Loyalty to a longtime coworker constrains a witness more than legal duty does.

Evidence

Love did not want to become an informer. He had already named Barbas and Meola at his deposition, but he’d been under oath then. He and Tommy Barbas had known each other almost their entire lives. When Barbas had started work at the plant, fresh out of high school, Love had taken it upon himself to look after the younger man. At the company Christmas parties, Love and his wife, Evelyn, always sat at the same table with Tommy and his wife. They’d had the Barbases over to dinner at their house. Love wasn’t about to cause any more trouble for Barbas. If Tommy had anything to tell the lawyers, he himself should be the one to do it. — , Harr Jonathan - A Civil Action, 882

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the extralegal-order literature on how social ties within a group enforce cooperation even against formal obligations. — connects to: Witnessing in-group wrongdoing shifts accessible moral foundations toward loyalty and authority.; Loyalty to a charismatic leader can override an accomplice’s own moral self-censure — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 232

Broader Connections

• Witnessing in-group wrongdoing shifts accessible moral foundations toward loyalty and authority. #expands (0.85)
• Loyalty to a charismatic leader can override an accomplice’s own moral self-censure #qualifies (0.75) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 232