Whistleblowing constitutes a nice test case for the evaluation of loyalty. Loyalty also appears at the intersection of many major philosophical debates: general ones such as those between consequentialism and deontology, reason and feeling, virtue and principle, as well as more specific ones such as nationalism and patriotism, morality and obedience, particularism and universalism.

As a matter of ethics - our broader social life needs to be constrained by law and other devices - resolving at the societal level matters that should not be left for individual ethical negotiation. What is important - in the end - is that we are enabled to flourish in ways that acknowledge our dignity.

I remember Stanley Benn remarking that one needed to be a certain age to engage with problems in political philosophy - I think he had in mind a certain breadth of understanding and experience - and so my political interests developed more slowly than the others.

I see ethical considerations as having a certain priority in our interactions - passing judgment on our political and legal processes.

As for the ethics, law, and politics relationship, there has always been a tension for me as I try to keep them distinct while recognizing their interactions. A valuable contribution to my thinking there and elsewhere was Ellen Meiksins Wood's Mind and Politics, which reinforced for me the ways in which seemingly disparate philosophical endeavors were/are interconnected, and although I have tended to give a certain priority to ethical considerations as part of practical reasoning, I am reminded often enough that this position makes some contentious presumptions .

The various roles we incorporate into the criminal justice system as well as the ways in which we construe such roles, lend themselves to the kind of ethical reflection that is open to us all. That said, once we have determined roles and their contours, those who act within them may have special duties and privileges that others may lack. Specific roles may generate ethical inquiries with novel forms, just as new technologies may push us in new directions.

Loyalty saves us from the self-advantaging compromising of important relations - such as friendship, marital and professional commitments, group memberships, and so on. But as the Aristotelians would put it, its expression requires phronesis - wisdom not to allow it to compromise other important virtues ,there is something to the ancient doctrine of the unity of the virtues. I believe that is true of all virtues, but especially of the executive virtues - such as industriousness, sincerity, conscientiousness, and courage - which may become detached from substantive goods.