De‐Moralizing Friendship: Unfinished Business

ABSTRACT We have duties to our friends that we don't have to strangers. Philosophers traditionally take these duties of friendship to be moral duties. But this moralist position cannot accommodate the full scope of the duties that we have to our friends. Many of these associative duties appear to be duties of a distinct normative kind. I defend a de‐moralized conception of friendship's distinctive reasons and obligations. On this framework, friendship constitutes a normative domain in its own right, distinct from the moral realm, and perhaps even the personal one; its concomitant duties can conflict with moral requirements as well as our self‐identifying commitments.