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This page is about loyalty as faithfulness to a cause. Loyalty also means devotion, dependent. and honest to one person or thing. For its use in business, see loyalty business model or loyalty marketing. For the Angel episode, see Loyalty (Angel).

Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person or cause.

Contents 1 Loyalty and Marketing 2 Loyalty and ethics 3 Loyalty in the Bible 4 Loyalty within Hierarchy 5 Loyalty in Literature 6 Loyalty in Social Communities 7 See also 8 References

[edit] Loyalty and Marketing

The practice of providing discounts, prizes, or other incentives to encourage continued patronage of a business. Generally, loyalty programs are considered less expensive to maintain than allowing customer defection or 'churn'.

[edit] Loyalty and ethics

The concept of loyalty is an important part of ethics. Plato originally said that only a man who is just can be loyal, and that loyalty is a condition of genuine philosophy. The philosopher Josiah Royce said it was the supreme moral good, and that one's devotion to an object mattered more than the merits of the object itself. Loyalty is a quality you look for in a friend.

[edit] Loyalty in the Bible

Jesus said, “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” (Matthew 6:24 NIV) Attempting to serve two masters leads to “double-mindedness” (James 4:8), undermining loyalty to a cause. James 5:2. The Bible also speaks of loyal ones, which would be those who follow the Bible with absolute loyalty, as in "Precious in the eyes of Jehovah, is the death of his loyal ones", (Psalms 116:15)

[edit] Loyalty within Hierarchy

Within hierarchies loyalty usually has to be given to authority.

[edit] Loyalty in Literature

[edit] Loyalty in Social Communities

• Commitment and Social Organization: A Study of Commitment Mechanisms in Utopian Communities, by Rosabeth Moss Kanter © 1968 American Sociological Association.

[edit] See also

• Betrayal
• Fidelity
• Fealty
• Honesty
• Social solidarity

[edit] References

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.