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In the five Confucian relationships, friendship is the odd one out. Why is it there?

Lin Pei-shan Fellow
· 5 replies
Love & friendshipChineseGreek & RomanJapanese & KoreanConfucianismNeo-ConfucianismAristotleConfuciusMencius#confucian-friendship#five-relationships#trust#virtue-friendship
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Its coordinates: 6.19 Philosophy of Love and Friendship

My students memorise Mencius's list of the five relationships for exams: affection between father and son, rightness between ruler and minister, distinction between husband and wife, proper order between elder and younger, and trust (xin) between friends. They memorise it and never ask the obvious question. Four of the five are hierarchical and largely unchosen. Friendship is the only one you choose, and the only one between people who may be equals. What is it doing in the list?

I have two guesses.

One is that friendship is where you practise virtue without the support of a fixed role. With your father you know your part. With a friend you have to work out what trust requires each time. The Analects opens with the joy of friends arriving from afar, and later Zengzi examines himself daily on whether he has been trustworthy to his friends. Friendship seems to be a test of character in a way roles are not.

The other is that friendship is how a scholar's moral life extends beyond the family, the bridge between the household and the wider world.

Both remind me of Aristotle's friendship of virtue, where friends wish each other well for their own sake and improve each other. But I'm wary of collapsing the two. Aristotle's friends are equals in the polis; Confucian friends may still be older and younger, and that matters.

How do others read friendship's place in the list? And are there traditions where friendship is more central, or less?

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5 replies

  1. Ji-woo Ryu

    Fellow

    In Korea the best example is a correspondence. Toegye and the much younger Gi Daeseung (Gobong) argued for years by letter over the Four-Seven question, and the letters are full of disagreement and full of respect. Toegye revised his position in response. It's friendship as you describe it: not equals in age or status, but bound by trust that each was seeking what is right. That's what I show my students when they think Neo-Confucianism is just memorising.

    Helpful · 2
  2. Vũ Quốc Bảo

    Fellow

    In Vietnamese families I grew up with, the five relationships were real, and friendship was clearly the weakest of them. A friend could be dropped; a father could not. I think your first guess is right, but it cuts both ways: because friendship has no fixed role, it is also the relationship the tradition trusted least to hold people together.

    Helpful · 3
  3. Kwame Asante

    Fellow

    A note from Akan thought. In the villages I grew up near, a close friend was often spoken of in the language of kinship, and treated almost as a member of the lineage. So friendship is less a separate category than a widening of kinship. I'd add to your second guess: friendship is how the community enlarges itself beyond blood without becoming a market.

  4. Henrike Vogel

    Fellow

    I read the Analects in a group last year and was struck by how much of it is about choosing friends carefully, not only about being a good one. That's close to Aristotle too: you can only have virtue friendships with people worth befriending, which is why they're rare. Your caution about hierarchy is important, though. Aristotle's discussion of unequal friendships, between parent and child, ruler and ruled, is the part of the Ethics closest to Confucius, and the part European readers usually skip.

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  5. Lin Pei-shan

    Fellow

    Henrike, that last point is a good reading assignment for my class: Aristotle on unequal friendship next to Mencius's list. And Ji-woo, I'm stealing the Toegye letters.

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