# Book IX: Friendship, Self-Love, and the Happy Life explained — Nicomachean Ethics

> Chapter companion for Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

## What happens

Aristotle argues that the happy man does need friends, contrary to the view that the self-sufficient have no need of them. He explains that happiness is an activity, not a static possession, and that friends provide the opportunity to contemplate good actions, share in virtuous activity, and practice virtue together. He also explores the proper form of self-love, where the good man prioritizes noble actions and benefits his friends and community, even at personal cost, while the bad man's self-love is harmful.

## Themes in this chapter

### Friendship and Community

Aristotle argues that the happy man needs friends for contemplation of good actions, continuous virtuous activity, and shared life, emphasizing that man is a social being by nature.

### Virtue and Character

Explores how the good man's self-love is oriented toward noble actions and benefiting others, while the bad man's self-love leads to harm; virtue is practiced and strengthened through friendship.

## Character check-ins

### Aristotle

Central author and philosopher presenting arguments on friendship, self-love, and the nature of happiness.

### Theognis

Quoted as saying that living with good men provides practice in virtue.

## Key lines

> But if happiness consists in living and exercising our faculties; and if the exercise of the good man’s faculties is good and pleasant in itself, as we said at the outset; and if the sense that a thing belongs to us is also a source of pleasure, but it is easier to contemplate others than ourselves, and others’ acts than our own⁠—then the acts of the good men who are his friends are pleasant to the good man (for both the natural sources of pleasure are united in them).

Since happiness is an activity, and a good man's activities are inherently good and pleasant, and since we find it easier to observe others than ourselves, the good man takes pleasure in witnessing the virtuous actions of his good friends, which combine both the goodness of the action and the sense of it belonging to him.

_Aristotle explains why friends are necessary for the happy man: they provide a mirror for contemplating virtuous activity, which is both good and pleasant._

> Again, it is quite true to say of the good man that he does many things for the sake of his friends and of his country, and will, if need be, even die for them. He will throw away money and honour, and, in a word, all the good things for which men compete, claiming for himself that which is noble; for he will prefer a brief period of intense pleasure to a long period of mild pleasure, one year of noble life to many years of ordinary life, one great and noble action to many little ones.

The virtuous person acts for the sake of friends and country, even sacrificing wealth, honor, and life itself, because he values the nobility of such actions above all else, choosing a short but intense noble life over a long but ordinary one.

_Aristotle illustrates the proper form of self-love, where the good man prioritizes noble deeds and the greater good over personal gain._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters/book-ix
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/nicomachean_ethics_se/chapters