Quarrels

In all the Friendships the parties to which are dissimilar it is the proportionate which equalises and preserves the Friendship.

In the Social Friendship, the cobbler, weaver, etc gets an equivalent for his product at a certain rate.

In this case, a common measure has been provided in money.

• To money accordingly all things are referred and measured

But in the Friendship of Love, the lover loves exceedingly. But he complains that his love is not requited.

This is because he has nothing that can be the object of Friendship.

Oftentimes from the object of love that he who as a suitor promised any and every thing now performs nothing.

These cases occur because the Friendship of:

• the lover for the beloved object is based on pleasure
• the object for the lover is based on utility.

In one of the parties, the requisite quality is not found.

This is why the Friendship breaks up – because the motives to it cease to exist.

The parties loved the qualities in each other which are not permanent.

• And so the Friendship is also not permanent

Whereas the Friendship based on the moral character of the parties, being independent and disinterested, is permanent.

Quarrels arise also when the parties realise results different from what they want.

This is because not attaining one’s special object is the same as getting nothing at all.

There is a well-known case where a man made promises to a musician, rising in proportion to the excellence of his music.

But when, the next morning, the musician claimed the performance of his promises, the man said that he had given him pleasure for pleasure.

Of course, if each party had intended this, it would have been all right.

But if the one desires amusement and the other gain, and the one gets his object but the other not, the dealing cannot be fair.

This is because a man fixes his mind on what he want, and will give so and so for that specific thing.

Who is to fix the rate? The man who first gives, or the man who first takes?

Primâ facie, the man who first gives seems to leave the rate to be fixed by the other party.

This was the practice of Protagoras. He taught a man anything he would bid the learner estimate the worth of the knowledge gained by his own private opinion.

Then he used to take so much from him. In such cases some people adopt the rule,

“With specified reward a friend should be content.”

Those who take money in advance and then do nothing of what they said they would do are certainly wrong.

Their promises having been so far beyond their ability. Such men do not perform what they agreed.

The Sophists, however, are perhaps obliged to take this course because no one would give a sixpence for their knowledge.

In cases where no stipulation as to the respective services is made they who disinterestedly do the first service will not raise the question (as we have said before), because it is the nature of Friendship, based on mutual goodness to be reference to the intention of the other, the intention being characteristic of the true friend and of goodness.

And it would seem the same rule should be laid down for those who are connected with one another as teachers and learners of philosophy.

For here the value of the commodity cannot be measured by money, and, in fact, an exactly equivalent price cannot be set upon it, but perhaps it is sufficient to do what one can, as in the case of the gods or one’s parents.

But where the original giving is not upon these terms but avowedly for some return, the most proper course is perhaps for the requital to be such as both shall allow to be proportionate, and, where this cannot be, then for the receiver to fix the value would seem to be not only necessary but also fair.

Because when the first giver gets that which is equivalent to the advantage received by the other, or to what he would have given to secure the pleasure he has had, then he has the value from him: for not only is this seen to be the course adopted in matters of buying and selling but also in some places the law does not allow of actions upon voluntary dealings; on the principle that when one man has trusted another he must be content to have the obligation discharged in the same spirit as he originally contracted it: that is to say, it is thought fairer for the trusted, than for the trusting, party, to fix the value.

For, in general, those who have and those who wish to get things do not set the same value on them: what is their own, and what they give in each case, appears to them worth a great deal.

But yet the return is made according to the estimate of those who have received first, it should perhaps be added that the receiver should estimate what he has received, not by the value he sets upon it now that he has it, but by that which he set upon it before he obtained it.