Kitap 7
2
Civic friendship on the other hand is constituted in the fullest degree on the principle of utility, for it seems to be the individual’s lack of self-sufficiency that makes these unions permanent—since they would have been formed in any case merely for the sake of society. Only civic friendship and the deviation from it are not merely friendships but also partnerships on a friendly footing; the others are on a basis of superiority.
3
The justice that underlies a friendship of utility is in the highest degree just, because this is the civic principle of justice. The coming together of a saw with the craft that uses it is on different lines—it is not for the sake of some common object, for saw and craft are like instrument and spirit, but for the sake of the man who employs them.
4
It does indeed come about that even the tool itself receives attention which it deserves with a view to its work, since it exists for the sake of its work, and the essential nature of a gimlet is twofold, the more important half being its activity, boring.Not its ἕξις, its shape, hardness, etc. And the body and the slave are in the class of tool, as has been said before. Aristot. Eud. Eth. 1241b 17-24.
5
Therefore to seek the proper way of associating with a friend is to seek for a particular kind of justice. In fact the whole of justice in general is in relation to a friend, for what is just is just for certain persons; and persons who are partners, and a friend is a partner, either in one’s familyi.e. friend in the sense of relation. or in one’s life. For man is not only a political but also a house-holding animal, and does not, like the other animals, couple occasionally and with any chance female or male,
6
but man is in a special way not a solitary but a gregarious animal, associating with the persons with whom he has a natural kinship; accordingly there would be partnership; and justice of a sort, even if there were no state.
