Nicomachean Ethics

​There is also a difficulty concerning whether to dissolve friendships, or not, with those who do not remain the same. Or is it not at all strange to dissolve them towards those who were friends for the sake of utility or pleasure, when they no longer have these? For they were friends of those things, and when those fail, it is reasonable not to love. But one might complain if, while loving for the sake of utility or pleasure, one pretended to do so for the sake of character. For, as we said at the beginning, the greatest differences arise between friends when they are not friends in the same way they think they are. When, therefore, one has been deceived and has supposed that one was loved for one’s character, while the other was doing nothing of the sort, one should blame oneself. But when one is deceived by the other’s pretense, it is just to complain of the deceiver, and even more so than of those who counterfeit currency, in proportion as the wrongdoing concerns something more valuable. If one accepts another as good, but he becomes wicked and seems so, should one still love him? Or is it not possible, if indeed not everything is lovable but only the good? What is evil is neither lovable nor should it be loved; for one ought not to be a lover of evil, nor to become like a base person; and it has been said that like is friend to like. Should one, then, dissolve the friendship immediately? Or not with all, but only with those who are incurable in their wickedness? But to those who are capable of reform one should rather assist with respect to their character than their property, in proportion as this is better and more akin to friendship. And he who dissolves the friendship would seem to do nothing strange; for he was not a friend to such a person; therefore, being unable to restore him when he has changed, he withdraws. But if one remained the same while the other became better and far excelled in virtue, should one still treat him as a friend? Or is it not possible? It becomes most clear in a great distance, as in childhood friendships; for if one should remain a child in intellect while the other was a man of the highest caliber, how could they be friends when they neither like the same things nor share joys and sorrows? For neither will these things belong to them even in relation to each other, and without these it was not possible to be friends; for it is not possible to live together. And we have spoken of these matters. Should one, then, behave in no way differently towards him than if he had never been a friend? Or must one keep a memory of the past intimacy, and just as we think we ought to favor friends rather than strangers, so also to those who have been friends must something be rendered on account of the past friendship, when the dissolution does not occur because of an excess of wickedness?