Between love and loyalty, which has precedence? (#172, Topic Q)

Our retirement community has a Center for Lifelong Learning. While taking a course on Greek Philosophy, I mentioned to the instructor that I would like to offer a course on Confucius. He suggested that I present a course proposal to CLL, which I did, day before yesterday, 7/10/06. My proposed course would cover 5 topics -- I dub it Confucius and 5L: Learning, Love, Loyalty, Life, and Legacy. I was asked why I wanted to limit the enrolment to 15. My answer was that I wanted to make the course a seminar on comparing eastern/western approaches to each of these topics. This means that participants are expected to express their personal views (based on their background and experience, no reading of any kind is required) on various issues, some might be very controversial. For example, in the Analects of Confucius, the only source from which all passages selected for discussion would be drawn, there are passages on conflicts between love (to family members) and loyalty (to the throne). Which one should take precedence? After the proposal was approved, I began to look for real-life examples of these conflicts. Yesterday, the Wall Street Journal has a front-page story where a US permanent resident of the Muslim faith was asked to be an FBI informant as a condition of getting his green card back (which was withheld at a checkpoint bordering Canada after he returned from visiting his wife in the Middle East). What action should this person take? I thought it would be a good case to discuss when the topic of Love vs. Loyalty becomes the topic in my proposed course. I mentioned to CLL that I have never offered such a course before; thus, I have not assessed, fully, many learning-curve issues. Thus, the possibility exists that I might not be able to complete the course!!!