Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-8bhkd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-05T00:19:24.376Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Value and Friendship: A More Subtle View

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 August 2006

THOMAS HURKA
Affiliation:
University of Torontotom.hurka@utoronto.ca

Abstract

T. M. Scanlon has cited the value of friendship in arguing against a ‘teleological’ view of value which says that value inheres only in states of affairs and demands only that we promote it. This article argues that, whatever the teleological view's final merits, the case against it cannot be made on the basis of friendship. The view can capture Scanlon's claims about friendship if it holds, as it can consistently with its basic ideas, that (i) friendship is a higher-level good consisting in appropriate attitudes to other goods and evils in a friend's life, (ii) these goods and evils have agent-relative value, i.e. more value than similar states of strangers, and (iii) the attitudes constituting friendship have less value than their objects. Given these independently plausible claims, the teleological view can agree with Scanlon that, e.g., it is wrong to betray a friend in order to promote more friendships among other people.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Cambridge University Press 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)