In NE 9.4 and 9.8, Aristotle discusses self-love (or self-friendship). He distinguishes two kinds of self-love only one of which is reprehensible while the other is characteristic of the virtuous person. Explain the distinction. What is Aristotle’s argument for the thesis that the virtuous person does in fact exhibit (the good kind of) self-love while the vicious person only the bad kind? Evaluate the argument. What do we learn about the psychology of virtue and vice from these chapters?

Self-love enables us to understand better the meaning of philia. A friend wishes a friend to live for his own sake. Friendship can in a way been seen as treating the other person as another self. For Aristotle a good person’s relation to himself affects his relationship with others. “… the good person by virtue of his relation to himself, and he relates to his friend as he does to himself, for the friend is another self (1166a30-32). This implies that before we love, we must first love ourselves – we give out what we have; and so, without self-love we cannot love others. Self-love in relation to Aristotelian view means that “each person wishes goods for himself most of all” (1159A11-12). Obviously, one’s own self and concern takes precedence over concerns of others. Also to have a friend is to wish for their good for their own sake (1155b31). This friendship is caring about the other person for their own sake – in case it s done instrumentally then there is no friendship. We can extend self-love by relating to a friend in some ways we share views, joys and sorrows among others. To Aristotle, this should happen all the time and not temporarily. We extend our self-love to others in certain ways like parental love for children, a child being an offspring is just a detached part of oneself and so cannot reciprocate this attitude.

            Aristotle is concerned about whom we should love more: self or others, self-regarding or other regarding? There are self-love people (philautos), this is pejorative term; they are selfish people who do good or noble things ‘unwillingly’, that is, not because they want to but because they fear to be punished or because of social sanctions; we can see that they do things which are particularly good willingly. We should love best friend best – if we are good people, then who is our best friend? Ourselves, because we feel all good things we feel towards our friends are the basis of how we feel toward ourselves, we want our existence, good for ourselves etc.. There is a paradox here, for Aristotle to resolve this issue is not to focus on whether a person is simply looking for their own interest or simply to another person’s interest , it is better to look at kind of goods motivating them, what is the basis that is there for the decision making they’re engaging in and this moral evaluation that we are making from outside of the behavior.

What do we mean when we say that somebody is selfish? Selfish in a bad sense can be like using one’s position to embezzle money for the needy people, being envious that someone has a better job and earns more than you, taking more than the expected share etc.. Selfishness is not good for them either because they’re indulging their passions, pleasures, appetites in the irrational part of themselves and make it harder for the better part of themselves (rational part) to actually keep them in check. A good person should be a love of self in the fullest degree living virtuous principles differs from living by passion aiming for what is noble from aiming what seem expedient. People whose actions are good are universally admired, commended, praised, approved, they are actually acting in a selfish way. If I become virtuous I will make you less virtuous in the process as a matter of fact the more of us are virtuous the easier it is for other people to become virtuous it is not a zero sum game at all and being virtuous itself is good in fact a greater good than these  other less goods.

So by being virtuous, I am being selfish, self-centered but in a very different way – in a way that is going to benefit other people – it is not good however because it benefits other people. This is where the contrast between egoism and altruism stems; egoism is negative and bad thinking. It is good for me to be virtuous because others want me to be a good person for myself as well as for other people to enjoy good life, all the way to full happiness! But for a bad person should not be a love of self since he will follow harmful paths and injures himself and his neighbours. Selfishness by itself is not good or bad thing; it is selfishness in this way in this way not that way and it is based on the character of a person and goods that are going after and how it affects everyone else. This raises a question: should we love more ourselves or others? It really depends on what you’re talking about and what kind of a person you’re because that will affect the meaning of self-love turns out to be.

The way we are friends to other people is based in part on our own feelings towards self.  Let us consider features of friendship

-Friend wishes and promotes good of other for the sake of the