By reconstructing discussions of several influential figures in the Scottish Enlightenment, this article sheds light on novel arguments about social friendship. First, it argues that these Scottish luminaries forged a new approach to social friendship, distinct from the time-honored Greco-Roman tradition of friendship that cautioned the young to be prudent in choosing friends. Second, the article identifies two subtypes of social friendship, namely civil friendship and civic friendship, and argues that these enlightened writers actively propagated and deliberated upon the concept of general social friendship as conscientious responses to the ideas put forth by Hobbes, Pufendorf, and Mandeville, who claim that society or associations are formed for little more than the sake of self-love and self- preservation. Inspired by Francis Hutcheson’s idea of universal benevolence, David Hume, Adam Smith, William Cleghorn and Adam Ferguson engaged forcefully with the fashionable social philosophy of egoism and rationalism. While they distanced themselves from Hutcheson’s universalism, each philosopher developed unique forms of social friendship, aligned with their respective concerns surrounding civilization, habitual sympathy, philosophy of mind, and social conflict. Despite the subtle distinctions in their presentations and arguments, these Enlightenment thinkers collectively held firm to the entrenched principle that people enter into society, driven by mutual sentiments of agreement, care, or affection. To the Scottish moral philosophers, a civil society or public sphere is as much a space for the aggregation of individuals seeking mutual happiness and protection as it was a workshop of friendship.