Yes, Friendship and Love Can Be Bought and Sold

ABSTRACT Can friendship and love be bought and sold? I argue yes, contrary to philosophical consensus. The prevailing view rests on the common error of over‐reliance on idealized conceptions of friendship and love that bear little resemblance to actual relationships. Realistic approaches offer more recognizable standards for friendship and love, and support the view that commercial personal relations are possible. I reconstruct and respond to three main objections to my argument: the Involuntariness Objection and the Transformation Objection fail on theoretical grounds; mutual care can be willed, and market mediation need not determine how parties value one another. The Bizarre Objection – that actual cases are too peculiar to count as friendship and love – fails on analysis of four cases (virtual companionship, healthcare companions, Victorian lady's companions, and sex work companionship). The cases demonstrate that actual commercial relationships exhibit the core features of realistic friendship and love. The article finds that the gap between paid and unpaid personal relationships is narrower than commonly assumed. The existence of the market in personal relations raises many questions for future research.