. Kant sees true friendship as two people taking care of the others needs. If I take care of my friends needs he will take care of my needs. Kant believes that a truly virtuous man is friends with everyone and should not limit himself to a select few friends, as this would be being exclusive. He should love everyone equally. However friendships by definition are exclusive, and as a result one is forced to play favoritism. According to Kant friendships are the have of people of lesser virtues blocking out the world. Aristotle would disagree though, he would say friendships are the way into the world. Kant has a somewhat negative view of friendship whereas Aristotle thinks friendship is good and therefor sought by everyone.Aristotles basic idea of dividing friendship into sections, utility, pleasure and virtue, is good but it can be said that his ideals are too high. Can he be right in saying that only virtuous people can have true friendships? The rest of us with lesser virtues are left with friendships of utility and friendships of pleasure, as only a select few can be truly virtuous. Many would be offended by this and many would believe that although they may not have friendships of virtue as Aristotle meant it they are not inferior and are true friendships all the same (John L. Fjellstad).It would be better if Aristotle made it clear that it is possible for everyone to experience true friendship and not limited it to virtuous people. If virtue is attained by age and wisdom does that not mean that everyone is potentially virtuous and therefore everyone can potentially be in a virtuous friendship.Personally I think there are many flaws in Aristotles views on friendship. The main ones being that he is too elitist, too exclusive when it comes too defining true friendship and too inclusive when it comes to friendships of utility, e.g. I dont see the coalman as being my friend even though by Aristotles definition of friendship o...
