What Is Integrity In Value Education?
Integrity means adherence to a specific code of ethical and moral principles to be truthful and honest enough to do what is right. Individuals with integrity are incorruptible and always uncompromising of the moral and ethical values that they believe in.
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What is integrity explain?
Example 3: doing the right thing, even when nobody’s watching – Mary, a digital marketer, is in the middle of a huge project with her team. They’re in charge of planning 90 days worth of digital content for a new client by Thursday morning. On Monday and Tuesday, Mary and the other team members work hard on the project.
However, by Wednesday, morale is low, and her teammates start to move slower and slower. When the marketing manager announces she’ll be leaving for the rest of the day to attend a funeral, the team breathes a sigh of relief. Then, they stop working on the project altogether. While her teammates waste time, Mary continues with her work, even though her manager is gone.
Not wanting to disturb her manager during a funeral, Mary politely tries to encourage her team to get back to work. While most of the team members don’t listen, a few of them decide to pitch in to help her finish the project. By the end of Wednesday, Mary and a few teammates finished the project without help from the rest of the team.
- The project was turned in on time.
- Her manager set up accountability checkpoints for the team.
- Her manager promoted her to team supervisor.
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What is integrity in value?
Having integrity means that you live in accordance to your deepest values, you’re honest with everyone, and you always keep your word. Integrity is a highly valued trait, especially in leaders.
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What is meant by integrity in education?
Teaching on Anti-Corruption, Values and the Rule of Law. Public integrity means doing the right thing, even when no one is watching. Around the world, societies pass on values and norms related to public integrity through school, community and family life.
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What is integrity and its importance?
What is Integrity? – It is defined as having strong moral principles and being honest. In other words, a person with integrity is someone who is truthful and can be trusted. Integrity is a very important virtue to have in life because it helps you to be a good person.
- When you have integrity, you are more likely to make good decisions, treat others with respect, and be successful in life.
- Without integrity, people can become dishonest or sneaky- even if they don’t mean to.
- It’s also easier for others to take advantage of people without integrity.
- For example, when there is dishonesty in relationships, family members might try to steal money from their relatives’ bank accounts.
If you want to live an honourable life with integrity, there are many things that you can do.
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What is integrity and its types?
Types of data integrity – Maintaining data integrity requires an understanding of the two types of data integrity: physical integrity and logical integrity. Both are collections of processes and methods that enforce data integrity in both hierarchical and relational databases.
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Why is integrity first value?
Three straightforward values – seems pretty simple. The second value is easy: Service before Self. We are a service organization. We serve our great country and its citizens by providing a military option in the overall diplomatic toolbox of our elected officials.
This second value reiterates that we will serve our country before we serve ourselves. The excellence value is pretty easy to comprehend, also. We fly planes, deliver cargo, assemble and disassemble complex machinery, secure fences and borders, provide protection in hostile environments and the list goes on and on.
In each example, excellence is not just desired or expected, it is compulsory. Our mission is too important and the outcome is too great for any of us to perform or provide anything less than excellence. So why have I chosen to write about our core values? Well, it is really the first value that interests me most,
The one I skipped: Integrity first. What is integrity? And why is it first? Selfless devotion came in second to this thing called integrity, that is pretty impressive placement. And I think we can all agree that being excellent in whatever we do is huge, yet the Air Force only awards excellence with a bronze medal in the core value olympics.
Integrity first. The core values read like job qualifications posted in the want ads with the message being: if you don’t have integrity, don’t bother. No shirt, no shoes, no service. Okay, got it. Or do I? What is integrity? I understand its importance.
- In fact, I understand that it is the most important of our core values, but what does it mean? Like ethics and morality, integrity is one of those “concept” words, a word that defines that which we all know, but that which is difficult to articulate or define.
- It is a concept each of us is readily aware of when we see it.
And just as important, we immediately notice its absence. Oftentimes, concrete words and definitions fail to accurately capture the essence of a word, especially when the word is seated in emotion and values. In these instances, it may help to look at the writings of others to piece together the meaning of such words and to better grasp the word’s spirit.
To borrow a well-known phrase, integrity is operating in a selfless manner even when no one is looking. Integrity requires self-control and self-regulation. Integrity is making the right decision, following the just path and leading in a manner you would like to be led. It is about quality and purity of character.
Integrity doesn’t need to be defended, rationalized or justified; it is readily evident with all the inherent goodness baked right in. And, while the umbrella of integrity includes how we deal with others, it is principally based on how we deal with ourselves.
- Are we dependable, reliable, fair, honest, truthful, resolute and incorruptible? None of us are born with integrity, nor can we obtain integrity with a few well-placed words or actions.
- Integrity is the never-ending pursuit of honesty,
- And that is why integrity is core value No.1.
- In the words of former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson, “If you have integrity, nothing else matters.
If you don’t have integrity, nothing else matters.”
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Why integrity is important in value education?
Individuals with integrity are incorruptible and always uncompromising of the moral and ethical values that they believe in. People with integrity always keep their word, abstaining from lies and excuses, no matter the situation. Such people are often considered for leadership and other important positions in society.
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What are the three types of integrity?
The importance of integrity Integrity alone will not make you a great business leader, says guest columnist Dan Coughlin. But if you act without integrity, then you will eventually erode your opportunity to influence other people.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: Dan Coughlin was the featured presenter at Snow Magazine’s 2011 Executive Summit. Click to learn more about the upcoming 2012 Executive Summit, If you are serious about being a great business leader, then you need to be serious about acting with integrity.
- Can I trust you?
- Can I work with you?
- Can you help me achieve the results I want?
The first question is about integrity, the second question is about chemistry, and the third question is about competence. To have a great business relationship, you have to have all three. The starting point is trust. This is just as true in business-to-business relationships as it is in business-to-consumer relationships.
Integrity is the foundation of a trusting relationship. If another person doesn’t know what they can count on from you, how will they be able to trust you? Leadership, to me, means influencing how other people think so they make decisions that generate better sustainable results for both the organization and the people in it.
How can you influence another person if he or she doesn’t trust you? First, you need people to trust you. Fortunately most people will trust you until you convince them that you are not trustworthy. However, once you lose that trust it’s very, very hard to ever regain it.
- Internal Integrity
- External Integrity
- True Integrity Integrates Internal and External Integrity
- My Lack of Integrity
- Where can you strengthen your integrity?
- The Image of Integrity
I teach an eight-month long class for eighth graders every year, and my first question is, “How do you define integrity?” By far the most popular answer is, “Doing what you think is the right thing to do even when no one else is looking.” And every year I smile, nod my head, and say, “I love that definition.” That answer gets to the heart of internal integrity.
Every time you do what you think is the right thing to do even though no one else saw you do it and you will never get credit for it from anyone else, you have taken a big step toward strengthening your internal integrity. When this decision is really hard for you and you still do what you think is the right thing to do, you take a really big step toward strengthening your internal integrity.
Why is internal integrity so important? The first step toward getting people to trust you over the long term is for you to trust yourself. When you know that you can count on yourself to do what you think is the right thing to do, you will move forward with greater self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-discipline.
- Notice each of those three terms starts with “self.” That’s you.
- Obviously not every day is a parade.
- Not every day will you get a great new customer or deliver a great presentation, but every day you can act in a way that you know you can count on yourself.
- There’s that word again.) Internal Integrity is the first ring around the core of a trustworthy person.
You might be able to fake the other two for awhile, but if you lack in internal integrity you will eventually demonstrate that lack in yourself toward other people, and they will realize they are dealing with a fake. External integrity is what you show other people.
Do you walk your talk? Do you do the things you said you would do? If you told a group of people you would follow up with a difficult employee or customer situation and then you actually did it, they will trust you in future situations. However, if you don’t do what you said you would do, they will doubt you in future situations, and eventually they might get to a point where they stop trusting you completely.
Of course, there are times when you will have to do something different than what you said you would do. Circumstances can change and consequently those changes can cause you to adjust your actions. You can still maintain your integrity even though you had to do something different than what you had promised to do.
I believe the key in those situations is to go back and explain very clearly why you had to change your plans. External integrity affects not only your own business relationships, but it can also affect your organization’s brand. Companies make brand promises. When individuals consistently drop the ball and don’t fulfill what their company has promised to customers and suppliers and employees, the company’s brand weakens and can eventually collapse.
Bad economies can hurt a business, but bad integrity can hurt it even faster. Maintaining high levels of integrity is not only important for the results you personally generate, but it is also important for the results of your organization. You have to have both.
Dictionary.com defines integrity as the state of being whole. To me, that means a person with true integrity has his or her internal and external integrity integrated as one solid whole. It’s not enough to do the right thing when no else is looking, and then not do what you promised other people you would do.
It’s also not enough to always demonstrate integrity when you are with other people while you have a secret life that lacks in integrity. Those secrets have a way of coming out and then people doubt everything about you. At this point, I considered making a list of well-known people who have had their secret lives exposed showing they were not the people others thought they were.
- Then I thought that’s taking the easy way out.
- You and I can always point our fingers at other people and talk about their lack of integrity.
- However, that’s missing the point.
- The key is for us to look at our lives and identify any lack of true integrity within ourselves and then work to close those gaps.
Recently, one of my gaps in integrity was highlighted for me. I was at a youth soccer tournament as one of the coaches and a lesson was driven home for me again: real integrity means you are the same person in public as you are in private. Twenty-six years ago I read a book by John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach, called, They Call Me Coach.
In it he talked about never swearing in front of his players. He learned the value of not swearing from his father. Since then I made a strong commitment to never swearing in public. In all these years, I think I can remember less than a dozen times where I used foul language in a business situation, as a high school teacher, as an athletic coach, or with my family.
However, when I’m by myself I use really intense foul language all the time. I think my swearing goes back to my high school and college days where hardly a sentence was ever uttered by anyone without containing words beginning with f, d, g, or s. I avoided swearing when the games didn’t go our way that weekend or when I was discussing a play with a referee.
- I didn’t swear when speaking with the players or with the parents.
- However, at one point during the weekend, I told my ten-year-old son, Ben, to wait in the lobby with the other players while I packed our car.
- When I got to the car, I realized I had left one of our suitcases in our hotel room.
- Thinking I was all by myself, I said out loud, “What the (blank)? Where is my suitcase?” I turned around and I saw Ben walking toward me with another player.
I thought they heard me, and I was totally embarrassed. They went into the other player’s car to get something with his mom. They didn’t hear my foul language, but I was so upset that I went into the car and sat in the front seat for a long time even though I needed to get my luggage.
I realized I was being incongruent, one person in public and a different person in private. I heard the message loud and clear: “Either curse as loud as you can in every public gathering or don’t swear at all, but stop being a fake.” I realized right on the spot that I needed to a better job of integrating my internal integrity and my external integrity.
I realized I have to work much harder to not swear at all, even when I think I’m all by myself. For the past several weeks I’ve tried to immediately say, “Stop swearing!” whenever I use foul language when I’m by myself. Slowly, steadily, I need to replace that bad habit with a healthier one.
If you don’t integrate your internal and external integrity, eventually people will see your true self and wonder what else about you is not trustworthy. That can ruin your career and possibly ruin your business. Acting with integrity is very, very important. Is there any aspect of your life that is not integrated, where you are acting with one set of values in public and a different set of values in private? That’s not a small question.
That one requires some extended thinking time. If you do identify an area in your life the way I found one in my life, I encourage you to focus on it and work to integrate your internal and external integrity. Maintaining integrity is a matter of personal responsibility, and it’s one of the most important responsibilities we have.
Earlier in this article I said there are three forms of integrity. The first is internal integrity. The second is external integrity. The third is the image of integrity. Knowing that other people are always asking about you, “Can I trust this person?” it’s critically important that you protect your image of integrity.
Sometimes people will have their reputation as a person of integrity attacked for no reason. Other people can make up lies and try to denigrate another person. That happens and it is awful, but that’s not what I’m talking about here. I’m referring to what you do to protect your image of integrity, your reputation as a person of integrity.
Here are two examples of how a person who has strong internal and external integrity can play with a ball of fire and ruin his or her reputation. Imagine you are on a business trip and your direct report is of the opposite gender. You want to discuss a business situation so you decide to invite the person into your hotel room.
The two of you come out of the room a few hours later and you’re both laughing. However, three of your colleagues are walking down the hallway to their rooms just as the two of you are leaving your hotel room. You haven’t done anything wrong. You have acted with integrity.
But now other people are wondering what is going on. Over the next several months you have lunch and dinner with this direct report, have a few drinks, and meet again several times in a hotel room to discuss business. Even though nothing sexual has ever happened between the two of you, you are leaving your image of integrity up for grabs.
Why do that? Why risk your reputation of being a person of integrity? Imagine you’re responsible for collecting money from your colleagues at work for a big fundraiser for a local not-for-profit organization. So you collect thousands of dollars, you don’t keep any written account for how much each person gave you, you put all the money in your personal bank account and then you write a personal check to the not-for-profit organization.
You haven’t done anything wrong. You wrote a check for the exact amount you collected. But by mixing your personal finances with the money from people at your business, you have left other people wondering what is going on. These stories, or variations of them, happen frequently and cause huge problems inside businesses.
Why? Because people start to wonder about the person’s true level of integrity. Protect your image of integrity with the same effort that you work to strengthen your internal and external integrity. Integrity matters. It matters a lot in the world of business.
- Eep that in mind as you work to build long-term effective relationships with colleagues, employees, customers, suppliers, and even competitors.
- Integrity is the critical element if you want to have the opportunity to be a great business leader over the long term.
- Dan Coughlin works with executives and managers to improve their impact as business leaders.
Read his Business Leadership Blog at www.practicalbusinessleadership.com and visit his Free Learning Center on Business Leadership at http://thecoughlincompany.com/e-learning.php. After months in development, the Accredited Snow Contractors Association’s Industry Standards Committee has announced the completion of the first set of standards for the professional snow and ice management industry.
After months in development, the Accredited Snow Contractors Association’s Industry Standards Committee has announced the completion of the first set of standards for the professional snow and ice management industry. “This has been a monumental undertaking, but the committee should be very proud of the groundbreaking work they have accomplished,” says ASCA Executive Director Kevin Gilbride.
- The ASCA’s Industry Standards are the first of many steps that arms professional snow contractors with the tools to fight back against the rising number of slip-and-fall lawsuits facing our industry.” Gilbride thanked committee members for their commitment to the industry standards project.
- Committee members include: Jim Anderson, Troy Clogg Landscapes; Rick Bell, Artic Snow and Ice; Mike Jones, True North Outdoor; Mark Strayer, Brickman Facility Services; John Allin, PJA Inc.; Paul Wolbert, U.S.
Lawns; and Matt Peterson, Mills Insurance Group. ASCA’s Industry Standards were mailed to members this week. The document is free to ASCA members and is available for purchase by nonmembers for $400. “Finalizing the industry standards is a momentous milestone for the ASCA,” Gilbride says.
- Now the team turns its attention to finalizing the snow industry specific ISO certification.
- This certification is based on the ASCA’s Industry Standards and will offer snow and ice professionals a third-party verification process that will validate they are operating their businesses at the highest level.” Gilbride adds that ISO certification will be available to ASCA members beginning this summer.
In addition, for those professional snow contractors interested in the ISO process, John Knappenburger, president,, will be speaking at, taking place in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., August 9th-11th. There Knappenburger will present the snow industry specific ISO certification process. Industry standards and certification do more than validate professionalism, says ASCA Executive Director Kevin Gilbride. A third-party audit proves a company providing snow and ice management services is operating by a prescribed set of snow-industry standards, especially as it pertains to documentation.
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Now, I’ve heard the naysayers’ comments. Kevin, they say, what’s the big deal with ISO certification?
Actually, it’s a very big deal. Industry standards and certification do more than validate professionalism. In fact, these two key components stretch outside our industry and impact property managers (your clients), insurance companies and plaintiffs’ attorneys.
- Eep in mind that ISO certification is an internationally recognized certification process.
- It is well known that ISO-certified companies have recognized and accepted processes and procedures in place to ensure product quality.
- And in our industry “product quality” includes customer satisfaction and risk mitigation.
A third-party audit proves a company providing snow and ice management services is operating by a prescribed set of snow-industry standards, especially as it pertains to documentation. This is a flashing neon sign to the outside world that your professional affairs are in order, and it would be a fool’s errand to challenge your operation with a slip-and-fall lawsuit.
- Most lawsuits in our industry are settled out of court or lost due to lack of proper documentation.
- But imagine a plaintiff’s attorney, while doing his or her due diligence, discovering you have earned ISO certification and declining to file a slip-and-fall lawsuit because it’s an unwinnable scenario.
Still not convinced? Then I suggest you attend our 2012 Executive Summit, being held in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Aug.9-11. There you’ll gain a wealth of information about what the ASCA is doing to mitigate contractor risk and how ISO certification benefits the entire professional snow removal industry.
In addition, a hand-picked lineup of speakers will educate you on how to better run your business and plan for future success. Click for conference registration info. I hope to see you in Fort Lauderdale. I hope to see you there. Kevin Gilbride is executive director of the Accredited Snow Contractors Association.
Contact him direct at The past 12 months and first third of the year were the warmest the nation has experienced.
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Several warm periods across the contiguous U.S. during April brought the national average temperature to 55°F, 3.6°F above average, marking the third warmest April on record. These temperatures, when added with the first quarter and previous 11 months, calculate to the warmest year-to-date and 12-month periods since recordkeeping began in 1895.
The 12-month period of May 2011-April 2012 has a nationally-averaged temperature 2.8°F above the 1901-2000 long-term average, while the January-April 2012 months were 45.4°F, 5.4°F above the long-term average. On the heels of the warmest March for the U.S., warmer and drier than average temperatures continued for much of the nation with some states in the Ohio Valley having a small, but still above average, dip in temperatures.U.S.
climate highlights — April
- Warmer-than-average temperatures were present for a large portion of the nation during April with nine states in the Central and Northeast regions having April temperatures ranking among their ten warmest. Above-average temperatures were also present for the Southeast, Upper Midwest and much of the West.
- April 2012 Statewide Temperature (top) and Precipitation (bottom) ranks
- Eight states — Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia — had average April temperatures cooler than their March temperatures. However, these temperatures were still above the long-term average for the month.
- Statewide precipitation totals were mixed during April, with wetter than average conditions across the West Coast and Northern and Central Plains. Drier than average conditions were present in Texas and along the Gulf Coast, stretching northward toward the Great Lakes. The national precipitation average was 2.23 inches, 0.20 inch below average.
- According to the Rutgers Global Snow Lab, the April snow cover extent across the contiguous United States was the third smallest on record, despite the late season Nor’easter which impacted the Northeast with snow near the end of April.
- According to NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center, there were 228 preliminary tornado reports during April, above the 1991-2010 average for the month. The majority of the tornadoes occurred during an April 14th outbreak across the Central Plains. Tornado activity during April 2012 was in stark contrast to April 2011, when over 750 tornadoes tore across the Southeast, causing significant damage and loss of life.
U.S. climate highlights — Year-to-date
- January-April was the warmest such period on record for the contiguous United States, with an average temperature of 45.4°F, 5.4°F above the long-term average. Twenty-six states, all east of the Rockies, were record warm for the four-month period and an additional 17 states had temperatures for the period among their ten warmest.
- The first four months of 2012 were drier than average for the contiguous United States as a whole, with some regional variability. The eastern third of the nation was drier than average, with Maryland and Delaware record dry, and an additional six states had precipitation totals ranking among the ten driest. Drier than average conditions were also present for much of the Interior West.
- Wetter than average conditions occurred across the central regions of the country and the Pacific Northwest, where above average precipitation contributed to higher than normal mountain snowpack at the end of the snow season. The amount of snowpack in the springtime is important in determining water supply for the region for the upcoming summer period.
- According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, as of May 1st, 38.2 percent of the contiguous United States was experiencing drought conditions, an increase from the 31.9 percent at the beginning of 2012. Drought worsened across the Northeast, Southeast, and the Interior West while beneficial precipitation significantly improved drought conditions across the Southern Plains and western Gulf of Mexico.
- The U.S. Climate Extremes Index (USCEI), an index that tracks the highest and lowest 10 percent of extremes in temperature, precipitation, drought and tropical cyclones across the contiguous U.S., was a record 42 percent during the January-April period, over twice the average value. Extremes in warm daytime temperatures (82 percent) and warm nighttime temperatures (68 percent) covered a large area of the nation, contributing to the record high value.
12-month period (May 2011 – April 2012)
The 12 month period beginning May 2011 through April 2012, which includes several warm episodes for the country — second hottest summer, fourth warmest winter, and warmest March — was the warmest consecutive May-April year-long period for the contiguous United States. Judith Guido and John Allin to focus on how to build a profit-driven sales strategy while increasing market share.
The Snowfighters Institute, http://www.snowfightersinstitute.com, led by Judith Guido and John Allin, will hold its first-ever advanced sales training forum May 21st through May 24th at the newly constructed training facility in Erie, Pennsylvania. Judith Guido, Chairwoman of Guido & Associates said, “The need for professional snow and ice management companies has grown significantly over the last three years.
- Customers have become more educated and have increased their demands for transparency.
- As a result, the industry has become more sophisticated.
- Those companies that can demonstrate their expertise and abilities in this growing market segment are increasing their revenues, profits and market share while differentiating themselves from their competition.” Snow management is a mission critical service for many customers, and it comes with a degree of risk and a price.
Attendees will learn how to position and price their services as a risk management solution, as opposed to a commodity business. Key negotiating strategies will be discussed. Snow professionals will be educated on market size and dynamics, industry trends, business models, sales strategies, channel partners, technology and innovative marketing techniques.
- Attendees will also learn the importance of having a green and sustainability snow program, and how to build a successful sales strategy around this market force-de-jure.
- For those working on the Certified Snow Professional designation by the Snow and Ice Management Association, Continuing Educational Units will be awarded.
“Most snow contractors focus solely on the equipment and the operations side of the business. By not having a targeted sales strategy that is aligned with the market, combined with an unprofessional and inexperienced business development team, companies are losing out on significant opportunities and profits”, stated Allin.
- Attendees will have their company’s snow materials analyzed and will work on their sales presentations.
- The three and a half day sales forum has four components consisting of educational segments, an interactive workshop, strategic networking sessions and one-to-one consultations with Guido and Allin.
The workshop will be limited in size as the venue is an intimate hands-on educational program. This program is intended for owners, managers, business development and marketing professionals in the snow industry, as well as sales channel partners including distributors and manufacturers of snow products.
Guido and Allin are both highly respected leaders in the industry. Combined, they have over 50 years of snow management experience in the commercial, residential, industrial, campus and municipal markets having worked in over 38 countries. “Over the years we’ve used one another’s services for our clients successfully, and we’ve grown to admire and respect one another.
In alignment with our customers and the industry’s needs, and a collective vision of being innovators and leaders in the snow industry, it made perfect sense for John and I to join forces on the sales forum”, said Guido. Attendees will also be able to adapt their lessons from the snow forum into their landscape, excavating and construction businesses.
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What is integrity rules?
Integrity rules are needed to inform the DBMS about certain constraints in the real world. Specific integrity rules apply to one specific database. Example: part weights must be greater than zero. General integrity rules apply to all databases.
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What are the two concepts of integrity?
Integrity First published Mon Apr 9, 2001; substantive revision Mon Jul 26, 2021 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 what one thinks are 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.
- 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. On the self-integration view of integrity, integrity is a matter of persons integrating various parts of their personality into a harmonious, intact whole.
Understood in this way, the integrity of persons is analogous to the integrity of things: integrity is primarily a matter of keeping the self intact and uncorrupted. The self-integration view of integrity makes integrity a formal relation to the self.
- What is a formal relation to the self? One answer is that a formal relation can be attributed to a person without evaluating the relation’s components.
- Strength of will is probably a formal relation one has to oneself.
- Very roughly, we might say that a display of strength of will is a particular relation between a person’s intention and corresponding action: it is a matter of acting on an intention given serious obstacles to the action.
This is a formal relation to the self in the sense we are after because we don’t need to evaluate the appropriateness, value, justice, practical wisdom, and so on, either of the intention or corresponding action in order to identify the whole thing as a case of strength of will.
We might think that all displays of strength of will are valuable, so we might have certain pro-attitudes to an action simply because it is an attempt to fulfill an intention in the face of serious obstacles. Yet we don’t need to make this evaluation in order to attribute a display of strength of will to someone.
All we need to do is inspect the correspondence of intention and action given the difficulty of acting on the intention. We don’t need to evaluate whether the intention is directed at anything worthwhile, for example. John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter (2007) argue that strength of will is the core of integrity (and that alternative conceptions of integrity tend to confuse integrity with authenticity).
The self-integration account of integrity takes this formal characterization of integrity a step further. Self-integration is an achievement rather than a quality or disposition such as strength of will — though strength of will is likely to be an important quality in those who achieve self-integration.
Self-integration still represents a formal account of integrity. In attributing self-integration to a person we are making no evaluative judgement of the states that are integrated within the person. One instructive attempt to describe the fully integrated self is Harry Frankfurt’s (Frankfurt 1987, 33–34).
- Frankfurt does not explicitly address himself to the problem of defining integrity, nonetheless he does describe an important and influential account of self-integration.
- According to Frankfurt, desires and volitions (acts of will) are arranged in a hierarchy.
- First-order desires are desires for various goods; second-order desires are desires that one desire certain goods, or that one act on one first-order desire rather than another.
Similarly, one may will a particular action (first-order volition) or one may will that one’s first order volitions are of a particular sort (second-order volition). Second-order desires and volitions pave the way for third-order desires and volitions, and so on.
According to Frankfurt, wholly integrated persons bring these various levels of volition and desire into harmony and fully identify with them at the highest level. There are various ideas as to what it means to fully identify with higher-level desires and volitions. However, such identification appears to involve knowing them; not deceiving oneself about them; and acting on them (usually).
A person is subject to many conflicting desires. If one simply acted at each moment out of the strongest current desire, with no deliberation or discrimination between more or less worthwhile desires, then one clearly acts without integrity. Frankfurt calls such a person a ‘wanton’ (Frankfurt 1971).
- Integrity thus requires that one discriminate between first-order desires.
- One may do this by endorsing certain first-order desires and ‘outlawing’ others.
- For instance, one may endorse a desire to study and ‘outlaw’ a desire to party, and do so by reference to a higher order desire ranking success over fun.
Second-order desires may conflict. One may value success over fun, but also both fear that a ruthless pursuit of success will make one boring and value being fun over being boring. Fully integrated persons will not fall victim to such conflict; they will either avoid it altogether (if they can) or resolve the conflict in some way.
Resolution of self-conflict may be achieved by appeal to yet higher level desires or volitions, or by deciding to endorse one set of desires and outlawing others. At some point the full integration of one’s self will require that one decide upon a certain structure of higher level desires and order one’s lower level desires and volitions in light of it.
As Frankfurt puts it, when a person unreservedly decides to endorse a particular desire: the person no longer holds himself at all apart from the desire to which he has committed himself. It is no longer unsettled or uncertain whether the object of that desire—that is, what he wants—is what he really wants: The decision determines what the person really wants by making the desires upon which he decides fully his own.
To this extent the person, in making a decision by which he identifies with a desire, constitutes himself, (Frankfurt 1987, 38) When agents thus constitute themselves without ambivalence (that is, unresolved desire for a thing and against it) or inconsistency (that is, unresolved desire for incompatible things), then the agent has what Frankfurt calls wholeheartedness.
On one way of developing the integrated-self view of integrity, wholeheartedness is equated with integrity. It should be noted that self-conflict is not limited to desire. Conflict also ranges over commitments, principles, values, and wishes. Furthermore, all of these things—desires, commitments, values, and so on—are in flux.
- They change over time so that achieving the kind of ‘wholeheartedness’ that Frankfurt describes is a never-ending process and task.
- Self-knowledge is crucial to this process in so far as one must know what one’s values, for example, are if one is to order them.
- Frankfurt’s account illustrates one way of describing the fully-integrated self.
(See Taylor 1981 for a different approach.) The key question, however, is whether the idea of a fully-integrated self adequately captures the quality we ascribe when we say of someone that they are a person of integrity. There have been a number of criticisms of the integrated-self view of integrity.
- First, it places only formal limits on the kind of person who may be said to have integrity.
- People of integrity, however, are plausibly thought to be generally honest and genuine in their dealings with others.
- See Halfon 1989, 7–8.) Imagine a person who sells used-cars for a living and is wholeheartedly dedicated to selling cars for as much money as possible.
Such a person will be prepared to blatantly lie in order to set up a deal. The person may well be perfectly integrated in Frankfurt’s sense, but we should feel no temptation at all to describe them as having exemplary integrity. Second, a person of integrity is plausibly said to make reasonable judgments about the relative importance of various desires and commitments.
Yet, again, the self-integration view places only formal limits on the kind of desires that constitute a self. (See McFall 1987, 9–11, Calhoun 1995, 237–38). As McFall notes, one cannot say with a straight face something like: ‘Harold demonstrates great integrity in his single-minded pursuit of approval.’ (McFall 1987, 9; we discuss McFall’s views more fully in Section 4, below.) If integrity is nothing more than the perfect integration of self, however, it is hard to see how one can automatically deny Harold’s integrity.
Third, on some accounts, the fully and perfectly integrated person is not able to experience genuine temptation. Temptation requires that the full force of an ‘outlaw’ desire be experienced, but successful integration of the self may mean that such desires are fully subordinated to wholeheartedly endorsed desires and this may preclude an agent fully experiencing them.
See Taylor 1981, 151 for an example of a view like this.) That a person experiences, and overcomes, temptation would count against their integrity on such a view. One might think, however, that a capacity to overcome temptation and display strength of character is in fact a sign of a person’s integrity, not its lack.
(Halfon 1989, 44–7 urges this criticism.) Fourth, Cheshire Calhoun argues that agents may find themselves in situations in which wholeheartedness tends to undermine their integrity rather than constitute it (Calhoun 1995, 238–41; see also, Cox, La Caze and Levine 2003, 18–2.) Victoria Davion (1991) argues that a person may change radically and yet maintain integrity.
- In the midst of a complex and multifaceted life one may have compelling reasons to avoid neatly resolving incompatible desires.
- The cost of the resolution of all self-conflict may be a withdrawal from aspects of life that make genuine claims upon us.
- Resolving self-conflict at the expense of fully engaging with different parts of one’s life does not seem to contribute to one’s integrity.
It seems rather like the sort of cop-out that undermines integrity. (One should not confuse integrity with neatness,) Christian Golden (2019, 505) goes further in seeking to avoid ‘framing ambivalence and conflict as defects of character and action’, proposing humility as an alternative ideal to wholeheartedness as a model of personal integrity.
- One possibility here is to acknowledge different kinds of integrity.
- For example, Matthew Pianalto (2012) distinguishes between psychological integrity (a form of self-integration) and practical integrity in order to deal with the integrity of agents for whom wholeheartedness is not a realistic option.
Alfred Archer (2017, 435, 453) argues that an integrated self has value whether or not we equate it with the virtue of integrity. Its principle value resides in the effect it has on moral agency. Self-integrated people tend overwhelmingly to be better, more effective moral agents than people who are not integrated.
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What is integrity skills?
What is integrity in the workplace? Most of us have heard the term before, but what is the meaning of integrity in the workplace? What does workplace integrity look like in practise? Integrity in the workplace comes in many forms, but above all refers to having upstanding character traits and work ethics including sound judgement, honesty, dependability, and loyalty.
You are trustworthy and reliableYou practise and encourage open and honest communicationYou are responsible for your actions
Ultimately, integrity is based on values rather than personal gain. Therefore, maintaining integrity in a work setting is crucial for employees at all levels, but especially as you continue to move up the ladder. Having integrity helps foster an open and positive work environment and an ethical approach to decision-making.
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What is integrity essay?
So as we saw previously in this integrity essay, it involves being honest and doing the right thing even if you get no recognition for doing so. It involves being honest and correct when no one is watching.
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What is integrity paragraph?
Long Essay on Integrity in English 500 words – “Honesty is telling the truth to other people, and integrity is telling the truth to myself.” This famous saying describes integrity in a perfect manner. Integrity is the completeness one feels when he leads an honest and moral life.
Integrity is wisely choosing between what is right and what is wrong. If a person has nothing else, he can always feel proud of his integrity. Integrity helps a person to make trustworthy bonds with people around him. Integrity is not something one can purely teach to others. It is more of a virtue that comes from within a person.
Integrity is something a man needs to be proud of because it is a valuable possession no one can take away from him. Integrity means being honest and authentic to oneself and following a strict set of rules. Without integrity, the world would be merely anarchy.
In the academic field, there are a set of moral codes and ethical policies that are to be abided by. This is known as Academic Integrity. Integrity is needed for my people to flourish and bring morality to their life. Academic integrity should be developed in early life as it is an essential virtue for the students.
It is a quality that great leaders and academicians have in their lives, which allows them to be honest even when no one is watching them. Completing one’s work without plagiarizing from someone else’s work, not cheating on home tests and assignments, and working ethically are the significant milestones one has to achieve for building up his academic integrity.
Integrity is an essential quality every employer wants in his employees so that he can trust his employees with all his heart and expect a colloquial behavior from him. Professional integrity increases work productivity and helps in maintaining a positive environment. People with professional integrity have a significant benefit at the workplace because they do not have to put in any extra effort, to be honest, and become a person on whom everyone depends.
It is not that the academic and professional integrities are the highest levels of integrity a man should possess. Everyone should strive to attain integrity in their lives and practice integrity as it is a way of living and achieving prosperity. It helps the community grow and prosper.
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