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“Yes,” I said; “but how ineffably loyal they were!” “Most extraordinary rascals! Of course the King gave a pledge that no attempt would be made to trace whence.
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Such explanatory accounts, however, do not justify the loyalties we form or may be inclined to form. Yet, because loyalties privilege their objects, the provision of a justification is important. For some writers, the distinction between chosen and unchosen loyalties is critical. Simon Keller, for example, considers that our general unwillingness to question unchosen loyalties exhibits the lack of integrity often referred to as bad faith.

Once we have such loyalties—he focuses on patriotic loyalties—we are resistant to their scrutiny and self-defensively discount challenges to them Keller, ; There may be some truth to the view that we are more likely to show bad faith as far as our unchosen loyalties are concerned, but it may be difficult to offer that as a general comment on unchosen loyalties. There may be no more reason not to call our patriotism into question when we see how our country is behaving than there is not to call a friendship into question when we see how our friend is behaving.

It may be psychologically harder and a moral hazard associated with loyalties , but that does not sustain a general judgment about unchosen loyalties. Some have treated arguments for associational loyalty as though they were cut from the same cloth as general arguments for associational obligations. But whatever the merits of such arguments as grounds for general institutional obligations, they do not provide grounds for the particularistic obligations that we connect with loyalty. They do not capture the particularity of such obligations. Even consent-based arguments are insufficiently particularistic.

Leaving aside the possibility that our basic political or parental or other associational obligations may also include an obligation to be loyal, we may usually fulfil what we take those obligations to be without any sense of loyalty to their objects. Obligations of loyalty presuppose an associational identification that more general institutional or membership obligations do not. But as valuable as loyalty may be for associational recuperation, it is not clear that we can link its justification only to its recuperative potential.

For even within a generally consequentialist framework loyalty may play a more positive role. In such a case the loyalty expresses a desire to further institutional interests rather than restore them. The donation is seen as an expression of loyalty because it expresses a commitment to the institution in the face of presumably more narrowly self-serving alternatives available to the donor. An outside philanthropist might, however, choose to donate the same amount, though not out of loyalty to the institution. More critically, if loyalty is viewed simply in terms of the goods that the associative object is able to secure or produce, the intrinsic value that the association has come to have for the loyal person is overlooked, along with the sense of identification that it expresses.

It is out of that sense of identification that loyalty arises. We return to this in c. But obligations of gratitude are not ipso facto obligations of loyalty: the brutalized Jew who was rescued by the Good Samaritan may have had a debt of gratitude but he had no debt of loyalty Luke — Loyalty, moreover, may be owed where there is no reason for gratitude: as may be the case between friends. Obligations of gratitude are recompensive, whereas obligations of loyalty are associative. A broad justification such as this leaves unstated what associations might be constitutive of human flourishing.

Perhaps there is no definitive list.

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But most would include friendships, familial relationships, and some of the social institutions that foster, sustain, and secure the social life in which we engage as part of our flourishing. To the extent that we accept that engagement with or in a particular form of association or relation is constitutive of our flourishing, to that extent we will consider loyalty to it to be justified—even required.

The arguments that justify loyalty do not ipso facto justify absolute loyalty, though they do not rule out the possibility that, for example, a person might legitimately be willing, out of loyalty, to lay down his life for another. That is often the case in wartime and may also be true of some friendships. The strength of the claims of loyalty will depend on the importance of the association to the person who has the association and, of course, on the legitimacy of the association in question. Not only may some associative relations be illegitimate, but the expectations of one association may come into conflict with those of another: we may have conflicts of loyalty.

If the conflict is resolved by giving one loyalty precedence over another, it does not necessarily follow that loyalty to the one is disloyalty to the other. Sometimes such priorities will be straightforward; at other times not. Prioritization may, nevertheless, call for an apology and compensation in respect of the disappointed party. Even if we decide unwisely as did Robert E. Lee , our decision will not ipso facto count as disloyalty. Disloyalty is more often associated with the self-serving or hypocritical abandonment of loyalty.

Royce, who sometimes appears absolutist about loyalty, seeks to avoid the problems of absolutism in two ways. It has already been noted that it is not part of loyalty to be complaisant or servile, though loyalty may be corrupted into such. In any plausible account of loyalty as a virtue there must be openness to corrective criticism on the part of both the subject and object of loyalty.

Not any opposition is permissible. A loyal opponent is not just an opponent, but one who remains loyal. What that entails is that the opposition stays within bounds that are compatible with the well-being or best interests or flourishing of the object of loyalty. Generally speaking, a loyal opposition will not advocate the equivalent of rebellion or revolution for the latter would jeopardize the object of loyalty and perhaps lead to its replacement by an alternative object of loyalty.

It is the commitment to opposition within what are judged to be the prevailing structures that has led some radical critics of loyalty e. It is conservative, though in a positive sense of that word: it involves a commitment to securing or preserving the interests of an associational object, an object that is, or has come to be, valued for its own sake whatever else it may be valued for.

Nevertheless, the existence of a loyal opposition need not preclude the possibility that a more radical opposition might and indeed should subsequently be mounted.

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In such cases it could be argued that the object of loyalty was no longer worthy of it or had forfeited its claim to it. It is only if we mistakenly or misguidedly think of loyalty as making an absolute claim on us that a derogatory charge of conservatism against a loyal opposition will have traction. For heuristic purposes, we can probably distinguish a double focus for loyalty—either a type of association such as a state or a particular instantiation of the type such as the United States.

Strictly, loyalty will be only to the latter, though it assists in understanding the limits of loyalty if we make the distinction. If the type of institution is thought to be critical to human flourishing, then loyalty to it will be expected. But if the institution is of relatively minor significance, the development of instantiations of it, along with loyalty to them, will be relatively unimportant though not necessarily to those who develop such loyalties.

Whether, for example, patriotism that is, patriotic loyalty is justified will depend in part on the importance to be accorded to a state or country. If we are social contractarians, then the state broadly conceived offers a significant solution to some of the problems of human association as well as an arena for social identification. We might think that both a state and loyalty to it are important. That, however, needs to be embodied in a particular state, and that state may be such that the loyalty it should garner is forfeited by how it acts.

Loyalty to a particular object is forfeited—that is, its claims for the protection and reinforcement of associative identity and commitment run out—when the object shows itself to be no longer capable of being a source of associational satisfaction or identity-giving significance. That is, the claims run out for the once-loyal associate.

2. The nature of loyalty

Others, of course, may dispute this. But whether or not loyalty is thought to be justifiably forfeited, the breakpoint may differ for different people. Consider the case of infidelity. The relationship will be considered reparable. The issues of trust that are involved may be addressed and the relationship repaired. But for another, such infidelity may collapse the structure in which the relationship has been housed. Essential trust will have been smashed like Humpty Dumpty. Is there a right and a wrong in such cases?

Does the second fail to appreciate our shared frailty and the possibilities for redemption and renewal? We should probably not acquiesce in the relativistic view that what is right for one is wrong for the other. At the same time, however, there may be no easy answer. The two positions constitute the beginnings of a consideration of the nature of intimacy, what it reasonably demands of us, and how we should respond to transgressions of its expectations.

The same may be true of other loyalties. Our approach may be assisted by utilizing the earlier heuristic distinction between the general form of an association and its particular instantiation. We may be able to reach some general consensus on what a state might reasonably expect of us.

However, in any actual association with a particular state the content of the bond may be individualized. Because such employees are generally considered disloyal, it has been common to characterize them as traitors, snitches, weasels, squealers, or rats. The normative background to whistle blowing is a belief that employees owe loyalty to their employing organizations. Blowing the whistle frequently creates significant disruption within an organization—it may lose control of its affairs as it is subjected to external inquiries and constraints; it may find itself crippled by costs or other restrictions; and many within it who are little more than innocent bystanders may suffer from the repercussions of an externally mounted investigation.

Whistle blowers themselves will often argue that owed loyalty has been forfeited or at least overridden , so that no disloyalty has been perpetrated. Occasionally they will argue that whistle blowing can be an act of loyalty. Although any member of an organization might have some responsibility for what is done in its name, some members will be better placed to make appropriate assessments of seriousness and may be more responsible for the way in which the organization conducts its activities.

Even if the foregoing considerations are satisfactorily addressed, there remains a question whether blowing the whistle is obligatory or merely permissible. As omissions, failures to blow the whistle must engage with debates about the moral obligatoriness of our acting to prevent harm.


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Even if it is morally obligatory, though, there may be reasons for not making whistle blowing legally mandatory. Anonymous whistle blowing represents a possible solution; it opens the door, however, to disruptive whistles being blown for the wrong reasons or after careless investigation cf. Elliston; Coulson.


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In sum, the case of whistle blowing illustrates not only the importance of loyalty to many organizations but also the care that needs to be exercised when it is claimed that obligations of loyalty are justifiably overridden or forfeited. Introduction 1. The nature of loyalty 2. The structure of loyalty 3. Loyalty as a virtue 5. Justifying loyalty 6. Limiting loyalty 6. The nature of loyalty As a working definition, loyalty can be characterized as a practical disposition to persist in an intrinsically valued though not necessarily valuable associational attachment, where that involves a potentially costly commitment to secure or at least not to jeopardize the interests or well-being of the object of loyalty.

Justifying loyalty There is a great deal of contingency to the development of loyalties. Of the various instrumental justifications of loyalty, the most credible is probably that developed by Hirschman. Hirschman assumes, along with many other institutional theorists, that valued social institutions have an endemic tendency to decline.

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He claims, however, that social life would be seriously impoverished were we self-advantageously to shift our associational affiliations whenever a particular social institution failed to deliver the goods associated with our connection to it, or whenever a more successful provider of that good came along. On this account, loyalty can be seen as a mechanism whereby we at least temporarily persist in our association with the institution or affiliation while efforts are made through giving voice to bring it back on track.

Loyalty gives us a commitment to securing or restoring the productivity of socially valuable institutions or affiliations.