The judgement insensitivity of loyalty

Abstract The paper supports the view that loyal action is essentially insensitive to good (or all-things-considered) judgement and analyses to what this amounts. While some philosophers (principally, R.E. Ewin and Simon Keller) hold that loyalty is judgement insensitive, more of them (for instance, Andrew Oldenquist, Josiah Royce, and John Kleinig) hold that loyalty is essentially a commitment to a cause, which commitment can be pursued through good judgement. I support the view that loyalty is judgement insensitive with two points: it captures what it is about paradigmatic cases of loyalty that makes them paradigmatic, and it sufficiently distinguishes loyal action from conscientious and pragmatic action. I then argue that there are two guises of judgement insensitivity – immediacy of action or recalcitrance to good judgement – and that immediacy is more paradigmatic of loyalty. An interesting upshot of this view is that one cannot directly abide by a putative duty of loyalty.