Abstract

Aristotle holds that the ultimate goal of our action is our own happiness (“psychological eudaimonism”). Though this position is controversial, it’s widely thought that he never attempts to defend it. I argue, to the contrary, that he does. I begin by pointing out that in Nicomachean Ethics 9.8 Aristotle raises an endoxic challenge to psychological eudaimonism—namely, that virtuous people act selflessly, especially in relation to their friends—and that he responds to this challenge by declaring that the (observable) “facts” disagree with these popular “speeches.” I then argue that some of the facts that he has in mind can be found in his surrounding discussion of friendship. Specifically, I point to two observations in the Nicomachean account of friendship that suggest that friendship isn’t a source of selfless motivation for virtuous people—that friendship dissolves with distance and that friends do not wish their friends to become gods—and one observation that suggests that virtuous friends do not benefit each other selflessly tout court—that friendship requires an equal return of benefit in order to preserve itself.