我们本周的话题是忠诚。忠诚使人们团结在一起。友谊，婚姻，甚至国家都建立在忠诚的基础上。试着想象一个对任何事任何人都不忠诚的人。这样的人没有朋友，没有爱情，没有民族。她不会对任何更高的事业或原则——如真理或正义——感到忠诚。她甚至不会成为任何运动队的球迷。那样的生活将是空虚的，缺乏许多使我们成为完整的人的东西。

Of course, loyalties are not all created equal though. Loyalty to a sports team is a shallow form of loyalty. Loyalty to a nation can sometimes demand too much. Or think of the loyalty that some battered wives display to their abusive husbands. There’s a misplaced loyalty if there ever was one.

Loyalty goes hand in hand with trustworthiness. If you can’t trust your spouse not to beat you or cheat on you, then your spouse doesn’t deserve your loyalty. If you can’t trust your government not to send young men off to fight in fruitless, forlorn wars, then your government doesn’t deserve your loyalty.

这和其他事情有关。之前我说过，忠诚可以团结在一起，这是件好事。但忠诚也存在分歧。这是一件坏事。例如，战争中的士兵会因为彼此竞争的忠诚而互相残杀。或者想象一下，父母出于忠诚和奉献，在孩子身上挥霍了比他们真正需要的更多的玩具，而完全忽视了世界各地贫穷、受虐待、营养不良儿童的需求。如果他能把一小部分财富花在其他地方，他就能做很多好事。但他的忠诚蒙蔽了他对他人需求的双眼。

Loyalties can also divide a person from herself. Loyalty and devotion to your family, for example, can pull in one direction, while loyalty to an employer can pull you in an entirely different direction. Managing such conflicting loyalties is no easy task.

You could think that you just have to decide. You have to decide where your highest loyalty lies. Do you most want to be a better parent or a better philosophy professor and radio host?

但在我看来，在相互冲突的忠诚之间做出选择并不是一个残酷的决定，而是一个简单的决定，即你应该对谁或什么更忠诚。一定有一些原则，一些道德原则，告诉你你应该对谁忠诚，对什么忠诚，忠诚到什么程度。这样的道德原则应该帮助你在客观的道德基础上解决这些冲突。

Speaking of abstract moral principles, though, depending on your moral outlook, the very idea of loyalty can seem morally problematic. Take utilitarianism, for example. Its highest principle is that you should always act so as to produce the greatest good for the greatest number. But it’s actually pretty hard to make sense of the very idea of loyalty if you are a utilitarian – at least if you are a crude act utilitarian.

想知道为什么两个人溺水。你在一条船上，只能救他们中的一个。其中一位恰好是诺贝尔奖得主，他发现了治疗癌症的方法。另一个恰好是你的配偶。你会保存哪一个?

对我来说最明显的答案就是我会救我的妻子。但你很难从功利主义的角度来证明这个答案的合理性。这是因为功利主义道德很难证明忠诚所要求的对妻子的特殊重视是合理的。在决定该做什么时，她的幸福当然是重要的，但在你的计算中，并不比任何一个武断的人的幸福多多少少。

That seems wrong to me. But I have to admit that I have hard time putting my finger on just why. My wife means a whole lot more to me than just any arbitrary other person. But does my loyalty and devotion really morally obligate or entitle me to give more weight to her well-being than to the well-being other people?

Consider a further test of just how much added moral weight loyalty endows my wife’s well being with. Suppose it was a matter of saving my wife, while letting two other people or three or four other people drown. Would I still be inclined to save her and let the others drown?

Here I feel something of a quandary – perhaps divided loyalties are tugging at me. On balance loyalty, and the special concern that goes with it, seem to me like very good things. But loyalty can be taken too far and can demand too much. And drawing the line is a tricky matter.

Clearly, we need some help sorting this all out. And luckily for us, help is on the way, in the form of our guest, poet and philosopher, Troy Jollimore. Troy has thought long and hard about loyalty, love, friendship and morality. So it should be a fun episode. If you’ve got the time, give a listen. Maybe even call in.