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Friendship based on pleasure has a similarity to friendship based on virtue, for good men
are pleasant to one another; and the same is true of friendship based on utility, for good
men are useful to each other. In these cases also the friendship is most lasting when each
friend derives the same benefit, for instance pleasure, from the other, and not only so,
but derives it from the same thing, as in a friendship between two witty people, and not
as in one between a lover and his beloved. These do not find their pleasure in the same
things: the lover's pleasure is in gazing at his beloved, the loved one's pleasure is in
receiving the attentions of the lover; and when the loved one's beauty fades, the
friendship sometimes fades too, as the lover no longer finds pleasure in the sight of his
beloved, and the loved one no longer receives the attentions of the lover; though on the
other hand many do remain friends if as a result of their intimacy they have come to love
each other's characters, both being alike in character.
[2]
But when a pair of lovers exchange not pleasure for pleasure but pleasure for gain, the
friendship is less intense and less lasting.
A friendship based on utility dissolves as soon as its profit ceases; for the friends did
not love each other, but what they got out of each other.
Friendships therefore based on pleasure and on and utility can exist between two bad men,
between one bad man and one good, and between a man neither good nor bad and another
either good, bad, or neither. But clearly only good men can be friends for what they are
in themselves; since bad men do not take pleasure in each other,