Summa Theologiae II-II, Q.27, A.1: Loving, Not Being Loved, Is the Act of Friendship

Orientation #

He calls this “the last reading we’re going to be doing on friendship”; Aristotle has more to say, but this is where the course stops. He refers back to earlier readings (“friendly topics”, Brutus and Cassius on flattery, the three kinds of friendship, friendship as a kind of virtue resembling justice). The previous class treated how far each kind of friendship can be realized and opened the topic of friendship between unequals.

Note on the text: he speaks throughout of the Aristotle reading (“the eighth book now, the Ethics”, “the last paragraph of page eleven”) and of “Thomas in his commentary” giving the reason Aristotle omits. The verified-source match to Summa Theologiae II-II q. 27 a. 1 covers the same doctrine (loving vs. being loved, the mothers’ sign); which handout page he is reading from is not settled by the transcript.

The class, in order #

1. Opening remark and the question (“comparing loving and being loved”) #

Before the prayer: the first things to understand in ethics are what is good and what is better, “and most people don’t understand them.” The question: friendship is mutual love, so both loving and being loved are essential; but does friendship consist equally in both, or more in one? Aristotle will (a) observe that people seek more to be loved than to love, (b) conclude that friendship consists more in loving, (c) give only a sign, not the reason — “it’s so obvious”; Thomas supplies the reason.

2. Why people seek more to be loved: love of honor (“through love of honor to wish to be loved”) #

Point: being loved is in a way being honored, which is why the many prefer being loved.

1. Honor is reverence shown to someone because of something excelling in them.
2. Being loved seems a sign that there is something good in me.
3. So as I seek honor to confirm the excellence in me, I seek to be loved as a confirmation of the good in me. Conclusion: to be loved is in a way to be honored; vice versa, to love someone is in a way to honor them (liturgy and the Psalms join loving God and praising him). He flags it: “a very subtle” observation.

• Popular song “you’re nobody until somebody loves you”: lousy song, but the thought is there.

3. Flattery and envy as opposed to friendship (“the many are lovers of flattery”) #

Point: the same desire makes the many lovers of flattery.

• Flattery, strictly: undeserved praise, praise beyond what you deserve. Dinner example: you praise the overcooked, oversalted meal so as to be invited again. “An awful lot of flattery going on in the world” — it makes life more pleasant.
• Brutus to Cassius (earlier reading): a true friend would not flatter, because flattery leaves my faults uncorrected; so it is not for my good.
• Envy vs. flattery: envy is more opposed to friendship, because friendship is wishing well, so I should rejoice in your success; sadness at your good fortune (as a foil to my lack of it) is incompatible with wishing you well. Flattery is more in harmony with friendship, since I flatter to please you — but praising beyond desert is not seeking your good.
• Christians have fraternal correction instead; Thomas treats it in the Summa or a disputed question (he is unsure which).
• The text: the flatterer is a friend “excelled” [ed.: i.e., inferior], or pretends to be, and pretends to love more than to be loved — only in appearance.
• Third paragraph: “to be loved seems close to being honored, which the many desire.”

4. Does it match your experience? (“that the many wish more to be loved”) #

He asks the class whether the many really wish more to be loved than to love (a student: “I only know one person” who doesn’t). Witnesses:

• The prayer of St Francis asks that he might seek more to love than to be loved; if a saint must pray for that, “what does that say for the rest of us?”
• A student adds Augustine’s Confessions, where he says he desired more to be loved than to love — “very good witness.”

5. Being loved vs. being honored: the difference (“we seek to be loved for its own sake”) #

Point: though alike, they differ — being loved is sought for itself; honor by accident.

• Honor is sought (i) from those in power, out of hope of receiving something (student glad the professor praises his work, hoping for a good grade); (ii) from the good and the knowing, to confirm one’s own opinion of oneself, since we are not good judges of our own work. His own case: running to Monsignor Dion with his latest thinking, not for honor but for confirmation; if Dion said no, on second thought it usually wasn’t as good.
• Being loved is enjoyed through itself: grandparents want to be loved by grandchildren for its own sake, not as confirmation of something good in them.
• The principle: in Aristotle the through itself (kath’ hauto, per se) is more so than the by happening; the same distinction that ranks the highest friendship (loving you for yourself) above useful and pleasant friendship (loving you for what I get). Conclusion: better to be loved than honored; and friendship, which consists in loving and being loved, not in honor as such, is also desirable for itself.

6. The reason friendship consists more in loving (“It’s an act”) #

Point (Thomas’s reason, which Aristotle passes over as obvious): loving is an act and perfection of the friend; being loved is not.

• A student first suggests dividing love into love of friendship and love of belonging [ed.: probably “concupiscence”]; he redirects: friendship involves both wishing well and being wished well, so why is one more friendship?
• Student: “It’s an act.” My loving you is an act of friendship; my being loved is not an act in me — I am said to be loved because of an act in you, which is your loving me.
• Comparison with justice (friendship is either an effect of virtue or a kind of virtue, resembling justice most): justice involves both paying what you owe and being paid what is owed you, but I am not just because others pay me; that is an act of justice in someone else. I am just because I give others their due.
• So: loving you with the love of wishing well (“loving you as myself”) is a real perfection of me; being loved is at most a sign of something good in me (if I have not falsely presented myself). A perfection outranks a sign of a perfection; hence friendship consists more in loving.
• Logic term: being loved is an extrinsic denomination; my loving is an act perfecting my will. Aristotle could pass over this after six or seven books on the virtues.
• That most men seek more to be loved is therefore a sign of the defect in our friendships — hence St Francis’s prayer.
• Irony (Augustine, Thomas following him): nothing moves us so much to love another as experiencing their love for us, especially unselfish love; so the one who seeks less to be loved gets more of it.
• Student joke: “Greater love than this hath no man than to be loved by his friends” — “No, no.”

7. Aristotle’s sign: the mother (“mothers rejoice in loving”) #

Point: those most excellent in love — mothers — seek more to love than to be loved.

• Why the mother rather than the father: she is known for perfection of love.
• The Greek case: no Similac; a mother without enough milk gives her baby to another woman to nurse, for the baby’s good; the baby, through that intimacy, becomes attached to the nurse and shows more warmth to her than to its own mother. The mother does it because she seeks the baby’s good more than to be loved by it. Text: mothers rejoice in loving, give their children to be nourished, love them knowing them, but do not seek to be loved in return “if both are not possible”; they love the babies even if the latter, through ignorance, return nothing befitting a mother. “A beautiful example.”
• Parallel cases: a mother giving up her child for adoption when a country collapses (Vietnam at the end of the war), the child then loving the adoptive parents; a teenage girl who keeps the baby rather than abort but puts it up for adoption because she and a good-for-nothing father cannot provide — seeking the baby’s good more than its love.
• Closes: “It’s interesting. Okay.”

His words #

• good / better: the first things to understand in ethics.
• honor: reverence shown to someone for something excelling in them.
• flattery: undeserved praise, more than one deserves.
• fraternal correction: what true friendship involves instead of flattery.
• “friend excelled”: the flatterer, or one who pretends to be such [ed.: text’s “inferior friend”].
• through itself / by happening: his rendering of kath’ hauto, per se [ed.: per se / per accidens]; the through-itself is “more so.”
• love of wishing well: the highest love, loving you “as myself” [ed.: amor benevolentiae / friendship-love].
• love of belonging: a student’s term for the other kind [ed.: probably love of concupiscence].
• extrinsic denomination: being loved is said of me from an act in another.
• Similac: modern artificial milk, absent in Greece.

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics VIII, on loving and being loved (“the eighth book”; ch. 8 inferred), including the mothers passage.
• Thomas Aquinas, commentary on the same passage (reason for the conclusion; locus inferred). Verified match: Summa Theologiae II-II q. 27 a. 1 (10 min). Mentioned
• Prayer of St Francis (seek more to love than to be loved).
• Augustine, Confessions (desired more to be loved than to love) — student’s reference.
• Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Brutus to Cassius on flattery (prev. reading).
• Thomas on fraternal correction (Summa or disputed question; he is unsure).
• Augustine and Thomas: nothing moves us to love like being loved.
• “You’re nobody until somebody loves you” (song).

His questions #

• Does friendship consist equally in loving and being loved, or more in one? More in loving; not equally.
• Is there a likeness between wanting to be loved and wanting to be honored? Yes: both are sought as confirmation of the good in me; to be loved is in a way to be honored.
• What is flattery? Undeserved praise, more than one deserves.
• Does it agree with your experience that the many wish more to be loved than to love? Yes; witnesses St Francis’s prayer and Augustine’s Confessions.
• Why do grandparents want to be loved by the grandchildren? For its own sake, not as confirmation of something good in them.
• What reason would Aristotle take as obvious for friendship consisting more in loving? Loving is an act and real perfection of the friend; being loved is only a sign, an extrinsic denomination.
• Does justice consist in paying what you owe, in being paid, or both? Both are involved, but only paying is an act of justice in me.
• Why is the sign taken from the mother rather than the father? The mother is known for perfection of love.
• Why does the mother give the baby to another woman to nurse? She seeks more to love, i.e. the baby’s good, than to be loved.