by CMayne » Tue Apr 08, 2014 3:15 pm
An alternative account is that loyalty is owed to various associations as a debt of gratitude. Although gratitude as a ground of obligation also stands in need of justification, it tends to be more widely acceptable as a justifying reason than loyalty. The fact that we are the nonvoluntary beneficiaries of some of the associative relations to which we are said to owe some of our primary loyalties has provided some writers with a reason to think that it is gratitude that grounds such loyalties.
It has already been noted that it is not part of loyalty to be complaisant or servile, though loyalty may be corrupted into such. In any plausible account of loyalty as a virtue there must be openness to corrective criticism on the part of both the subject and object of loyalty. The “corrective” qualification is important. Not any opposition is permissible. A loyal opponent is not just an opponent, but one who remains loyal. What that entails is that the opposition stays within bounds that are compatible with the well-being or best interests or flourishing of the object of loyalty.
Thank you Stanford encyclopedia.
Sorry if it is "off" the subject but the pretense of GM having "loyalty" is about like a deaf man hearing what you have to say.