When Does Loyalty Trump Honesty

[Vrecknidj]

So, I put two more questions to my students last night.

1. When is loyalty more important than honesty?
2. When is honesty more important than loyalty?

It was a fun discussion.

Curious what you all think.

Dave

PS By "when," I do not, of course, mean something inane like "At 3 o'clock," but rather I intended it to mean "Under what circumstances."

 

[Fleur]

When is loyalty more important than honesty? In military!

 

[Fleur]

But seriously, I think it really depends on somebody`s personality - some people aren`t very loyal, but they`re honest, others are vice versa, but some - neither.
Sometimes it depends on how we understand these terms.

 

[Ogion]

I think it greatly depends on the situation, the context.

I mean, what is loyalty? Is it staying to someone, however this someone behaves? Loyalty comes into play, when you think you have to stand by someone even if you don't approve of him or his actions.
Another part is perhaps, as an example, to be a factor in the decision whom to support. Like in the question whom to help, rather your family, or a stranger, normally you would choose your family (if you have no clash with them).
And one other thing coming to my mind: I think loyalty gets suspicious, if the target of your loyalty thinks he has to remind you of it. I mean, If you get explicitly remembered of "where your loyalty lies", even if you didn't do anything wrong beforehand, i would really question the intents of that person. And Loyalty doesn't allways have to be Obedience to the wishes of the target of your loyalty.

Well, in my life loyalty is seldomly a topic, so the above is more theoretical (just what came to mind thinking about the question).

Ogion

 

[Vrecknidj]

Let me help drive the topic a bit.

Doctor/patient confidentiality brings up both loyalty (confidence) and honesty (truthful diagnoses, revelations of illness, etc.).

Attorney/client privilege brings this up. Does a lawyer's loyalty to her client require her to be dishonest in the courtroom? Does a lawyer's requirement to be honest in the courtroom require her to be disloyal to her client?

Parent/child protection is another. Do some of the lies that parents sometimes tell their children constitute (in part) loyalty? Does demonstrating familial solidarity excuse not being completely honest?

Should a prisoner of war remain loyal to his country or be honest in an interrogation?

Etc.

Dave

 

[Dissident]

In the lawer-client case, that "loyalty" is explicit in a contract (they suposedly cant do/say anything that would incriminate their client), so they are kind of excused for being untruthfull. (I would NEVER be lawer )

In the parent-child case they dont mean to perpetuate that lie, just to postpone the truth until the kid is mature enough to undertand it because they believe that it would be detrimental to them knowing the truth before that (this rests in such belief, if they knew that its not bad for them to know it, they would tell them the truth).

The soldier should have considered the possibility of that happening when he promised loyalty, if he was honest in the first place then there is no conflict and he will stay loyal, if not, well...

Personally I value truthfullness over loyalty in all cases, thats why I wouldnt promise loyalty to anyone or anything but myself. But this doesnt mean I would sell my family for a dollar, or cheat on my whife at the first chance at all, because I would have been truthfull in my mariage vote, or divorce if i felt like being with another woman (love has the tendency to mess up rationality so it could happen)

 

[murkrow]

Let me help drive the topic a bit.

Doctor/patient confidentiality brings up both loyalty (confidence) and honesty (truthful diagnoses, revelations of illness, etc.).

Attorney/client privilege brings this up. Does a lawyer's loyalty to her client require her to be dishonest in the courtroom? Does a lawyer's requirement to be honest in the courtroom require her to be disloyal to her client?

Parent/child protection is another. Do some of the lies that parents sometimes tell their children constitute (in part) loyalty? Does demonstrating familial solidarity excuse not being completely honest?

Should a prisoner of war remain loyal to his country or be honest in an interrogation?

Etc.

Dave

I think that the attorney/client privilege and even the doctor/patient one can't really be considered dishonest.

The dishonesty of a lawyer is implied and understood. No one takes what the lawyer doesn't say as nonexistent. Since he's operating within a system which allows the non omission of facts then it's not dishonest to keep them.

 

[Dissident]

I will reffer to the cases in which honesty goes explicitly against loyalty, for me if you lie to the one you are loyal to (at least in your mind) benefit them that doesnt go against loyalty (like in the case of parent-child or doctor-patient). So for me it turns simply into a matter of keeping loyalty or not in the cases similar to the soldier but with a change in the situation: In your example, What forces him to answer? What happens if he lies? Does he just have to carry "the terrible guilt of not telling the truth to his enemy" and gets away with it to return to his country as a hero? or would he be tortured/whatever? Lets suppose he would be tortured or he is offered to change sides and be loyal to the enemy of his country for a better pay or something like that.

(Does this go too far away from the original question? If so, im sorry)

I think that if something comes along that is more important than whatever you were loyal to then either you realize that you are a free person that owns himself and you are entitled to change your mind, or you become a slave (of your own word, which is not your word anymore if you think of it, and of whatever/whoever you were loyal to). From the very moment that you realize that you would rather break that loyalty you are not really loyal anymore, even if you behaved as you were, because you would be acting against your will (you exchange your loyalty to yourself for loyalty to sth/sb else)

I guess Im egoist.

 

[Vrecknidj]

The dishonesty of a lawyer is implied and understood. No one takes what the lawyer doesn't say as nonexistent. Since he's operating within a system which allows the non omission of facts then it's not dishonest to keep them.

Similarly, then, to a table of poker players? Everyone knows going in that dishonesty is part of the game, and so it's expected and therefore the usual social rule favoring honesty is suspended.

Dave

 

[Ogion]

I read once a saying which, roughly from memory and translation, said: Little lies and dishonesties are the lubricants of society.
Meaning, people get better along when everybody says "Good Morning", even if he doesn't necessary have one, or "Pleased to meet you", or to an extent standard small talk (in which you can pretend having an interest in talking with someone), etc.
And similarly honesty isn't expected to come into play in normal talks with some stranger. You don't tell some stranger in the train things from your private life (Well, it isn't expected of the stranger to ask anyway), if you do have some sense of privacy (which all of these Myspacekids and else don't have anymor, or do they?). So i don't think honesty is all that important in everyday life. Although then again, if you talk to family members, friends etc. it is generally expected.

Just some thoughts.

Ogion

 

[Raison D'etre]

I believe honesty trumps loyalty when the person whom you are supporting is in the wrong and only by telling the truth can you help that person. Your duty to tell the truth in that situation is a part of your loyalty.

 

[Ermine]

Honesty above all else. This involves being honest in my loyalties as well. I won't be loyal to someone I don't want to be loyal. I've found that honesty has helped me weed out the morons from the friends/significant others worth having.

 

[Jordan~]

Is there a difference between lying and withholding information? What about lying to withhold information? If someone asks you something irrelevant and you reply "no" when the answer is really "yes", and the only consequence is that the person now doesn't know something trivial about you, have you done something wrong?

 

[fullerene]

Well... if its worth lying about, is it really all that irrelevant? If it's actually irrelevant, why not answer honestly? The only things of which I can conceive where there's even the instinct to answer "no" when the answer is really "yes" are the things I don't want to talk about with the other person. In that case, people seem (so far) to be pretty understanding and respectful if you just say "yes, but I don't want to talk about it."

To the original question, I hold to what Raison touched on. People who don't understand true loyalty are the ones that would place honesty and loyalty at odds with each other. At least... I would define being loyal to someone as "acting in the best interests of, as well as you know how and are able to." Look to the future, and there's never really the distinction (as far as I can see). A patient is much worse off down the road if a doctor is not honest to them, so to act in their best interests is to be honest--even if telling them they're dangerously overweight or whatever hurts their feelings, and may be mistaken for disloyalty, now. Parents with children seems about the same. I understand Dissident's note that your intention is to put off the truth until they're ready to handle it... but in my opinion (which should be given less weight because I don't have kids... but more weight because that just means I'm young enough to remember what it was like), if a child asks about something that you're inclined to think theyre not ready for, you might want to reevaluate how mature you think they are. If they're asking, they're probably ready to know. Since lawyer/client relationships are purely artificial, I really don't see how you can call what they have true loyalty anyway... so I don't see how they apply.

If you can think of any other relationships that defy these general principles, by all means let me know.

 

[Anti-socialite]

When is loyalty more important than honesty? In military!

Yup.

 

[fullerene]

i did leave that one out didnt i? thats an artificial construct like the lawyers. the military demands obedience, not loyalty

 

[Vrecknidj]

Is there a difference between lying and withholding information? What about lying to withhold information?

That's why I used "honesty" instead of "truthfulness." In all such cases, though, there are elements of vagueness.

If someone asks you something irrelevant and you reply "no" when the answer is really "yes", and the only consequence is that the person now doesn't know something trivial about you, have you done something wrong?

Well, that's a different question. The issue of which deceptions are wrong, and to which degree, is different from the question of whether loyalty trumps honesty in some circumstance or other.

That said, it's not a poor question, it's just different from the topic.

Dave