Friendship and Moral Wrongs

'Friendship and Moral Wrongs'

Abstract: 

It is a commonplace to think that we have duties to our friends that we do not have towards strangers. We are invested in our friends’ well-being, and we take ourselves to have strong reasons to prioritize their needs and interests over those of others. Philosophers traditionally understand duties of friendship to be a particular species of moral duties. However, they are wrong to do so. This moralist position cannot satisfactorily accommodate the full range of the duties that we have towards our friends. In particular, moralists struggle to accommodate cases where it seems defensible to do what is (all-things-considered) morally wrong for a friend’s sake. While acting in a friend’s interests in such cases is not morally defensible, I argue that it can nonetheless be defensible from the perspective of friendship.