 The topic of Books VIII and IX of the Ethics is friendship. Although it is difficult to avoid the term “friendship” as a translation of “philia”, and this is an accurate term for the kind of relationship he is most interested in, we should bear in mind that he is discussing a wider range of phenomena than this translation might lead us to expect, for the Greeks use the term, “philia”, to name the relationship that holds among family members, and do not reserve it for voluntary relationships. Although Aristotle is interested in classifying the different forms that friendship takes, his main theme in Books VIII and IX is to show the close relationship between virtuous activity and friendship. He is vindicating his conception of happiness as virtuous activity by showing how satisfying are the relationships that a virtuous person can normally expect to have.