Loyalty is held out by most people as a virtue. Let’s assume that it is. Still, it’s not obvious what loyalty actually is.
Merriam Webster defines “loyal” as “unswerving in allegiance.” Unswerving? No swerves at all? How about a swervlet?
Let’s consider this. This classic definition really means that when you are loyal, you subordinate your interests, goals, needs and wants to those of another – that other can be a person, organization or even a cause.
Is this really what we mean when we hold loyalty up as a virtue? Do we really want people to demonstrate this “virtue?” Let’s take an extreme example of this. Imagine that every person in the world was loyal – all to the same person. Every single person subordinated themselves to this one person. That doesn’t sound very virtuous. It sounds quite a bit like slavery.
So maybe my definition is wrong. Maybe it doesn’t mean subordinating all of your interests, goals, needs and wants. Maybe it’s more limited than that. Perhaps it means subordinating some of them. Or maybe it means subordinating them all but only for a limited time. Or maybe it means subordinating them subject to some condition. For example: I will subordinate myself to a cause. When the cause achieves its aims then the subordination ends.
Or maybe there’s a condition of another sort: I will be loyal to you if you do certain things for me. That’s not really subordination at all – it’s actually self-serving. Is that what we mean by “loyalty?” Is loyalty just a means to get your own back scratched?
There are two types of loyalty we often talk about: loyalty to a friend and loyalty to an employer. Let’s examine these.
Does loyalty to a friend mean you stick with them no matter what? Unswerving allegiance? What if they change? What if their beliefs and behaviors radically change so that you no longer recognize them? Or what if you change?
What could loyalty to an employer mean? Does it mean that you’ll agree to continue to work for your employer no matter how they treat you? Even if they stop paying you?
Does loyalty require you to be irrational?
I’m not sure. But it seems to me that unswerving allegiance cannot be a virtue. If you do not alter your beliefs or behaviors no matter how much the world changes, then you are not virtuous, you are a fool. If your friend turns out to be a serial killer and you keep inviting him to Thanksgiving dinner with your family, you’re crazy and probably evil.
So either loyalty is not a virtue in all circumstances or the definition of loyalty itself is of a more limited sort.
As a practical matter, nobody should rely on loyalty. I don’t mean that people are never loyal. I mean something a bit more nuanced. In order to gain someone’s loyalty, you are going to have to be a certain kind of person – one that is respected and valued by someone. As long as you continue to be that person, you are not calling on your friend’s loyalty. You only start to call on their loyalty when you stop being the person they wanted to be loyal to in the first place. When you change but still hope that they will treat you the same, you are calling on their loyalty. But it is only a matter of time before they abandon you. Your best strategy for keeping someone’s loyalty is, paradoxically, to never call on their loyalty in the first place – that is, not to alter the conditions in which you earned their loyalty to begin with.
In a way then, loyalty is not some sort of secured asset. It is the state of a relationship. And a fragile state at that. You must continually earn loyalty. In which case, does it really exist?…
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