What makes a good friend?

Good friendships seem worth celebrating.

But for many of us, tensions can appear from time to time between being a good friend and doing “the right thing.”

• Alexis Elder
• The Conversation

When faced with, for example, a situation where it’s tempting to lie to cover for a friend, it can seem as though friendship and morality are on a collision course.

I am an ethicist who works on issues involving friendship, so this tension is of great interest to me.

It can be tempting to say that bad people are likely to treat their friends badly: For example, they could lie, cheat or steal from their friends.

But it seems logically possible for a…

• What makes a…