Practices of partiality: Affinity, loyalty, and sports fans

While partiality is ubiquitous, the set of concepts used to understand partiality has been quite limited. Partiality is primarily analyzed in terms of loyalty: people are loyal to their families, sports fans are often loyal to their team, patriotism is generally seen as a form of loyalty to one's country, and it is common to describe certain consumers as brand loyalists. This chapter contends it is a mistake to restrict an understanding of all these forms of partiality to loyalty. To better understand the nuances of this moral domain, a conceptual repertoire that can distinguish between different forms of partiality is required. This chapter takes a first step in accomplishing that aim by introducing the virtue of affinity - the ability to passionately throw oneself into something out of proportion to its value without getting swept away into unjustifiable conduct.