Y Wednesday, February 7, 2007Y
1:30 AM
Integrity
Integrity comprises the personal inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from honesty and consistent uprightness of character. Integrity is like honesty. An example of having integrity is not to lie, to cheat. Integrity is one of the most important and oft-cited of virtue terms. It is also perhaps the most puzzling. For example, while it is sometimes used virtually synonymously with ‘moral,’ we also at times distinguish acting morally from acting with integrity. Persons of integrity may in fact act immorally—though they would usually not know they are acting immorally. Thus one may acknowledge a person to have integrity even though that person may hold importantly mistaken moral views.
Integrity comprises the personal inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from honesty and consistent uprightness of character. Integrity is like honesty. An example of having integrity is not to lie, to cheat. Integrity is one of the most important and oft-cited of virtue terms. It is also perhaps the most puzzling. For example, while it is sometimes used virtually synonymously with ‘moral,’ we also at times distinguish acting morally from acting with integrity. Persons of integrity may in fact act immorally—though they would usually not know they are acting immorally. Thus one may acknowledge a person to have integrity even though that person may hold importantly mistaken moral views.