What's Bad about Friendship with Bad People?

Cathy Mason*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract (may include machine translation)

Is there something bad about being friends with seriously bad people? Intuitively, it seems so, but it is hard to see why this should be. This is especially the case since some other kinds of loving relationship with bad people look morally acceptable or even good. In this paper, I argue that friendship inherently involves taking one's friends seriously, which involves openness to their beliefs, concerns, and subjective interests. Deeply immoral views and attitudes ought not to be taken seriously or considered as options, and I argue that this explains why being friends with bad people is itself morally problematic. I go on to contrast this with Jessica Isserow's (2018) explanation of what's bad about friendship with bad people, and I suggest that my account is better placed to explain why friendships with bad people are morally problematic but some other loving relationships with bad people are not.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)523-534
Number of pages12
JournalCanadian Journal of Philosophy
Volume51
Issue number7
DOIs
StatePublished - 8 Oct 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Friendship
  • Love
  • Moral character
  • Moral options
  • Relationships
  • Vice

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'What's Bad about Friendship with Bad People?'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this