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Full Idea
We know perfectly well that it is not true that the best life would consist in successfully pretending friendship: having friends to serve one but without being a real friend oneself.
Gist of Idea
We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life
Source
Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7)
Book Ref
Foot,Philippa: 'Natural Goodness' [OUP 2003], p.102
A Reaction
For some skallywags the achieving of something for nothing seems to be very much the good life, but not many of them want to exploit people who are seen to be their friends.
| 15 | Sin first, then sacrifice to the gods from the proceeds [Plato] |
| 2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
| 2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
| 22499 | We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life [Foot] |
| 4116 | A weakness of contractual theories is the position of a person of superior ability and power [Williams,B] |
| 3896 | Any social theory of morality has the problem of the 'free rider', who only pretends to join in [Scruton] |