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I rather favor this perspective about integrity (from the Stanford
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Aug 1, 2008):<br>
<br>
"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.
<p>When used as a virtue term, ‘integrity’ refers to a quality of a
person's character; however, there are other uses of the term. One
may speak of the integrity of a wilderness region or an ecosystem,
a computerized database, a defense system, a work of art, and so
on. When it is applied to objects, integrity refers to the
wholeness, intactness or purity of a thing—meanings that are
sometimes carried over when it is applied to people. A wilderness
region has integrity when it has not been corrupted by development
or by the side-effects of development, when it remains intact as
wilderness. A database maintains its integrity as long as it
remains uncorrupted by error; a defense system as long as it is
not breached. A musical work might be said to have integrity when
its musical structure has a certain completeness that is not
intruded upon by uncoordinated, unrelated musical ideas; that is,
when it possesses a kind of musical wholeness, intactness and
purity.</p>
<p>Integrity is also attributed to various parts or aspects of a
person's life. We speak of attributes such as professional,
intellectual and artistic integrity. However, the most
philosophically important sense of the term ‘integrity’ relates to
general character. Philosophers have been particularly concerned
to understand what it is for a person to exhibit integrity
throughout life. Acting with integrity on some particularly
important occasion will, philosophically speaking, always be
explained in terms of broader features of a person's character and
life. What is it to be a person <em>of</em> integrity? Ordinary
discourse about integrity involves two fundamental intuitions:
first, that integrity is primarily a formal relation one has to
oneself, or between parts or aspects of one's self; and second,
that integrity is connected in an important way to acting morally,
in other words, there are some substantive or normative
constraints on what it is to act with integrity. </p>
<p>Ordinary intuitions about integrity tend to allow both that
integrity is a formal relation to the self and that it has
something to do with acting morally. How these two intuitions can
be incorporated into a consistent theory of integrity is not
obvious, and most accounts of integrity tend to focus on one of
these intuitions to the detriment of the other. A number of
accounts have been advanced, the most important of them being: (i)
integrity as the integration of self; (ii) integrity as
maintenance of identity; (iii) integrity as standing for
something; (iv) integrity as moral purpose; and (v) integrity as a
virtue."</p>
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/integrity/">http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/integrity/</a>)<br>
<br>
On 12/31/2010 7:48 AM, Tom Hansen wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:56e7e9c2c3433c9400483efcc1f4237a.squirrel@secure.fsr.com"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">"Integrity: is to act according to what is right and wrong."
Two questions, Mr. Harkins:
1) What is "right"?
2) What is "wrong"?
What is "right" for some people may be "wrong" for others . . . and
vice-versa.
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
“Integrity is what we do, what we say, and what we say we do”
- Don Galer
</pre>
</blockquote>
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