忠誠心（スタンフォード哲学百科事典）

Loyalty (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Menu Browse Table of Contents What's New Random Entry Chronological Archives About Editorial Information About the SEP Editorial Board How to Cite the SEP Special Characters Advanced Tools Contact Support SEP Support the SEP PDFs for SEP Friends Make a Donation SEPIA for Libraries Entry Navigation Entry Contents Bibliography Academic Tools Friends PDF Preview Author and Citation Info Back to Top Loyalty First published Tue Aug 21, 2007; substantive revision Wed Apr 29, 2026 Loyalty is usually seen as a virtue, albeit a problematic one. It is constituted centrally by perseverance in an association to which a person has become intrinsically committed as a matter of his or her identity. Its paradigmatic expression is found in close friendship, to which loyalty is integral, but many other relationships and associations seek to encourage it as an aspect of affiliation or membership: families expect it, organizations often demand it, and countries do what they can to foster it. May one also have loyalty to principles or other abstractions? Derivatively, two key issues in the discussion of loyalty concern its status as a virtue and, if that status is granted, the limits to which loyalty ought to be subject. 1. Introduction 1.1 Background 1.2 Roots 2. The nature of loyalty 2.1 A practical disposition or only a sentiment? 3. The structure of loyalty 3.1 Loyalty and loyalties 3.2 Is loyalty inherently exclusionary? 3.3 Universalism and particularism 3.4 The subjects of loyalty 3.5 The objects of loyalty 4. Loyalty as a virtue 5. Justifying loyalty 6. Limiting loyalty 6.1 Whistle blowing Bibliography Academic Tools Other Internet Resources Related Entries 1. Introduction 1.1 Background Historically, most of the detailed engagement with loyalty has come from creative writers (Aeschylus, 2003; Galsworthy, 1922; Conrad, 1899, 1907, 1913), business and marketing scholars (Goman, 1990; Jacoby & Chestnut, 1978), psychologists (Zdaniuk & Levine, 2001), psychiatrists (Böszörményi-Nagy, 1973), sociologists (Connor, 2007), scholars of religion (Sakenfeld, 1985; Spiegel, 1965), political economists (Hirschman, 1970, 1974), and—pre-eminently—political theorists who have taken a particular interest in nationalism, patriotism and loyalty oaths (Grodzins, 1956; Schaar, 1957; Guetzkow, 1955). Because of its focus on familial relations, Confucian thought has long been interested in loyalty (Goldin, 2008; see also the section on Filiality and Care in the entry on Chinese Ethics for more on loyalty and related debates in Confucian and Mohist ethics). The grand Western philosophical exception has been Josiah Royce (1908, 1913), who, influenced by eastern philosophy (Foust, 2012b, 2015), created an ethical theory centering on “loyalty to loyalty.” Royce has generated a steady but specialized interest (see, esp. Foust, 2012a, 2011, 2024; Anderson, 2017; Spencer, 2017;). Since the 1980s, though, some independent philosophical discussion has emerged (Baron, 1984; Fletcher, 1993; Oldenquist, 1982; MacIntyre, 1984; Nuyen, 1999; Keller, 2007; Jollimore, 2012, 2024; Felten, 2012; Kleinig, 2014, Stout, 2022, Purdy, 2025), not only generally and in the context of political theory, but also in the areas of occupational and professional ethics (McChrystal, 1992, 1998; Trotter, 1997; Hajdin, 2005; Hart & Thompson, 2007; Schrag, 2001; Coleman, 2009; Foust, 2018; Olsthoorn, 2026), whistleblowing (Martin, 1992; Varelius, 2009), friendship (Bennett, 2004, Kleinig, 2023), and virtue theory (Ewin, 1992). 1.2 Roots Although the term “loyalty” has its immediate philological origins in Old French, its older and mostly abandoned linguistic roots are in the Latin lex (law). Nevertheless, dimensions of the phenomenon that we now recognize as loyalty are as ancient as human association, albeit often manifested in its breaches (disloyalty, betrayal). The Old Testament writers were often occupied with the fickleness of human commitments, whether to God or to each other. To characterize such fickleness they tended to use the language of (un)faithfulness, though nowadays we might be inclined to use the more restricted language of (in)fidelity, which has regard to specific commitments. In medieval to early modern uses of the term, loyalty came to be affirmed primarily in the oath or pledge of fealty or allegiance sworn by a vassal to his lord. That had an interesting offshoot as monarchical feudalism lost sway: loyal subjects who were distressed by the venality of sitting sovereigns found it necessary—as part of their effort to avoid charges of treason—to distinguish their ongoing loyalty to the institution of kingship from their loyalty to a particular king. 2. 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. For the most part, an association that we come to value for its own sake is also one with which we come to identify (as mine or ours ). 2.1 A practical disposition or only a sentiment? The nature of loyal attachment is a matter of debate. The strong feelings and devotion often associated with loyalty have led some to assert that loyalty is only or primarily a feeling or sentiment—an affective bondedness that may express itself in deeds, the latter more as an epiphenomenon than as its core. As Ewin put it, loyalty is an “instinct to sociability” (Ewin, 1990, 4; cf. Connor, 2007). But feelings of loyalty are probably not constitutive of loyalty, even if it is unusual to find loyalties that are affectless. Arguably, the test of loyalty is conduct rather than intensity of feeling, primarily a certain “stickingness” or perseverance—the loyal person acts for or stays with or remains committed to the object of loyalty even when it is likely to be disadvantageous or costly to the loyal person to remain so. Those who focus on loyalty as a sentiment often intend to deny that loyalty might be rationally motivated. But even though expressions of loyalty may not be maximizing (in cost-benefit terms), the decision to commit oneself loyally may be rational, for one need not (indeed, ought not to) enter into associations blindly, or—even when they are initially unavoidable (as with familial or national ones)—accept their demands unthinkingly. Moreover, once made, such commitments may be forfeited by the objects of loyalty should there be serious failure on their part, or they may be overridden in the face of significantly greater claims. One loyalty may trump another; other values may trump loyalty. That said, it has been argued on behalf of Ewin and others that loyalty is essentially “judgement insensitive” (Purdy, 2025): first, because loyal conduct is often immediate upon the loyal agent’s recognition that a particular act “promotes the interests of the object of her loyalty” and is “impervious to any other judgement about the [act’s] overall choiceworthiness,” and second, can involve “recalcitrance” – an unwillingness to reconsider, even if the agent “sees that good judgement recommends against” the beneficial act. It is to be wondered, however, whether this captures an essential feature of loyalty, or simply a possibility for one of its perversions (blind or misplaced loyalty). It is certainly true, as Purdy notes, that the injunction to be loyal ought not to be followed unthinkingly; but that may not be because it is judgement insensitive; instead, like other virtues of the will, it is prone to perversion (see Section 4 below). Unsentimental loyalties, such as the zealous but unsentimental professional loyalty of a lawyer to a client, are not unthinking, but have their rationale in professional or associational tele , such as that of the adversarial system (however, see McChrystal, 1992, 1998). It is to this shared professional commitment that the lawyer is ultimately committed, not as a matter of mere sentiment but of deliberative choice. Posing the issue as one of either “practical disposition” or “sentiment” is probably too stark. Some evolutionary biologists/psychologists see loyalty as a genetically transmitted adaptive mechanism, a felt attachment to others that has survival value (Wilson, 1993, 23). Given what is often seen as the self-sacrificial character of individual loyalty, such loyalty is taken to be directed primarily to group survival (West, 1945, 218). But it is not clear what any such explanatory account shows. What “loyalty” may have begun as (defense of the group against threat) and what it has come to be for reflective beings need not be the same. Nor would it impugn what loyalty has come to be that it began as a survival mechanism (presuming an adaptive account to be correct). 3. The structure of loyalty 3.1 Loyalty and loyalties Sometimes we use “loyalty” to refer to the practical disposition to persevere in affiliational attachments. More commonly we speak of loyalties to specific associations. Our generic disposition to be loyal is expressed in loyalties to certain kinds of natural or conventional associations, such as friendships, families, organizations, professions, countries, and religions. There is a reason for this. Associations that evoke and exact our loyalty tend to be those with which we have become deeply involved or identified . This is implicit in the working definition’s reference to “intrinsically valued associational attachments.” Intrinsically valued associational attachments are usually those with which we have developed some form of social identification. We have come to value the associational bond for its own sake (whatever may have originally motivated it). Our loyalties are not just to any groups that may exist, or even to any group with which we have so