Throughout its ethical development and self-knowledge, humankind has developed a series of ethical concepts that reflect a view of ideal standards of life behavior. In terms of modern public morals, one of the most frequently mentioned ideas has been that of integrity. Indeed, the word occurs not infrequently in discourse ranging from political to legal to sport; but the rate of the word used does not appear to reflect the practical application of the notion. On the contrary, society tends to experience a grave lack of integrity which becomes an abstract phenomenon everyone talks about but rarely implements into own life.
This situation, along with the steps to its solution and improvement, is thoroughly discussed and analyzed by the William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Law at Yale, Stephen L. Carter in a selection from his book Integrity called “The Rules about the Rules”. In his work, Carter calls the reader to pay closer attention to the essence and role of integrity in social life and voices an opinion that it is up to everyone to work out one’s understanding and criteria of integrity to construct a life that would approximate to the ideal of existence. Revealing the instances of omnipresent breach of integrity, Carter holds a convincing position that since integrity penetrates all the spheres of human activities it should be observed, cultivated and promoted not only by flamboyant speeches, but first and foremost by actions.
Considering the tragedy of the modern world that is permeated with corruption, as opposed to integrity, Carter views the roots of this unintegrity in the overall trend to win by any means. The point is exemplified in an occurrence at a game of football when one of the players got away with his cheating and even was praised for his resourcefulness by the commentator. This situation appears to Carter an embodiment of American principles of the time: winning by any means, and if doing something wrong on the way to victory, then feigning that everything has been done correctly and not letting anyone guess the true course of events (180). The ethic prevailing in society therefore is that openly encouraging and rewarding cheating. At the same time, the notion of integrity is observed by Carter to be filling the speeches of politicians, lawyers, and representatives of other social spheres, thus becoming a cornerstone factor that, though in words only, determines the functioning and development of modern society. Abashed by the obvious contradictions between the words and the deeds, and by the moral decline and cynicism that characterizes modern relations, Carter attempts to come to understanding what exactly integrity is and how it can be possibly achieved.
Viewing integrity as a kind of wholeness and completeness that are not similar to single-mindedness, Carter outlines the three essential criteria of integrity that define its presence or absence. Firstly, integrity presupposes making the choice, discerning between right and wrong. Secondly, it requires implementing the choice into action that is by the choice, even if the action does not benefit the doer. And last but not least, integrity implies open recognition and voicing of one’s true beliefs and motives even if they contradict the standard conventional ones. Only on condition of meeting all the three of the above-listed requirements can a person be considered integral. (Carter 182, 185–186).
Colliding two notions frequently equated, Carter notices that integrity is not reduced to honesty only, as one may be honest without being integral. Integrity as such is described by him as “a difficult process of discerning one’s deepest understanding of right and wrong and then […] further action consistent with what one has learned” (Carter 184–185). Such view of integrity appears in a way consistent with the ideas of another researcher in matters of integrity, Barbara Killinger, who defines integrity as “a personal choice, an uncompromising and predictably consistent commitment to honor moral, ethical, spiritual, and artistic values and principles” (20). Killinger coincides with Carter in attributing to integrity such features as the dilemma of choice and consistent following that choice; similarly to her colleague, she remarks that “there is no integrity in saying one thing and doing another” (Killinger 20). Moreover, similarly to Carter’s view of the initial choice between the right and wrong as extremely painstaking, Killinger points out that especially “in the grey areas where right or wrong are not immediately obvious […], integrity requires us to spend a serious commitment of time and energy in moral reflection” (20). Therefore integrity is viewed as an effort frequently avoided in society that prefers to choose the easier way of following the crowd in order not to involve in independent thinking; and as Carter justly states, such policy does not yield any positive results, often leading to “mob violence” (185).
However important and valuable part of human life and personality integrity may seem, the problem with achieving it is that there exist multiple areas of applying integrity. At the end of “The Rules about the Rules” Carter states that there exist cases in which lack of integrity is unavoidable — and indeed, such instance is reflected in the reaction of one of his colleagues to the illustrative situation at the football game: “You don’t know if he was breaking the rules, […] until you know what the rules are about following the rules” (188). And indeed, integrity normally involves a conflict of commitments, values and desires without which no critical assessment and integrity as such are possible (Cox et al. 20). Penetrating every sphere of human life, integrity appears not only in art, ethics, spirit, or morals, as Killinger sees it, but also at least in the realms of professional activities, politics and intellect (Cox et al. 101–138). Therefore, conflicts emerge between different types of integrity, with the most typical example of it being the opposition between professional and personal integrity when one keeps commitments to work and consequently fails to maintain certain important personal bonds. The line between integrity types is often blurred, but it appears possible to differentiate between them and to make it one’s ultimate task to maintain a balance between the requirements of each.
Reviewing the present-day situation and trying to find the causes of social unintegrity, Carter points out the crucial, though not wholly decisive role of mass media in the process of shaping one’s integral personality. According to Carter, the media are to blame for “oversimplification and […] interfering with, rather than enabling, the search for right and wrong that each of us must undertake to live a life of integrity” (187). Practical observation confirms this idea: rather than highlighting instances of integrity, the media appear to be more interested in covering scandalous cases of corruption. As a result, society is so used to unintegrity that it no longer presents a flagrant violation; corruption becomes a norm, and the public comes to such a state of disillusionment and cynicism that it questions the mere existence of integral people (Killinger 17–19).
As research shows, the issue of integrity raised by Carter in “The Rules about the Rules” is a burning one to modern society. The tragic situation of canonicalization of the world brings forth the task of reviewing the notions that are nowadays more spoken than realized in practice. Therefore, it appears crucial for everyone to conduct deep self-actualization to understand the motives and values directing one’s life and to follow them consistently so that the task of integrity is achieved and becomes a customary norm of civilized existence.
Works Cited
Carter, Stephen L. “The Rules about the Rules.” The Presence of Others: Voices and Images That Call for Response. Eds. Andrea A. Lunsford, and John J. Ruszkiewicz. 5th ed. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007. 178–189.
Cox, Damian, Marguerite La Caze, and Michael P. Levine. Integrity and the Fragile Self. Hants, England: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003.
Killinger, Barbara. Integrity: Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2007.