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Friendship and Modern Life

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science
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Synonyms

Friendship

Definition

Friendships are interpersonal relationships that are voluntary, personal, affective, mutual, and equal. “Modern life” refers to the set of technologies and means of social interaction that has developed around and with the rise of the Internet. Friendship and modern life is then the set of interpersonal interactions and consequences thereof, which have the features noted above and arise out of relationships between agents as mediated by modern technology and society.

Introduction

The starting point for most modern analyses of friendship is Aristotle. In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes three kinds of friendship, of which two, the friendships of utility and of pleasure, are imperfect, and the final one, the friendship of virtue, is perfect. In a friendship of virtue, claims Aristotle, each participant wishes well for the other for their own sake, rather than as a means to either the utility or pleasure of the lesser friendships (Ross 1998)....

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Correspondence to Nick Munn .

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Munn, N. (2017). Friendship and Modern Life. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1570-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1570-1

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