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The Vexing Virtue
Simon and Schuster
May 2011
On Sale: April 26, 2011
320 pages ISBN: 1439176868 EAN: 9781439176863 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
A witty, provocative, story-filled inquiry into the
indispensable virtue of loyalty—a tricky ideal that gets
tangled and compromised when loyalties collide (as they
inevitably do), but a virtue the author, a prizewinning
columnist for The Wall Street Journal, says is as essential
as it is impossible. Felten illustrates the push and pull of
loyalties— from the ancient Greeks to Facebook—with stories
and scenarios in which conflicting would-be moral trump
cards trap the unlucky in painful ethical dilemmas. The
foundation of our greatest satisfactions in life, loyalty
also proves to be the root of much misery. Can we escape the
excruciating predicaments when loyalties are at loggerheads?
Can we avoid betraying and being betrayed? When looking for love and friendship—the things that make
life worthwhile—we are looking for loyalty. Who can we count
on? And who can count on us? These are the essential (and
uncomfortable) questions loyalty poses. Loyalty and betrayal are the stuff of the great stories that
move us: Agamemnon, Huck Finn, Brutus, Antigone, Judas. When
is loyalty right, and when does the virtue become a vice? As Felten writes in his thoughtful and entertaining book,
loyalty is vexing. It forces us to choose who and what
counts most in our lives—from siding with one friend over
another to favoring our own children over others. It forces
us to confront the conflicting claims of fidelity to
country, community, company, church, and even ourselves.
Loyalty demands we make decisions that define who we are.
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