2023 Summer Reading Recommendations
True Friendship: Where Virtue Becomes Happiness by John Cuddeback

Moral philosophy, the orderly search for wisdom about human actions, must start somewhere. A good moral philosopher starts from true principles. Beginning with these principles greatly improves the odds of ending with true conclusions.

Beyond knowing the principles, however, the good teacher must also choose the starting point that will help his students find wisdom. Good teachers ask the right questions in the right order. If so, then how should teachers introduce moral philosophy? Should we look first to unlikely scenarios involving switches and out-of-control trolleys? What about being stranded on a desert island? Trapped in a narrow tunnel?

With all due respect to trolleys, tropics, and tunnel-traps, there are better ways to teach moral philosophy. The best philosophical questions are more fundamental: Is there a purpose to my life? If so, what is it, and how do I attain it?

In his recent edition of True Friendship (2021), Dr. John Cuddeback presents a philosophical introduction to the moral life, beginning with such appealing realities as happiness and friendship. With clarity and nuance, he presents the insights of Aristotle and Aquinas into that marvelous treasure that is human friendship.

The purpose of life is to be happy. Happiness, or human flourishing, is the goal of everything we do. All virtues are in some way a means to happiness. Moral philosophy is about natural happiness, and how to achieve it.

Human friendship is one of the necessary means for flourishing in this life: “In order that man may do well, whether in the works of the active life, or in those of the contemplative life, he needs the fellowship of friends” (ST I-II, q. 4, a. 8, corp.). This is in part because man is a social animal—we naturally live in societies made up of a variety of relationships. Some relationships arise from convenience. Others, from business dealings. The highest form of friendship, however, and that most important for society, is the virtuous or true friendship. In this highest friendship, the other is loved as a second self. Such friends seek happiness together, joined in a common pursuit of virtue. As they grow in virtue, they become ever better disposed to live true friendship, better able to seek happiness together. 

Even on the natural level, this ethics of friendship has immediate applications for human marriage, which Aquinas calls the maxima amicitia—the greatest of friendships. Marriage, created naturally good, has been elevated in the order of grace to become a sacrament for the baptized. As Cuddeback observes, however, even unaided human reason discovers many natural truths about marriage when it is taken seriously as a form of friendship. The author proposes for his readers how the ethics of friendship should shape marriage and dating, the proximate preparation for marriage. This section of the book will be challenging for some, but herein it proves its value. 

Aristotle has such a lofty view of friendship because he sees the “big picture” of human morality: he sees that true friendship makes the virtuous life possible for those who seek happiness. Aquinas would agree. As a theologian and saint, however, Aquinas knows that God has come in the flesh to give us more than Aristotle could have ever imagined: “No longer do I call you servants, . . . but I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Our goal remains happiness, but the happiness that grace makes possible is eternal friendship with God.

This month of June is traditionally devoted to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When we speak about Jesus’ Sacred Heart, we meditate on that human, sacrificial love through which he mediates to us the love of the Blessed Trinity: “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Every insight into this mystery is pure gold. By his moral analysis of the nature of friendship, Cuddeback reminds us of an oft-neglected part of our own human nature. With his robust understanding of natural friendship, we can better understand how grace heals and elevates our way of loving, when God opens to us his very Heart. 

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Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)