Loyalty
This is the sighted version that was marked on April 7, 2021. There are 2 pending changes that still need to be sighted.
This article or subsequent section is not sufficiently supported by evidence (e.g., anecdotal evidence). Information without sufficient evidence may be removed in the near future. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and adding good supporting evidence.
Loyalty (ˌlo̯ajaliˈtɛːt, from French: loyauté, "decency, loyalty", whose roots go back to the Latin word lex = "law, precept, commandment, contract, condition", s. a. legal "according to the law") denotes (in distinction to loyalty, submission, or obedience) the inner bond based on common moral maxims or guided by a rational interest and its expression in behavior toward a person, group, or community. Loyalty means to share and represent the values (and ideology) of the other in the interest of a common higher goal, or to represent them even if one does not fully share them, as long as this serves the preservation of the jointly represented higher goal. Loyalty is shown both in one's behaviour towards the person to whom one is loyally attached and towards third parties.
The degree of loyalty required depends on the expectations that are constitutive of the relationship in question. These relationships can be informal (for example, friendships) or formal (for example, marriage). One may be born into them (for example, kinship) or have chosen them (for example, immigration). Loyalty expectations extend to external actions, but also - as in the case of friendships - to internal attitudes. It is debatable whether loyalties are genuine duties.
Conflict of Loyalty
Loyalty becomes problematic when it is demanded. Different demands lead to conflicts of loyalty, for example when an employee is supposed to be loyal to the employer even though he does not share certain values or goals. Such conflicts are particularly common in tendentious organisations (church, state, armaments). This becomes serious, for example, in the case of refusal to obey orders in the army, and earlier already in the case of conscientious objection. Also in questions of environmental protection, operational safety, balance sheet, personnel, data protection and similarly sensitive topics, "loyalty" is demanded again and again and just as often ends in fraud.
In families or clans, too, "loyalty" is often demanded from family members, the head of the family or the clan. This often leads to conflicts of conscience and to suppression of one's own values and goals. Loyalty to oneself is then questioned.
Conflicting ties also lead to conflicts of loyalty, here via inner commitment. For example, when a child, who is, after all, bound by love to both his father and his mother, becomes involved in their dispute about their values and goals (triangulation), or when an employee works in different companies that are in competition with each other.
Loyalty and solidarity
If one compares the terms loyalty and solidarity with each other, loyalty rather stands for an inner self-commitment, while solidarity rather represents an inner need. Loyalty describes rather the inner attitude, solidarity rather the outer expression. The transitions are fluid.
