Aristotle writes the Nicomachean Ethics in an attempt to express his views on how men should best live their lives. Aristotle states that friendship is a true virtue, and something that is worth focusing on to achieve happiness, and a good soul. He believes that friendship is “most necessary for our life” (Aristotle 30). Aristotle spends the majority of his Nicomachean Ethics focusing on friendship as opposed to other virtues, such as intellect, justice, fairness, and magnanimity. He views friendship highly and places it above all other virtues. In Aesop’s fable, “The Friends and the Bear”, two men do not exhibit the same values that Aristotle so devotedly describes must be evident in a friendship
“The Two Friends and the Bear” describes the story of two men walking together for safety and coming across a bear. Instead of standing by his friend, the second man takes cover for himself in a tree and leaves his friend to fend for himself. The lesson behind this fable is “Do not be too quick to resume your fellowship with that other man, in case you fall once again into the clutches of another wild beast” (Aesop). In other words, do not be too quick to give out trust to a friend who has once betrayed it. Aristotle describes a virtuous true friendship, in disagreement with Aesop’s faulty friendship between the two men. The friendship that Aesop describes defies many of the virtues that Aristotle writes about. Aristotle writes that in a friendship both people should benefit from the relationship with each other. In Aesop’s fable, only the man who ran to the tree would benefit from continuing his friendship with the other man. For if the bear comes back, the first man cannot rely on his friend to stand by him again, since he fled the first time. Aristotle would not approve of this friendship because both partners are not benefiting from the relationship.
From “The Two