The Philosophy of Friendship

Writing everyday, for a whole month on the subject of friendship causes me to look to other outlets for their views on friendship and how they define friendship and its values.  I was on the Stanford University site and ended up somehow arriving at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.  I never studied Philosophy in school, but I do find some of the writings interesting and thought provoking.  There is a whole article on "Friendship" that can be found here.  The definition of friendship and the whole article on friendship is definitely worth the read.  The definition reads:

Friendship, as understood here, is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who we are as persons. Given this centrality, important questions arise concerning the justification of friendship and, in this context, whether it is permissible to “trade up” when someone new comes along, as well as concerning the possibility of reconciling the demands of friendship with the demands of morality in cases in which the two seem to conflict.


The article builds on this general descriptor and the section on "values and the justification of friendship" is fascinating.