"For, as is so clear in the Nicomachean Ethics, friendship was for Aristotle a basically moral undertaking, with the relationship of true friendship defined primarily in terms of common goals and a shared pursuit of certain specified goods.
"For Aristotle, the primary benefit of friendship is not affection but growth in virtue. But this Aristotelian view of friendship has diminished along with the disappearance of a common good. It no longer seems appropriate to expect that friends will agree with one another about the more substantive matters of life. Now friendship is viewed primarily as an expression of affection (what Aristotle would have called a friendship of pleasure) or an exercise of career positioning and "networking" (what Aristotle would have called a friendship of utility) (1157b37-1158a3). For Aristotle, neither of these forms of friendship are true friendship because they lack any necessary connection to a person's growth in virtue and attainment of a life worthy of human beings."
-- Kent Dunnington. Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the Models of Disease and Choice (Strategic Initiatives in Evangelical Theology) (Kindle Locations 1211-1215). Kindle Edition.
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