of time–earthbound. So, according to Smart, we ought to prefer the B-theory over the A-theory because it offers us truths not relative to anything or anyone. We can derive a third premise from here in addition to the first two:

1. Time can be said to exist.

2. Time exists objectively, and independent of our cognitive activities.

3. Claims about time are eternally true; not relative to anyone or anything.

Does Smart’s B-theory meet premise (3)? I will argue that it does not. No theory of time allows us to see the world “sub specie aeternitatis, or from the point of view of the universe.” Before I explain why I do not think so, I will explicate why Smart believes the B-theory accomplishes this, and why he thinks it should.

Metaphysics, to Smart, “should not be cosmically parochial.” If we do metaphysics cosmically parochially, we may fall into egocentrism and anthropocentrism. Choosing to only adopt a limited perspective while ignoring what is actually true prevents us from doing metaphysics in the most accurate way. When we use tensed language, we are tempted into this egocentric and anthropocentric view of the world. Adopting the tenseless language of the B-theory allows us to escape this parochiality and take the universe’s point of view. Smart also appeals to the physical sciences. He argues that truths within chemistry and physics are eternal truths since they incorporate tenseless language. To Smart, since the truths within the physical sciences are eternal, the truths within metaphysics ought to be as well. 

Smart’s account thus crucially hinges upon language and physical science being able to afford us with eternal truth. Neither language nor physical science are able to provide eternal truth. P. F Strawson argues that “neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic.” So, when we rely on Davidson’s date theory to create a metalanguage that turns our claims into first-order logic, we implicitly imply two things. First, that the logic represented by the date theory accurately represents the meaning of a given sentence, and second that said logic provides us with eternal truth. But, as per Strawson, there is no exact logic to be found within language. Language is constantly shifting and evolving, and meaning is relative to particular conditions and ways of being. To assume that the date theory exacts meaning to a level of eternality is to assume that the meaning we ascribe to a particular sentence represents its eternal meaning. This, in itself, is incredibly egocentric and anthropocentric.

To accept that argument against eternal truth, we must accept that it is impossible for us to go beyond our particular conceptual or linguistic schemes. Put differently, we must accept linguistic relativity. Linguistic relativity amounts to the idea that “in order to say anything you must adopt a language. What you say, i.e., the utterances you make, the sentences you affirm, are not true or false absolutely, but are true or false only relative to a given language.” If we accept this, it follows that tenseless language does not express eternal truth. Therefore, Smart’s B-theory cannot express eternal truth. 

There is also a level of scientific realism that displays itself in Smart’s conception of the B-theory. His appeal to the ‘eternal truths’ expressed through the physical sciences implicitly argues for scientific realism. This conception of science argues that, through continuous scientific discovery, convergence on some final ontology or ideology will become clear to us. Put differently, the more about science we learn, the more about reality we learn. Eventually, we will know so much about science that we will be able to understand reality at its core. Putnam convincingly argues against this by saying that “scientific realism is not acceptable, if only because of the history of science induction, which precludes any reasonable expectation of convergence on one final ontology and ideology.” Putnam shows us that the paradigms and goals surrounding science change with time. To assume that science is continually reaching toward some eternal truth is wrong, precisely because science is pragmatic. The truths it aims towards are relative to a particular time and place.

If we take scientific realism to be dubious, as Putnam does, it follows that relying on physical science to provide us with eternal truths about reality is untenable. Even if we could rely on language to provide us with eternal truth, which we cannot, it seems as though science cannot be trusted. If we cannot rely on language or science to exact eternal truth, we can only conclude that the B-theory does not provide claims that are true eternally. The claims made within the B-theory are sempiternal at best. Smart’s B-theory does not satisfy premise (3) and is therefore not real on its own terms. 

This sempiternity is to be crucially distinguished from the A-theories sempiternity. In the A-theory, truth is relative to a particular person making a claim. It is therefore not objective and does not go beyond our cognitive activities (it does not meet premise (2)). Smart’s B-theory does meet premise (2), it does provide us with truth that is not relative to our cognitive abilities. The truths in the B-theory are relative to a particular conceptual or linguistic scheme.

Conclusion

On Smart’s B-theory’s own terms, it is not real. We could conclude from here that neither the A-theory nor the B-theory are real, and therefore that time is unreal. But, given that no theory of time can ever hope to achieve eternal truth, I believe it is the proper choice to reject premise (3). Theories of time ought not aim toward eternal truth. To believe that one’s particular linguistic or conceptual scheme or one’s scientific paradigms constitute eternal truth is to place an unfair primacy on one’s particular mode of thought and way of being. This is incredibly egocentric and anthropocentric, which is what we are trying to avoid in the first place. We ought to be wary of our epistemological limitations and concede that we are not equipped with the tools to fully understand reality in terms of time if such a thing is even possible. Allowing for this plurality of thought allows for non-dominant voices to properly express their understandings of time relative to their particular conceptual or linguistic schemes. We ought to prefer this as opposed to aiming for eternal truth for fear of stifling marginalized thought and coherent ideas surrounding time.

Rejecting premise (3), that leaves only premise (1) and premise (2). The A-theory does not meet premise (1) or premise (2). Put differently, the A-theory can be said to exist but does not exist independently of our cognitive activities. Smart’s B-theory meets premise (1) and premise (2) in that it exists and exists independently of our cognitive activities. Therefore, Smart’s B-theory is real and the A-theory is not. The stipulation that follows from this conclusion is that Smart’s B-theory should be wary of its epistemological limits and should not aim toward eternal truth. 

References

Devitt, Michael. Realism and Truth 2nd Edition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997).

Haslanger, Sally. "Persistence Through Time," in Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Michael J. Loux, Dean W. Zimmerman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003): 315-354.

McTaggart, J. Ellis. "The Unreality of Time," in Mind 17, no. 68 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1908): 457-474.

Prior, A. N.. "The Notion of the Present," in The Study of Time, ed. J. T. Fraser, F. Haber, G. Muller (Heidelberg: Springer Verlag, 1972): 320-323.

Smart, J. J. C.. "The Tenseless Theory of Time," in Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, ed. Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne, Dean Zimmerman (Blackwell, 2008): 226-238.

Sosa, Ernest. "Putnam's Pragmatic Realism," in Journal of Philosophy 90 no. 12 (Journal of Philosophy, Inc., 1993): 605-626.

Strawson, P. F.. "On Referring," in Mind 59, ed. Darragh Byrne, Max Kölbel (Routledge): 320-344.

On Friendship: Ancient Theories and a Modern Perspective

“...but what a friend is we have not yet been able to find out.”

Plato, Lysis

William Kim • Notre Dame University

Abstract

Friendship is a fundamental aspect of human life, as it is one of many natural ways in which relationships develop between individuals. In Plato’s Lysis, Socrates explores the foundations of friendship. Specifically, he seeks to understand what leads to such a relationship and what types of people end up becoming friends. But as the above quotation suggests, despite a thorough inquiry into friendship, Socrates does not come to a satisfying conclusion by the end of the dialogue. In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, friendship is similarly explored in Books VIII and IX and seems to use ideas laid out in the Lysis as a foundation. Aristotle systematically constructs a view of friendship that convincingly bypasses many of the issues presented in the Lysis, and in some respects, completely rejects notions developed by Socrates. Looking many centuries beyond the time of these philosophers, Michel de Montaigne offers a perspective on friendship that pushes Aristotle’s construction even further. Equipped with all three outlooks on friendship, we review the cogency of the conclusions drawn and their applicability to the modern age. 

An Account of Friendship in Plato’s Lysis

Throughout the Lysis, Socrates engages with the younger Lysis and Menexenus to come to conclusions on these questions regarding friendship. After considering many different schemas and then refuting them, Socrates articulates a valid account of friendship from section 217c to 218c, where he deduces that it must be neither good nor bad. And it is through the presence of the bad, one can befriend the good. To provide context around his argument, it is important to consider some of the earlier conclusions that Socrates discovers in his conversation with Lysis and other participants. His focus is on friendship, and specifically, what qualities are possessed by those who are friends. Earlier arguments lead Socrates, alongside others, to believe that the bad cannot be friends with anyone, while the good also cannot be friends with the good. In addition, he concludes that opposites cannot be friends, and neither can those that are alike. Thus, all of these results lead Socrates to consider a different argument in support of the friendship between dissimilar individuals.

Socrates begins his argument by presenting an interesting thought experiment involving paint. He asks his listeners to consider whether a painted entity is “of the same sort, as far as color goes, as the applied paint”. To clarify on this question, he asks further whether hair painted white is truly white in nature; or does it only exhibit the characteristics of white due to the colored paint. He then points out that hair, over time, can also naturally turn white and truly maintain whiteness in likeness. Here, he uses the color white as a representation of the bad, while the hair plays the role of the neutral--of neither good nor bad. He uses this line of questioning to conclude that what is neither good nor bad, when in the presence of the bad, does not necessarily embody the bad, but just like the hair, can over time change to exhibit badness. This distinction between manifesting the bad and only having it present is crucial to understanding his next example, on wisdom. He claims that the wise, who embodies the good, are not interested in wisdom itself--as opposed to the deeply ignorant who embody the bad. The “neither good nor bad”, therefore, are those who exhibit ignorance and are simultaneously aware of their ignorance, and Socrates concludes that these types of people are the ones who truly love and pursue wisdom. Ignorance, here, is a bad quality that can be present in people (who seemingly can be attributed as neither good nor bad), but its presence does not necessarily make people bad. Thus, Socrates makes it clear that the presence of the bad does not necessarily make the “neither good nor bad” -- truly bad. Rather, the presence of the bad compels the “neither good nor bad” to love the good, as he proclaims:

“So now, Lysis and Menexenus, we have discovered for sure what is a friend and what it is friend to. For we maintain that in the soul and in the body and everywhere, that which is neither good nor bad itself is, by the presence of evil, a friend of the good”.

With this, it seems as though a conclusion has been settled.

It is also interesting to point out here that there may be an inspiration for the concept of the “mean”, which is further developed and systematized in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Socrates makes it clear that there is a striking difference in levels of ignorance. The wise are represented as the “good”, while the truly ignorant are said to embody the “bad”. Concurrently, Socrates implies that there is a middle ground between these extremes, a level of ignorance in which one has “not yet been made ignorant and stupid by it”. This level of ignorance, which is designated as “neither good nor bad”, is crucial, as he claims that it is only those who exhibit this quality that can be friends with wisdom. This middle ground of ignorance is very reminiscent of achieving the mean as Aristotle describes in Book II of the Nicomachean Ethics, as it seems to exist between a characteristic of excess and one of deficiency, which are both described as “vices”. Although describing wisdom as an “excess” may seem oxymoronic, it must be understood that the virtue that is being measured here is not necessarily wisdom itself, but rather one’s temperament to pursue wisdom. As a result, it may be best to describe this example as one demonstrating the three dispositions of humility. With the vice of deficiency there is an unconscious absence of humility resulting from inability to know otherwise, while with the vice of excess, there is a lack of humility resulting from an abundance of knowledge. 

Nevertheless, much can be said about whether this account of friendship is even plausible. To start, one fundamental issue is that Socrates sees friendship as a monolith, and no attempts are made to consider whether there could be different types of friendship formed by different kinds of individuals. Therefore, it seems that the various conclusions he develops are narrow-minded, as he constructs accounts and rejects them for the sole desire of attempting to  discover what is behind the formation of a friendship. If there were various forms of friendship, as will soon be discussed, then it follows that his accounts need to specify the type of friendship. In addition, Socrates is using the word “love” (philia) to annotate friendship, which leads to a confusing construction of friendship in the Lysis. In his discussion, friendship is not simply between individuals—it also serves as a connective force between objects such as the body and the health. This account of friendship diminishes the importance and relevance of Socrates’ initial pursuit, which is to discover “how one person becomes the friend of another”. Such a broad view of friendship cannot possibly speak accurately to human relationships. Finally, a “disanalogy” in Socrates’ account further highlights the plausibility of his argumentation. In a previous construction, Socrates claims that the body, with the presence of sickness, becomes friends with medical expertise. In this example, medical expertise seems to be interchangeable with a doctor. However, with his example of wisdom, Socrates claims interchangeability between the wise and wisdom. In doing so, he further emphasizes his notion of love, desire, and friendships between people and objects. If interchangeability was permitted in every case to allow for an individual to serve as a substitute for an object, then this account can surely be seen as a defense for human friendship. 

Aristotelian Construction of Friendship in his Nicomachean Ethics

To resolve the issues that Socrates and his interlocutors face in the Lysis, consider the account of friendship laid out by Aristotle in his Nicomachean Ethics: In Book VIII, Aristotle begins his examination of friendship by stating that “[n]o one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all the other goods”. Immediately, Aristotle makes an encompassing point about human nature: Human beings are drawn to one another despite the difficult circumstances of life. Socrates would most likely agree with this claim, as in the Lysis, as he states

“…I would rather have a good friend than the best quail or gamecock known to man, and, I swear by Zeus above, more than any horse or dog”.

It is important to recognize that both Plato (through Socrates, in the Lysis) and Aristotle are similarly motivated in their pursuits of understanding friendship because both view such relationships with high regard. The value and importance of friendship are priceless, and so it seems imperative to understand how such relationships can form and what is required of individuals for friendships to blossom. 

With this in mind, Aristotle continues in his Ethics by constructing three species of friendship: One of utility, one of pleasure, and one of completeness. First, a friendship of utility is formed between people for the sake of “what is good for themselves,” as seen in relationships that form based on shared interests. Second, a friendship of pleasure is formed for the sake of what is pleasurable for both parties, as seen in relationships developed by sex partners. Aristotle notes that these friendships tend to be the most unstable, “often changing in one day,” as once what is useful or pleasurable is lost to either party, the relationship crumbles. As such, these first two forms of friendship are labeled as “incidental,” as they heavily rely on one’s selfish desire for good or pleasure without regard for the other person. Here, it is important to note that there is something sinister attached to the desire for good or pleasure—a self-interested mentality. No claims are made about whether the individuals are deficient in or maintain some level of the good or the pleasure that they seek to attain, but this desire is labeled as egocentric. While Socrates’ claim in the Lysis is that the desire for the good by what is neither good nor bad is motivated by the presence of what is bad, here it is the very desire itself that is attributed to evil. The introduction of intrinsically bad ideas develops the distinction between what is to be considered a good and a bad desire, a schema that Socrates does not consider in his argument. In highlighting this dichotomy, Aristotle makes a conscious effort to emphasize the autonomy of the individual and downplay other influences that could sway a person. In addition, he recognizes that it is an inward desire that characterizes these types of friendships and that because of this, such friendships are not ideal. Lastly, it is also important to note that these aforementioned friendships can be established between any two people, good or bad. Thus, immediately we see that certain claims that are made in the Lysis are rejected wholeheartedly in this formulation of friendship. Nonetheless, it is these two types of friendship that seem to emulate closest with what Socrates had concluded. 

Aristotle’s third type of friendship, known as complete friendship, can only be formed between good people of virtuous natures who wish for the good of the other person. In contrast to the previous two forms of friendship, complete friendships are long-lasting and “require time and familiarity” to be developed. Moreover, complete friendships experience the benefits of the other two friendships, as those who wish good and pleasure upon the other will also experience the same for themselves. Lastly, in Book IX, Aristotle describes his concept of goodwill in detail. He states that it is the wishing for the good of another, despite the wish not being reciprocated; as such, goodwill serves as friendship’s “first principle”. As such, goodwill is called “latent friendship,” as it serves as the foundation for friendship to develop between individuals. However, only complete friendship can arise from goodwill, due to its nature of wishing good upon others. A friendship of utility or pleasure cannot arise out of such an altruistic mentality. Once again, there is a contradiction here between what Aristotle claims and what conclusions are drawn in the Lysis. Here, a friendship is made possible between two goods, and it is deemed to be the highest form of friendship attainable. This formulation places further doubt on Socrates’ line of argumentation through which he concludes that such friendships between two likes are impossible. While Socrates claims that the good is not attracted to the good due to a lack of desire (since he assumes that the good would have no desire for what they already attain), Aristotle determines the motivation behind complete friendships to be for the sake of others. The good that is being sought after, by both individuals, is not necessarily a good that either individual can obtain otherwise, as it is precisely the good of the other that is being desired. Thus, Aristotle outlines an example in which one who is good can indeed pursue another good, contradicting both Socrates’ claim that likes cannot be friends and that specifically the good cannot be friends with the good. 

It is interesting to note that there is another form of friendship discussed by Aristotle that directly relates to conclusions drawn by Socrates in the Lysis—these friendships are those of superiority. A friendship of superiority is maintained by individuals, of which one is better than the other. As a result of the unbalance present within the relationship, Aristotle argues that “the affection must be proportional as well”. Thus, the ratio of love, pleasure, and utility must shift towards the benefit of the better. This species of friendship is very reminiscent of one of the conclusions that Socrates reaches in the Lysis, in which he claims that the neither good nor bad can be friends with the good. Aristotle’s construction of friendships of superiority confirms that such friendships as Socrates describes are indeed possible and widespread, as this form of friendship is present between parents and their children, as well as between those who are older and those who are younger. 

It is clear that although Socrates had a noble intention, his account of friendship in the Lysis is flawed in many different aspects. He fails to consider the possibility of a spectrum of friendship types, which leads him to make conclusions about friendships as if it were a monolithic concept. In addition, he draws confusion to his original intent of discovering the mode in which friendships arise by claiming that objects can be considered friends with each other and with individuals as well. This account further deviates from his intention due to his discrepancy in analogies, through which he allows for the interchangeability of object and human in some cases but not in others. Aristotle’s work on friendship in his Ethics accounts for the problems that are seen in the Lysis and presents a more encompassing and passable account of friendship between individuals, with hints of a Socratic influence. Nonetheless, the importance of friendship, and the incredible desire to know why and how such a relationship can blossom between individuals, is thoroughly seen through both works.

Beyond Plato and Aristotle: Montaignean Friendship and a New Outlook

In discussing the topic of friendship more broadly, it is important to consider what both Plato and Aristotle may be missing in each of their respective discussions. Michel de Montaigne’s analysis of friendship expounds an auxiliary view to Plato’s and Aristotle’s with stricter criteria worth exploring. Montaigne begins his exploration of friendship in a similar manner to Aristotle, by stating: “There seems to be nothing for which Nature has better prepared us than for fellowship”. But rather than saying that it is in human nature that friendship naturally arises, he emphasizes the role of Nature itself. Human beings in the natural world are inclined towards friendship because the environment they inhabit supports and encourages such relationships. However, Montaigne places boundaries on what types of friendships can be formed and who can develop such friendships. For example, he refutes Aristotle's conception of friendships of superiority by claiming that such relations cannot be established. When describing his reasoning as to why fathers and sons cannot be friends, he states that “friendship, being fostered by mutual confidences, cannot exist between them because of their excessive inequality”. While Aristotle makes room for such relationships to be formed by emphasizing proportionality, Montaigne claims that friendship can only be established through true equality of both parties. In addition, Montaigne develops an idea of perfect friendship that exceeds Aristotelian complete friendship, establishing a more austere standard for human relationships. He describes perfect friendship as a relationship “where wills work together,” as both individuals completely devote themselves to the other. For Montaigne, this ideal form of friendship does not end at simply having goodwill towards another, but rather once both individuals have seemingly become one. While Aristotle leaves room for the possibility for people to be in multiple complete friendships with others, Montaigne does not give the same leniency to perfect friendship. He presents a convincing argument to this judgment: “For the perfect friendship which I am talking about is indivisible: each gives himself so entirely to his friend that he has nothing to share with another”. Due to the fact that a tremendous amount of effort is required to unite two people of goodwill to this extent, an authentically perfect friendship is one of a kind and cannot be replicated.

Montaigne offers a perspective on friendship that can directly relate to questions about friendship prevalent today. To start, his rejection of friendships of superiority sheds light on the importance of power dynamics in forming healthy friendships. The plausibility of friendships of superiority is commonly challenged nowadays, especially in the context of the home. Across our society today, there is much debate about the teleological nature of the parent-child relationship. Should parents serve fundamentally as an authoritative role model for their children, or instead become uniquely intimate lifelong friends with them? Although modern social norms have leaned heavily towards accepting the notion of “parents as friends,” Montaigne voices significant disagreement. Perhaps, to Montaigne, it is more exact to consider these particular relationships pseudo-friendships: Although the parent-child relationship is directed towards the qualities of Aristotelian complete friendship, due to the crucially guiding role of the parent there will always be a degree of authority imbalance that prevents an authentic complete friendship from forming. Montaigne demonstrates that Aristotle’s construction may be too inclusive in characterizing relationships of superiority as “friendships” and encourages a more extensive analysis on the nature of relationships as a whole.  

Additionally, Montaigne’s construction of a “perfect friendship” implies an economy of friendships directed towards a singular ultimate friendship. Perhaps more broadly, Montaigne is speaking to the widespread phenomena of monogamous partnership and marriage, which can be characterized as a ritualistic affirmation of the perfect friendship established between two people. Nonetheless, this approach suggests an end to the development of friendships, which, unlike what is claimed by Plato and Aristotle, can be quite harmful. To frame forming friendships as an activity in search of a “perfect friendship” asserts that all other friendships are of less importance, which can lead to the establishment of a hierarchy of friendships. In this case, Montaigne may be overstepping. Aristotle’s idea of “complete friendship”, on the other hand, best explains how people are able to take part in many fruitful relationships at once, without having to develop a ranking between each one. 

Further, Montaigne’s articulation of friendship as being propagated by Nature suggests a deontic motive for such relationships to form. If Nature has provided an ecosystem for friendships to foster, then we as people have the obligation to interact with one another and let these relationships blossom. This notion can be extended to the constructions of friendship by Plato and Aristotle. Although both explain what types of friendships can form and what kinds of people are capable of establishing friendships, they do not articulate the moral obligation that we have as people towards each other. Consider a claim by R. Jay Wallace, which states that “morality is a domain of directed obligations and the claims constitutively connected to them”. A failure to recognize this moral obligation can be what defines one to be “bad”. Meanwhile, those who recognize this moral obligation and live by it through a sense of coercion can possibly represent those who exhibit no qualities of “goodwill”; they seek what benefits themselves, and thus, are those who enter into friendships of pleasure and utility. On the other hand, others who are seeking friendships of pleasure and utility—those who unconsciously live by this moral obligation—are those who exhibit “goodwill” and are candidates for this aforementioned form of complete friendships.

Conclusion

Plato, Aristotle, and Montaigne all approach a ubiquitous topic that is applicable to us all. As social beings, we are bound to interact with others around us, and as such, are propelled to form friendships in hopes of avoiding solitude. In exploring the nature of friendship, all three authors offer a grander perspective that encourages us to reflect on our broader desires for our relationships, to consider our relationships' fundamental substructures, and to question our deeper, and more solidified definitions of roles in them.

Bibliography

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

Montaigne, Michel de. The Complete Essays. London: Penguin Group, 2003. 

Penner, Terry, and Christopher Rowe. Cambridge Studies in the Dialogues of Plato: Plato’s 

Lysis. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Plato. Plato: Complete Works. Edited by John M. Cooper and D. S. Hutchinson. 

Cambridge, MA: Hackett Publishing, 1997.

Rowan, Samuel. “What Is Relational about Morality? – With R. Jay Wallace and Stephen 

Darwall.” PEA Soup, November 2, 2023. 

https://peasoupblog.com/2023/10/what-is-relational-about-morality-with-r-jay-wallace-and-stephen-darwall/.