Integrity: its causes and cures (original) (raw)
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Integrity: Principled Coherence, Virtue, or Both?
The Journal of Value Inquiry, 2004
Integrity can be divided into two general categories as outlined by Hayden Ramsay in Beyond Virtue: Integrity and Morality. Ramsay analyzes the work of Kant and Aquinas and suggests that they advocate two different senses of integrity. Kantian philosophy implies a formalist approach to integrity, in which we exercise our freedom by discovering and shaping our personality and identity. This approach would have us focus on two common aspects of integrity, identity formation and principled coherence. The formalist account is characterized by principled coherence, the ability of the individual to articulate and consistently follow principles of behavior that she deems appropriate for her identity formation. These principles display coherence between belief and behavior but the principles themselves may change as preferences, experiences, and behaviors constituent of identity formation emerge and shift. In contrast, an areteic account of integrity finds expression in the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas. Integrity is teleologically oriented toward moral and spiritual fulfillment. The virtues are united in areteic integrity. In this model, integrity builds character and is built by character. It includes such virtues as honesty, sincerity, and courage.
Whither Integrity I: Recent Faces of Integrity 1
Philosophy Compass, 2013
Despite the fact that most of us value integrity, and despite the fact that we readily understand one another when we talk and argue about it, integrity remains elusive to understand. Considerable scholarly attention has left troubling disagreement on fundamental issues: Is integrity in fact a virtue? If it is, what is it a virtue of? Why exactly should we value integrity? What is the appropriate way to have concern for one's own integrity? Is having integrity compatible with having significant moral flaws? After an overview of common 'data points' or platitudes concerning integrity, this article outlines six distinct views of integrity that have been defended and draws attention to problems each has accommodating these data points. 1. Some Data Points Given the different senses of integrity in common usage, and given numerous divergent conceptions of integrity in the literature, it will be useful to set out some data points in
The concept of integrity is essential to our understanding of good governance, which inevitably defines a smooth and well functioning state institution. This paper pursues a three-fold objective. First, it will try to provide a coherent working definition of the concept of integrity and, thus, distinguish it from other ideas that it is so often associated. Second, it will explore the relevance of the concept to the role of the ombudsman as part of the broader institutional paraphernalia for securing good governance. Ombudsmen, as the paper will show, are critical to ensuring that leaders and officials act with integrity at all time. However, they can only do so if they themselves live up to the highest standards of integrity. Building on this point, the paper will, lastly, evaluate various options by which the ombudsman office could secure itself and in turn serve as an effective instrument for advancing integrity and good governance.
Does Integrity Require Moral Goodness?
Ratio, 2001
Most accounts of integrity agree that the person of integrity must have a relatively stable sense of who he is, what is important to him, and the ability to stand by what is most important to him in the face of pressure to do otherwise. But does integrity place any constraints on the kind of principles that the person of integrity stands for? In response to several recent accounts of integrity, I argue that it is not enough that a person stand for what he believes in, nor even that he is committed to and stands for what, in his best judgement, is morally right. In our web of moral concepts integrity is internally related to a host of virtues which exclude weakness of will and dogmatism, and presuppose trustworthiness. Integrity requires that the principles stood for must be those that a morally good, morally trustworthy agent would stand for, and that the agent himself is morally trustworthy.
Philosophia, 2011
Integrity is sometimes conceived in terms of the wholeness of the individual, such that persons who experience temptations or other sorts of inner conflicts, afflictions, or divisions of self would seem to lack integrity to a greater or lesser degree. I contrast this understanding of integrity-which I label psychological integrity-with a different conception which I call practical integrity. On the latter conception, persons can manifest integrity in spite of the various factors mentioned above, so long as they remain true to their commitments in action and deliberation. Although psychological harmony is one feature reasonably associated with integrity, I suggest that practical integrity captures other features of character and action often (and reasonably) related to ascriptions of integrity. Practical integrity remains possible even for those who must confront, manage, and control factors that give rise to various kinds of inner conflict.
Research on Integrity: A Review and Assessment
Journal of Management Information and Decision Sciences, 2021
The study of ethics and integrity are current issues that deserve scientific attention, the concept and development of integrity models and research studies in their own right. The concept of integrity had been vague as more research is incorporating integrity into their models of research. Throughout the years, improved models of integrity are useful for governments, corporations and individuals for them to make improved decision making. The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners stated that global fraud losses are at the levels of trillions of dollars a year. This could be prevented if the people in society act with higher levels of ethic and integrity. The purpose of this paper was to report the results of a systematically conducted literature review of studies related to integrity. The objective of this paper was to explore the development of integrity through literature and content review. This includes examining concepts that are considered part of integrity and the approach used towards assessing or integrating integrity in these studies. This study employed a structured review process that critically examined sources from various electronic databases. Electronic databases that only utilised strict content, scientific quality indicators and are peer-reviewed journals articles are the ones selected. Another selection criterion was that the selected article has high levels of citations. Most of the studies had associated integrity with positive ethical values practised such as leadership, honesty, and sincerity while including these values in their research models. The review briefly discusses the associated concepts of integrity and the underlying values that are connected with the use of the term integrity. The results of past studies related to integrity indicated that there are strong positive characteristics and positive values that are associated with the term integrity.
Journal of Value Inquiry, 2012
Integrity is important for our understanding of what it means to possess a constituted and coherent self. Many discussions of integrity are focused on relationships among moral principles and virtues. Philosophers pay less attention to any relationship that integrity might have to practical agency or personal identity, and as a result, fail to appreciate the special relation integrity has to the constitution of a coherent self. Central to integrity are considerations about self-identity and agency, because it is through ongoing and deliberate activities that reflect the type of person someone wishes to identify with that a person constitutes self-identity and agency in a coherent manner. An individual who holds haphazard values, engages in little reflection on the type of person she identifies with, or puts minimal effort in acting according to principles has not constituted a coherent self. A self is coherent insofar as the activities and principles of an agent are integrated into a consistent whole. When the relationship between integrity and a coherent self is properly understood, it becomes clear that the moral content of integrity is thin and that the approbation usually associated with a person of integrity stems not from judgments about convictions or principles, but from the relationship between actions and commitments.
I would also like to thank the University of Virginia's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences for a research fellowship during AY 2006-07. I also owe a great personal debt to Joy Meyer, who has been a wonderful source of greatly needed love and encouragement during the time it has taken me to finish this project. I dedicate this work to her and to one other person: my grandfather, Charles L. Moseley, a man of great integrity. Chapter 1 The Elusive Nature of Integrity I. Integrity: Religious and Secular Conceptions. The story of Job is one of the most memorable of the Bible. Readers of the book will probably remember these highlights. Yahweh proclaims that Job is his most faithful servant. "The adversary" 1 bets Yahweh that Job will lose his faith if it is tested. Yahweh accepts the adversary's wager and allows the adversary to test Job's faith. Job's life is shattered in many ways by the onslaught of miseries that are deviled out to him. Job's family, farm and health are diabolically destroyed. However, Job keeps himself together by staying true to his Lord throughout his suffering: Job remains whole by being an obedient disciple of his Lord and His law. At the end of story Job's obedience is rewarded: Yahweh restores his health, enhances his wealth and holdings and provides Job with a new family. 2 Job is perhaps best known for his patience but his distinctive form of integrity is a recurring motif in the major monotheistic traditions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam teach that integrity consists in obedience to God and His law. Moses Maimonides expresses this idea in the maxim, "Everything that you do, do for the sake of God." 3 1 The Hebrew text does not provide a name for this character: he is given a definite description that is often translated as "the Satan," "the accuser," or "the adversary." There are interesting questions about the relation of the adversary to the serpent in Genesis and the diabolical characters in other books of the Bible. St. Thomas Aquinas also writes of the religious and moral significance of obedience to God: "[T]he virtue of obedience is more praiseworthy than other moral virtues, seeing that by obedience a person gives up his own will for God's sake, and by other moral virtues 2 The Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac provides another striking example of the arduous demands that God may place upon his faithful servants. In the story Yahweh commands Abraham to kill his only son Isaac. When Abraham is about to thrust a knife into his son Yahweh grants Abraham permission to kill a ram instead. Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling (in Kierkegaard's Writings, 6, trans., Howard Hong and Edna Hong. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1983) examines several perspectives on the story of Abraham and Isaac while also exploring the nature of religious faith and its relation to moral commitment. 3 I owe the quotations from Maimonides and Aquinas to Stephen L. Carter, Integrity (New York: Harper Perennial, 1996, 8). 8 This passage is from one of Nietzsche's journal entries and the quotation is from Wurzer, Ibid., p.236. Wurzer contends that Nietzsche's conception of integrity is a precursor to his later idea of the will to power. Nietzsche's second claim, that integrity is "something in the becoming" that may be cultivated or restrained according to our inclination, is complex and I shall only briefly discuss it here. Nietzsche's idea that integrity is "something in the becoming" suggests that integrity is essentially concerned with the way that individuals experience the world and shape their characters through their actions, and Nietzsche's idea that integrity is something "which we may either cultivate or restrain, according to our inclination" suggests the related idea that integrity is established and sustained by an individual's feelings or passions rather than depending upon, at least a narrow conception of, rationality or reason. Chapter 2 discusses these ideas in the context of Bernard Williams's early writings on integrity. Nietzsche's third claim, that integrity is a virtue 9 The main arguments provided by Socrates in both Gorgias (trans., Donald Zeyl, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1987) and Republic (trans., G.M.A. Grube, revised by C.D.C. Reeve, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1992) defend the view that the virtue of justice (in individuals) consists in a type of harmony of the soul: just persons have harmoniously integrated souls, whereas unjust persons have fractured and chaotic souls in which the parts of the soul are at odds with one another. 10 Here I am referring to Plato's descriptions of Callicles in the Gorgias and Thrasymachus in Book I of the Republic. The spirit of Nietzsche's critiques of morality in Beyond Good and Evil (trans., Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books, 1966) and in The Genealogy of Morals (trans. and ed., Walter Kaufmann.New York: Vintage Books, 1967) echoes the voices of Callicles and Thrasymachus.