C.S. Lewis and Aristotle on Civic Friendship by Micah Watson
Apparently Professor Watson didn't read that part of the Nicomachean Ethics in which Aristotle explicitly talks about civic friendship. And it doesn't take much to develop his argument to the conclusion that civic friendship is incompatible with liberal pluralism, or competing identities. But the liberal must hold on to his liberal fantasyland as long as possible, rather than face the truth that utopia does not exist and he does not live in a community. Civility may be the appropriate response, or it may not be the appropriate response -- it depends on the circumstances and what the other person is saying or doing. Have we forgotten what Aristotelian phronesis is, too?
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