“I Thought We Were Friends!”: Friendship and the Normativity of Influence

Abstract

Most would agree that friends are permitted (and often expected) to offer advice when mere acquaintances may not, to support or encourage us in ways that might be unwelcome coming from strangers or to tell us hard truths that even a romantic partner may be reluctant to share. Though it seems obvious that friendship impacts the normativity of interpersonal influence, extant treatments of the nature and role of the relevant relationship-based considerations in the ethics of influence literature remain undertheorized and largely suggestive. Drawing on social science research and philosophical treatments of special relationships, I identify a triad of features that are partly constitutive of friendship and can serve as a preliminary framework for illuminating the normative considerations at stake in influencing friends.