Truth and Loyalty

Bibliographic Data

ID6351035
AuthorsMatt Sleat (0000-0003-2518-6940, University of Sheffield, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume52
Issue4
Pages581-604
Publication date2024-08-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenuePolitical Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0090-5917 • E-ISSN: 1552-7476
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/00905917231204892
OpenAlexW4388493011
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited42

This paper explores the relationship between truth and loyalty as it pertains to epistemic issues within contemporary Western politics. One now familiar concern is how an increasing number of people determine their beliefs according to what demonstrating loyalty to their group requires instead of the facts of an independent and objective reality, as a proper concern for truthfulness demands. Whereas “they” base their beliefs on what is required to demonstrate loyalty to their group, “our” beliefs are justified by facts and evidence. Such contrasts pit loyalty and truth as necessarily antagonistic. This paper gives us further reason for thinking that putting loyalty against truthfulness at some very general or conceptual level is deeply misguided. More significantly, it seeks to show that the more helpful contrast to make is between those who are loyal to identities that value truthfulness in such a way that there are no other parts of that identity which are not revisable if they come into conflict with truth, and those who are loyal to identities that subordinate truth to other ends or goals. Acknowledging this allows us to better appreciate various aspects of how the relationship between truth and loyalty is playing out in contemporary politics. Chief among these is how our own commitment to truthfulness is itself embedded in a particular identity, an identity that we not only often fail to acknowledge as such but which necessitates us thinking harder about the ways in which it might itself sustain the dynamics of conflict and contestation, antagonizing those who do not share it and driving them farther away from the truthfulness we extol

Aesthetics · Epistemology · Face (sociological concept · Identity (music · Loyalty · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Hannah Arendt's Political Philosophy · Law · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics · Psychology · Social Psychology

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