Simon Keller, The Limits of Loyalty (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), xii + 232 pp. The Limits of Loyalty is an interesting, well-written book that covers a wide range of issues involving the concept of loyalty. After an introductory chapter on the nature of loyalty, Keller devotes one chapter to friendship, two chapters to patriotism, and two to parent/child relationships. He then goes on to discuss and reject both the idea that loyalty is a value or a virtue and the communitarian view that loyalty is a foundational ethical value. Finally, Keller devotes a chapter to central ideas in Josiah Royce's The Philosophy of Loyalty and concludes with an analysis of disloyalty, arguing that disloyalty can be morally bad even though loyalty is not itself inherently morally good.
