 These answers to the social value of friendship seem to apply equally well to love: insofar as love essentially involves both a concern for your beloved for his sake and, consequently, action on his behalf for his sake, love will exhibit the same social value. Friedman (1989), however, argues that friendship itself is socially valuable in a way that love is not. Understanding the intimacy of friendship in terms of the sharing of values, Friedman notes that friendship can involve the mutual support of, in particular, unconventional values, which can be an important stimulus to moral progress within a community. For “our commitments to particular persons are, in practice, necessary counterbalances to our commitments to abstract moral guidelines, and may, at times, take precedence over them” (6). Consequently, the institution of friendship is valuable not just to the individuals but also to the community as a whole. On the other hand, however, we might worry that friendship can have negative consequences for society as a whole. As Thomas (1999) and Lintott (2015) argue, we tend to privilege in our loves and friendships “people like us”, which can give rise to biases in favor of certain social identities like race, class, and sexual orientation that can perpetuate inequalities among these groups, reinforce epistemic injustices, and limit our moral development.