Abstract

In Loyalty to Loyalty: Josiah Royce and the Genuine Moral Life, Matthew Foust richly examines the nature of a controversial virtue: loyalty. It is well known that for Royce loyalty was not only a fundamental moral concept but an anthropological one since, in his view, loyalty to a cause allows individuals to become selves, creatures with unity of purpose in life. However, this ground level of loyalty is not the only one existing for him. Simultaneously to a particular cause one must adhere to loyalty to loyalty, a universal cause that is a moral obligation for each human being. Foust attempts to recover this dual aspect of the Roycean conception of loyalty with the purpose of defending his contemporary relevance..