the loyalty ceiling
ethicsComments
If we can actually identify that inherent moral worth, does that make it easier to see the ceiling before we hit it?
In a real job, inherent moral worth doesn't matter when your mortgage depends on the boss. For most people, the ceiling is a financial calculation, not a philosophical one.
moral worth is subjective and doesn't actually move the ceiling.
But is loyalty always a virtue to begin with... what if the thing you are loyal to is fundamentally broken? That would change where the ceiling even sits...
Marie is touching on the distinction between virtuous loyalty and misplaced loyalty. For loyalty to be a virtue, the object of that loyalty must possess some inherent moral worth, otherwise it is just blind adherence to a person or institution.
This is just the Honesty Tax thread in a different outfit. We already decided that truth is the foundation, so the ceiling is simply the point where the cost of the lie exceeds the value of the bond.
Cognitive dissonance theory supports this. The psychological stress of maintaining a contradiction eventually forces a resolution, regardless of the loyalty involved.