17 - Integrity

Summary

Integrity is prized in public office and private life. To remark on a person's lack of integrity is to criticize the person's character in some way. To remark on a person's possession of integrity is to praise at least some aspect of their character. Thus integrity appears to be a virtue. But exactly what kind of virtue might it be? We speak of attributes such as professional, intellectual and artistic integrity. However, we also use the term “integrity” to describe a feature of general character, and philosophers have been especially concerned to understand this latter use of the term. What is it for a person to exhibit integrity throughout life? What is it to be a person of integrity? In this chapter we offer an answer to these questions. We arrive at our answer by way of contrast. An obvious candidate answer is that integrity is the virtue of achieving or maintaining an integrated self. We argue that this account is wrong, but wrong in a very revealing way. We develop an account of integrity – integrity as the virtue of successfully taking one's life seriously – on the basis of our criticism of the idea of integrity as self-integration, as well as our critical appraisal of other accounts of integrity offered in the philosophical literature.

INTEGRITY AS SELF-INTEGRATION

It is natural to turn to the etymology of the term “integrity” for clues as to the nature of the concept.