“The best, most complete friendships are those in which friends love and wish each other well as ends in themselves, and not solely, or even primarily, as means to further ends—social advancement, amusement, the promotion of some cause, or even mutual edification or improvement.
In such friendships, the friends value each other’s separateness—the fact that each has, and gives importance to, her own life and perspective, no matter how similar this life and perspective to the other’s; and take pleasure in being together primarily because of the persons they are. The other’s usefulness in bringing about a desired end may, of course, be the initial spark of the friendship, and most friendships are useful in many ways. Indeed, if friends were not useful in times of need, they would not be friends.
But in the best friendships, the central feature of the friendship is simply that the friends love, and wish each other well, as ends in themselves, whereas in lesser friendships, the central feature is the instrumental or means value of each to the other. The friends value each other’s life and perspective only to the extent that it is useful to do so; and each takes pleasure in the other primarily as a means to a further end.”
Excerpt from “Friends as Ends in Themselves” by Neera Kapur Badhwar, 1987.