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And if this be rightly considered, he will be seen to have been much more merciful than the Florentine people, who, to avoid a reputation for cruelty, permitted Pistoia to be destroyed. Therefore a prince, so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal, ought not to mind the reproach of cruelty; because with a few examples he will be more merciful than those who, through too much mercy, allow disorders to arise, from which follow murders or robberies; for these are wont to injure the whole people, whilst those executions which originate with a prince offend the individual only.
Loyalty is the state of being ultimately unselfish. It's a bi-product of love that compels someone to place importance in another's well being above even their own - without though, without decision and without question. Loyalty is standing by another person regardless of anything else. Loyalty, in general use, is a devotion and faithfulness to a nation, cause, philosophy, country, group, or person. Philosophers disagree on what can be an object of loyalty, as some argue that loyalty is strictly interpersonal and only another human being can be the object of loyalty.
Freebase (3.25 / 4 votes) Rate this definition:.LoyaltyLoyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause.There are many aspects to loyalty. John Kleinig, professor of Philosophy at City University of New York, observes that over the years the idea has been treated by creative writers from Aeschylus through John Galsworthy to Joseph Conrad, by psychologists, psychiatrists, sociologists, scholars of religion, political economists, scholars of business and marketing, and — most particularly — by political theorists, who deal with it in terms of loyalty oaths and patriotism. As a philosophical concept, loyalty was largely untreated by philosophers until the work of Josiah Royce, the 'grand exception' in Kleinig's words.
John Ladd, professor of Philosophy at Brown University writing in the Macmillan Encyclopaedia of Philosophy in 1967, observes that by that time the subject had received 'scant attention in philosophical literature'. This he attributed to 'odious' associations that the subject had with nationalism, including the nationalism of Nazism, and with the metaphysics of idealism, which he characterized as 'obsolete'. He argued that such associations were, however, faulty, and that the notion of loyalty is 'an essential ingredient in any civilized and humane system of morals'. Kleinig observes that from the 1980s onwards, the subject gained attention, with philosophers variously relating it to professional ethics, whistleblowing, friendship, and virtue theory.
Examples of loyalty in a Sentence.:It is through duty to our dear country and loyalty to our ideals that I have the honor to accept to be a presidential candidate for our party UNIR.