Is loyalty a virtue or a vice?
Moral Maze
BBC
4.5 • 609 Ratings
🗓️ 21 November 2024
⏱️ 56 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Donald Trump has made some eyebrow-raising, some might say jaw-dropping, appointments to his top team. While a number of the appointees still need Senate approval, they all appear united by one thing – loyalty to Donald Trump.
Some consider loyalty to be a foundational virtue that is central to close friendships. Seneca, called it “the holiest virtue in the human heart”. It is more than simply “support” – it suggests a duty to support “come what may”. Others, however, think loyalty can enable controlling behaviour, hide self-interest, encourage tribalism and threaten independent thought. If a close friend violates your ethical code, to what extent should you stay loyal to them? Or should you only be loyal to the person you thought they were?
Outside the realm of inter-personal relationships, loyalty to an organisation, the government, the Crown or the Church can mean both faithfulness to its principles and deference to its hierarchy. Here, calling out the institution is both an act of betrayal and loyalty, depending on how it is viewed.
Do we value loyalty in our personal and professional lives any less than we did 50 years ago? And is that a good or a bad thing? Perhaps we just have a healthier perspective about who and what deserves our loyalty?
Is loyalty a virtue or a vice?
Chair: Michael Buerk Panel: Mona Siddiqui, Tim Stanley, Inaya Folarin-Iman and Giles Fraser Witnesses: Josie Stewart, Major General Tim Cross, Anouchka Grose, Tony Milligan.
Producer: Dan Tierney Assistant producer: Ruth Purser Editor: Gill Farrington
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:04.9 | Good evening. The team President-elect Trump has been picking to run America has raised eyebrows, to put it mildly. |
| 0:12.3 | It includes a couple of conspiracy theorists regarded by many, and not just Mr. Trump's detractors, |
| 0:17.9 | as borderline wacko, and a woman nominated to be Secretary of Homeland Security, |
| 0:22.8 | no less, who boasts of shooting her own dog as proof she can take tough decisions. |
| 0:27.9 | The one thing they share, what marks them out, is loyalty, personal loyalty to the incoming president. |
| 0:35.0 | Lawyty is the most ambiguous of virtues. It's both the glue of human relationships |
| 0:39.7 | and the binding force of states and institutions. Historically, it's often been the most |
| 0:45.0 | prized of qualities, as its obverse betrayal has been the most despicable of crimes, think |
| 0:50.4 | Judas. Modern morality finds loyalty more complicated. Too often, it seems, it can be an |
| 0:57.3 | excuse for bad behaviour, or a reason for covering up the immorality of others. Only last week, |
| 1:03.2 | Anglican officials were pilloried for putting their loyalty to the church and its reputation |
| 1:07.4 | ahead of safeguarding children in its care. |
| 1:13.8 | So, is loyalty a virtue or a vice? |
| 1:16.7 | Who or what is deserving of it? |
| 1:18.2 | That's our moral maze tonight. |
| 1:22.5 | The panel, Mona Siddiqui, professor of Islamic and interreligious studies at Edinburgh University, the commentator and campaigner Inaya Fulari Naman, the historian Tim Stanley, and the priest and polemicist Giles Fraser. |
| 1:31.6 | Giles, did you feel disloyal, calling for the resignation of the Archbishop, your boss last week? |
| 1:38.7 | I'm an extremely loyal servant of the Church of England and I love it. |
| 1:43.1 | But you do have a more, you have a higher loyalty. That's the message of the Church of England and I love it. But you do have a higher loyalty. |
| 1:47.1 | That's the message of the gospel. |
| 1:48.5 | And one of the things that's been brought out by this report that came out |
... |
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