Shared Tastes: Similarity in Aristotelian Character Friendship

Aristotle claims that character friends are similar to each other. How should we understand this similarity, and what role does it play in friendship? In the paper, I argue that a broad similarity of ‘tastes’—which I understand as the appreciation of relatively good ends—is at least a facilitating c...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Purdy, Ashley (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: Phronesis
Year: 2025, Volume: 70, Issue: 3, Pages: 351-377
Further subjects:B Friendship
B similarity
B Virtue
B shared activity
B Aristotle’s ethics
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Summary:Aristotle claims that character friends are similar to each other. How should we understand this similarity, and what role does it play in friendship? In the paper, I argue that a broad similarity of ‘tastes’—which I understand as the appreciation of relatively good ends—is at least a facilitating condition on the formation of character friendship. This is because it (i) facilitates seeing the other as good in the first place, which is essential to character friendship; and (ii) enables the friends to spend time and share in activities together, which is characteristic of character friendship.
ISSN:1568-5284
Contains:Enthalten in: Phronesis
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15685284-bja10101