In an effort to define the word
"integrity", I came up with some
explanations, after consulting
some dictionaries and
encyclopaedias.
Integrity is made up of several
words, meanings and
synonyms. It consists of a lot of
what can be described as ethical
and moral values or civilised
values.
1. Soundness:
This refers to how healthy an
opinion, argument, reasoning or
a research finding is, implying
how free it is from flaw, defect
or decay.
Also, how free is it from error,
fallacy, or misapprehension;
exhibiting or based on thorough
knowledge and experience;
legally valid; logically valid and
having true premises; agreeing
with accepted views.
It also means solid, firm, stable
and thorough; showing good
sense or judgment based on
valid information.
2. Completeness:
It means having all necessary
parts, elements, or steps; highly
proficient; totally, absolutely,
thoroughly and fully carried out;
including all possible parts.
3. Sincerity:
It means fairness and
straightforwardness of conduct;
adherence to the facts.
4. Honesty:
It implies a refusal to lie, steal,
or deceive in any way.
5. Honor:
It suggests an active or anxious
regard for the standards of
one's profession, calling, or
position.
6. Probity:
It implies tried and proven
honesty or truthfulness.
7. Incorruptibility:
It implies trustworthiness and
truthfulness to a degree that
one is incapable of being false
to a trust, responsibility or
pledge.
It also finally means being
incapable of corruption; not
subject to decay or dissolution;
incapable of being bribed or
morally corrupted.
8. Conclusion:
The question to be asked is
where does a nation stand with
regard to these principles of
integrity; where does an
organisation or political party
stand and finally what is my
individual position? This
synonymous question can also
be asked: How civilised are we?
9. Resources:
Stanford Encyclopedia of
Philosophy
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia
Merriam-Webster Online
Dictionary
10. The Stanford University
Encyclopedia of Philosophy
states the following:
"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.
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.
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 of
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. 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. These
accounts are reviewed below.
We then examine several issues
that have been of central
concern to philosophers
exploring the concept of
integrity: the relations between
types of integrity, integrity and
moral theory, and integrity and
social and political conditions."
READ MORE - The Meaning and Definition of Integrity
.
Posts
