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    Carmelics

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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
    Made withinDC&Austin
    Statements
    321,452
    Perspectives
    108,905
    Topics
    42
    Home/Original/inverse
    See Original
    Inverse View

    It is not the case that True friendship requires equality among the parties involved.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Aristotle himself distinguishes friendships of utility, pleasure, and virtue, with virtue-friendship requiring similarity of character, not strict equality of status.
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    • 2.Similarity of character and mutual recognition of excellence can ground genuine friendship even between persons of unequal social standing or capability.
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    • 3.Reducing Aristotle's nuanced account to a simple equality requirement misreads his criterion as socioeconomic parity rather than reciprocal goodwill and shared virtue.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Nel Noddings and care ethics theorists argue that the most morally significant relationships, including deep friendship, are structured by asymmetric care and responsiveness to need.
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    • 2.If asymmetric care relationships can constitute genuine moral bonds with all the hallmarks of friendship—loyalty, affection, mutual concern—then equality is not a necessary condition.
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    • 3.The care ethics tradition represents a sustained, empirically-grounded philosophical challenge to equality-based accounts of friendship rooted in feminist and disability scholarship.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.Friendship must be a relationship among equals.
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    • 2.Philosophers since Aristotle have broadly agreed that some form of equality is a prerequisite of friendship.
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