«A Statesman Should Know the Soul». On Emotional Rationality in Friendship

Abstract

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle urges the statesman to study to soul. Yet, what insight into the human soul did he hold in store for the statesman? Aristotle tends to privilege rationality over the emotions, but he also expounds the need for emotions to guide reason in practical life. Drawing on the notion of friendship, the paper offers a critical reinterpretation of Aristotelian ethics and psychology in order to present an alternative understanding of the intertwinement of reason and emotions. The thesis is that ethical and political forms of friendship, instead of privileging rationality over emotion, allow for a more balanced state between the two, which the paper will expound on in dialogue with modern scholars' interpretations of friendship and emotional rationality.