Discussion Group Report

Is loyalty really a virtue? Joseph Chuman raises this question in an address, "Loyalty and Its Conflicts," which he gave to the Ethical Culture Society on February 2, 1997. What often comes to mind are members of street gangs or of organized crime, who through powerful loyalty to their own think nothing of mugging and killing people who are not members of the gang; or maybe we think of mindless chauvinism, patriotism or nationalism, which declares its incorrigible allegiance to one group or nation. Loyalty to my own clan or nation used to justify the slaughter of those defined outside of it.

Loyalty seems to justify much negative and cynical behavior these days; it is often preceded by the adjectives "misguided," "misplaced," or "blind." Loyalties seem to arise almost unconsciously from visceral ties which have more to do with chance than choice or deliberation. People often have strong loyalties to their families, clans, religions and countries, not because on any objective scale their associations are better than others, but merely because of an accident of birth. Loyalty often seems to be governed by arbitrary and not reflected upon associations, the strongest pre-rational.

Chuman suggests using the definition of loyalty proffered by Harvard philosopher Josiah Royce, author of what is probably the only philosophic text on this subject, The Philosophy of Loyalty: "The willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause." By this definition loyalty is not something blind; but rather it involves a free act of the will. One has to choose one's loyalties or at least approve them. In the truest sense, loyalty is enlightened, not merely a matter of gut affinities. It is also practical. If you are loyal to a person or a cause, you need to mobilize it. If you don't, it is worthless.

Chuman says loyalty also imposes upon us certain duties and obligations. We often think of duties as something negative that we would rather not deal with. But when we have a sense of loyalty, duty and personal desire no longer stand opposed to each other. What we have to do, we want to do. My love and loyalty transform the tasks I perform into an intrinsic expression of who I am. A sense of love and loyalty and of long-range commitments can have very basic personal payoffs for those who develop them.

The cultivation of personal loyalties can take us even into the realm of personal fulfillment. Cultivating happiness "has something to do with resonating with our inner voice, of marching to our distinctive drummer, of realizing our authentic potentialities, of acting in accordance with what the Greeks called our "daimon," the defining sense of our self. Yet...a program of self-realization that remains unguided by anything outside of us remains shallow."

When we anchor our best talents and efforts onto ideals, causes and persons to whom we are loyal, then we have accomplished several sublime tasks: We have helped define who we are to ourselves and others. He is a man of integrity; she is a woman of valor. Furthermore, if self-fulfillment alone is the glue which keeps us bonded to others, then we have created very shaky foundations. If we can see our human relations as commitments to something that transcends self-interest or individual fulfillment, then we have reached an understanding of loyalty which is far richer and deeper. We have opened a gateway to a type of spiritual appreciation which is also distinctively humanistic. "Spirituality in a humanist sense," suggests Chuman, "understands grasping and working to realize the ideal which lies beneath the surface of things, how my helping the person in need not only helps the person but pushes forward the ideal of compassion; how my working to build a just society helps to bring to the light of day the justice which latently lies within the unjust realities to which I apply my best efforts. A spiritual sensibility about life emerges from being able to see the wheat within the chaff, the ideal within the actual."

What about loyalty as it affects marriage? We can see marriage in one of three ways:

1. Arranged marriages in which the partners are held together by external constraints. The prevailing sensibility is authoritarian.
2. Two individuals' coming together seeking only their own personal fulfillment. As long as these fulfillments are met, all is groovy and the marriage endures; but as soon as frustration is met by one or both partners, the marriage is dissolved.
3. "The ethical marriage," as described by Felix Adler, which introduces a third partner into the relationship. There is a commitment, not only to one's own happiness and to each other's, but also to the idea of marriage. There is wisdom in the traditional vows of loving one another for better or for worse.

How should we deal with the problem when our own loyalties conflict with those of others? Professor Royce counseled not to attempt to demolish the other person's loyalties in such situations, but rather to try to work things out through a larger resolution, which encompasses the loyalties of both, possibly involving compromise. "But," says Chuman, "in some of the nitty-gritty conflicts of life this approach is not useful. If I'm a federal law-enforcement agent, I'm not really interested in preserving the loyalties of criminal gangs. In the resolution of many conflicts both with others and within ourselves, said Jean Paul Sartre, 'There is no comforting way out.'"

"As we travel through life," says Chuman, "we engage experience on many levels...But it is through our loves and loyalties to others and to the ideals which move us that over time our lives are nurtured and we achieve a meaning in life we could not find otherwise."