This lecture is devoted to exploring books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics, which are dedicated to a single topic: friendship. Our investigation of friendship will focus on three questions or problems. First, what are the various kinds of friendship according to Aristotle, and what constitutes the best or peak friendship? Second, why does Aristotle’s inquiry into friendship suddenly take a distinctly political turn, and what does Aristotle’s comparison of kinds of friendship with kinds of political regimes mean to teach us about both? Third and finally, we will consider a problem we have seen in Aristotle’s presentation of moral virtue, a problem that returns in the discussion of friendship. We are clearly drawn toward both our own good or happiness on the one hand, and to nobility or right action for its own sake on the other. Just as we seek to be happy in and through friendship on the one hand, but also, in the best friendships, at least, we seek the good of the friend for the