Wednesday, October 22, 2008

What is integrity?

Integrity is one of the most important and oft-cited of virtue terms. Many philosophers have been particularly interested to understand what it is for a person to exhibit integrity throughout his/her life. What is it to be a person of integrity? A virtue either motivates a person to act in desirable ways as benevolence moves a person to act for another's good or it enables a person to act in desirable ways as courage enables a person to act well. If integrity is no more than maintenance of identity, however, it can play neither of these roles. On the identity view of integrity, to act with integrity is just to act in a way that accurately reflects your sense of who you are; to act from motives, interests and commitments that’s certainly more an intrinsic desires than anything else.

Integrity determines beforehand what we will be regardless of the circumstances. Integrity is the 'decision maker' between being happy and being fragmented. It frees us to be a whole person no matter what comes our way. Socrates said "The key to greatness is to be in reality what we appear to be" and he can’t be more right.

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