"Loyalty," as a moral rather than a political concept, has received scant attention in philosophical literature. In fact, at the present time [1967] it seems banished from respectable ethical discussions, owing, no doubt, to its historical association with an obsolete metaphysics (idealism) and with such odious political movements as the extreme nationalism of Nazism. However, the supposed implications suggested by these disreputable associations are ill-founded. On the contrary, loyalty is an essential ingredient in any civilized and humane system of morals.

Philosophical issues regarding loyalty may be separated into the question of the object of loyalty, and the question of the moral value of loyalty.

The Object of Loyalty

Granted that loyalty is the wholehearted devotion to an object of some kind, what kind of thing is this object? Is it an abstract entity, such as an idea or a collective being? Or is it a person or group...