Morality versus Loyalty

This is something that seems so obvious at first, but when you peel away the onion it gets harder and harder.  Here goes…

 

You are in a bar (let’s say) with your best friend.  Your best friend – wrongfully – starts a fight.  Others join in and your friend is getting his butt kicked.  What do you do?

 

This seems kind of easy at first.  You are annoyed that your friend started it up but he is your “best bud” and what are you going to do?  You almost certainly step in and try to fight on his behalf.

 

I asked a whole bunch of people this and 100% said they would step in.  Some of course said they would give a stern talking to the friend thereafter, assuming you both survive.  

 

Amusingly, as an aside, one friend said: “jump in and sort it out in the emergency room.”

 

But now let’s make it harder.

 

What if your friend isnt just wrong, but really wrong.  Like he does something over the top – use your imagination.  Are you still backing him?

 

Or what if you backed him the first time and he does it again the next day.

 

Or what if it isnt your best friend, but it is your brother, sister, niece, nephew, mother, father, etc.

 

Or maybe it is your partner in a venture where you really depend on each other to succeed.

 

And of course it doesn’t have to be a barroom brawl.  It could unethical conduct in business or a whole litany of bad actions by your best friend.

 

Well now the conundrum does get harder doesn’t it?  

 

It comes down to a direct conflict between the moral concept of loyalty and the moral concept of whatever your best friend violated.  

 

And the philosophical question is where do you draw the lines?

 

Of course we could cop out and just say:

 

Well you know it when you see it 

 

And that may in the end be the answer for all of us, but I believe this deserves deeper reflection.

 

You certainly aren’t keen on your friend doing bad stuff day after day and drawing you in day after day.  But before you jettison your best friend over his bad conduct, think about loyalty and what it means.  

 

Without loyalty among humans no one has anything at all. Indeed, what separates humans from other species is our ability to act as a group which of course implies some level of loyalty.  

 

Indeed just about everything going on in the human race – good or ill – is based on loyalty.  Consider how religions started – how do businesses build – how to do families create dynasties – how do teams triumph in sports.  The list goes on.  

 

As for me, as my wife tells me – a lot – I was born in The Year of the Dog and we dogs are loyal.  Loyalty is exceptionally meaningful to me.  And maybe too meaningful, meaning that I might go too far against other concepts of morality in being loyal to those I care about.  

 

In business, this kind of thinking is even trickier as if you show zero loyalty to anyone you have a slim chance of building a business as no one will want to do it with you if they can avoid you.  But if you show too much loyalty you end up supporting poor performers, which in the end convinces strong performers the business will not succeed, so they leave, and it is the same negative result.

 

One side issue is whether you should consider whether you think this guy would be loyal to you in a situation where you were the bad actor or would he let you twist in the wind.  On the one hand you could certainly weight that heavily.  Yet on the other hand you could say that you aren’t going to make moral decisions based on how someone else would act.   

 

Another side issue is how much trouble is your friend in and is the beating he is taking commensurate with what he did wrong.  Maybe he just shouted a bit too loudly and five guys jumped him.

 

Okay, enough analysis.  The point is obvious:  loyalty and morality have collided.  Where do you draw the line?

 

My conclusion is that there is not a clear answer here.  It is a combination of your own personal judgment and the facts and circumstances surrounding that judgment.  These are essentially touchy feely assessments including:

 

How important is the loyalty in the first place.  Is this just some guy you hang out with?  Or did he save your life in a combat situation?

 

How bad was the action.  Was he just carousing with his beer muscles on or did he really do something terrible.  

 

So I do conclude that it really comes down to your personal judgment and “you know it when you see it.”  

 

Yet at the same time, I think that it in making that personal judgment you should think about the moral conflict as you decide what you should do.

 

I would love to know what you think.  If you have thoughts feel free to give me a shout over on X/Twitter.

 

Bruce/The Bruce Philosophical Project