Something has been troubling me lately.
The boundaries and understanding between loyalty and honesty seem to have undergone some modern day surgery. Loyalty now seems to be understood as a concept of receiving reward (just like those precious air miles we receive when being "loyal" to a certain establishment) for upholding deception. There are many who pull out their "loyalty cards" in relationships as a scapegoat for openness and honesty.
Loyalty Card #1
I Was Just Doing It for You
I see this only as a primary justification for committing "little white lies" or withholding important information in personal relationships. This rationalization pits the values of honesty against the value of loyalty. Each individual deserves the truth as everyone has a moral right to make decisions about his own life based on accurate information. This "card" is a cop out.
This little "card" overestimates other people’s desire to be "protected" from the truth, when in fact most people would rather know unpleasant information than believe soothing falsehoods. When the lie is found out; feelings of betrayal follow and often a breakdown in relationship.
Loyalty Card #2
The False Necessity Trap
As Nietzsche put it, "Necessity is an interpretation, not a fact." We overestimate the cost of doing the right thing and underestimate the cost of failing to do so. It was necessary......really?
"Character is knowing the good, loving the good and doing the good."
— Thomas Lickona
"Character is what you are in the dark."
— Rev. Dwight Moody
Honesty
There seems to be no more fundamental ethical value than honesty. We associate honesty with people of honor; we admire and rely on those who are honest. But honesty is a broader concept than many may realize. It involves both communications and conduct; not conveying facts in a way likely to mislead or deceive.
There are three dimensions to honesty:
1.Truthfulness - Truthfulness is presenting the facts to the best of our knowledge.
2. Sincerity - Sincerity is genuineness, being without trickery or duplicity. It precludes all acts, including half-truths, out-of-context statements; even silence, that are intended to create beliefs or leave impressions that are untrue or misleading.
3. Candor - In relationships involving legitimate expectations of trust and honesty candour may also require forthrightness and frankness, imposing the obligation to volunteer information that another person needs to know.
Honesty in conduct is playing by the rules, without stealing, cheating, fraud, subterfuge and other trickery.
Cheating is a particularly foul form of dishonesty because one not only seeks to deceive but to take advantage of others. It’s a violation of both trust and fairness.
Loyalty
Some relationships — husband-wife, parent-child, employer-employee, citizen-country — create an expectation of allegiance, fidelity and devotion. Loyalty is a responsibility to promote the interests of certain people, organizations or affiliations. This duty goes beyond the normal obligation we all share to care for others.
BUT there are limitations to loyalty. Loyalty is a tricky thing.
Friends, family, employers, co-workers and others may demand that we rank their interests above ethical considerations. But no one has the right to ask another to sacrifice ethical principles in the name of a special relationship.
Indeed, one forfeits a claim of loyalty when he or she asks so high a price for maintaining the relationship.
When keeping a secret breaks the law or threatens others, however, we may have a responsibility to "blow the whistle."
www.josephsoninstitute.org
I found a voice in the wilderness crying out the issues that have so bothered me these last months. In many instances, we are left without honest intercourse and question our own understanding of these concepts.
