Grounding friendship in non-traditional moral frameworks.

Abstract

I distinguish between two types of questions about the conflict between friendship commitments and rule based morality: normative questions, and metaethical questions. In order to answer the normative questions, we must first answer the metaethical question about the conflict. That is what I do in this thesis. Previous attempts to handle the conflict between friendship and morality — either by appeal to traditional moral theories, or by removing friendship from the moral realm entirely — fail to correctly understand the nature of friendship, and its conflict with rule based morality. I suggest that we must look to non-traditional moral theories such as Feminist Care Ethics, or Particularist Moral Values Pluralism, in order to get the correct account of friendship, morality, and the conflict between them.