Josiah Royce’s Philosophy of Loyalty as Philanthropy

Abstract

This article draws on philosophy and literature to explore philanthropy as an ethical act informed by a vision of a better world. Josiah Royce’s ideas on loyalty, which are exemplified in Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, demonstrate that communitarian ideals as well as individualism helped to shape our contemporary understanding of American philanthropy. Royce’s notion of loyalty, particularly its concept of the Absolute, to which we all belong and whose purpose we all fulfill by fulfilling our individual purposes, helps individuals and individual communities transcend their differences and find common cause. In addition, Royce’s ethical ideal of “loyalty to loyalty” is a mechanism by which individual and local concerns are united into a single universal cause that brings together not only all humanity but also the animal and natural worlds.