Aristotle puts truth before friends

But we need not pursue this subject, since it has been sufficiently treated in the ordinary discussions. The third type of life is the Life of Contemplation, which we shall consider in the sequel. The Life of Money-making is a constrained kind of life, and clearly wealth is not the Good we are in search of, for it is only good as being useful, a means to something else. On this score indeed one might conceive the ends before mentioned to have a better claim, for they are approved for their own sakes. But even they do not really seem to be the Supreme Good; however, many arguments against them have been disseminated, so we may dismiss them.

The quote: But perhaps it is desirable that we should examine the notion of a Universal Good, and review the difficulties that it involves, although such an inquiry goes against the grain because of our friendship for the authors of the Theory of Ideas. Still perhaps it would appear desirable, and indeed it would seem to be obligatory, especially for a philosopher, to sacrifice even one’s closest personal ties in defense of the truth. Both are dear to us, yet ’tis our duty to prefer the truth.

The originators of this theory, then, used not to postulate Ideas of groups of things in which they posited an order of priority and posteriority (for which reason they did not construct an Idea of numbers in general). But Good is predicated alike in the Categories of Substance, of Quality, and Relation; yet the Absolute, or Substance, is prior in nature to the Relative, which seems to be a sort of offshoot or accident of Substance; so that there cannot be a common Idea corresponding to the absolutely good and the relatively good.