Friendship and the circumstances of justice according to Aquinas

For Aquinas, the circumstances of friendship do not cancel the circumstances of justice. Aquinas's friendship coexists with conflict, disputes, and mutual uncertainties between friends (which are ineliminable features of the personal relationships we can experience in this world). For this reason, whatever the closeness present in a relationship, justice never becomes redundant. For Aquinas, not only does friendship not remove the circumstances of justice, but, between unequals, the proportional equivalence of actions that is required for the possibility of just interaction can only take place when the unequals become friends.