Abstract

One common moral claim is that morality demands impartiality of us, yet virtually everyone shares the intuition that friendship is morally permissible. Given that friendship is necessarily partial, this intuition stands in apparent conflict with the impartial demands of morality. If this conflict cannot be resolved, then we must either concede that morality forbids friendship, or else we must jettison the moral requirement of impartiality. Insofar as we have good reasons to resist either of these options, we are faced with a dilemma---the moral problem of friendship. ;At least three types of solutions can be offered in attempting to resolve this problem. The first solution focuses on the moral requirement of impartiality. If morality demands impartiality, perhaps this requirement is restricted in a way that allows for the partiality of friendship. A second solution takes a consequentialist shape, building on the idea that friendship, both in our own lives and in the lives of others, seems to have very good consequences. A third solution draws from Aristotle and involves turning away from the modern moral framework that generates the moral problem of friendship. That is, if modern moral theories describe friendship as a moral problem, we can resolve this problem by turning to an approach to ethics grounded in character and virtue. ;It is my contention that all of these approaches fail to resolve the tension between the partiality of friendship and the impartiality of morality. The purpose of my dissertation is to refute the various arguments that have been or could be offered in attempting to resolve the moral problem of friendship along these three lines. I begin by framing the problem, clarifying the definition of friendship, and identifying the relevant considerations in addressing the problem. Then, for the central part of the dissertation, I present various formulations of these three possible solutions to the moral problem of friendship, arguing that each is ultimately unsuccessful. I conclude by briefly highlighting some potentially promising responses to the moral problem of friendship, including a suggestion about how we might modify our intuitions regarding friendship in order to resolve the problem