The Meaning And Definition Of Integrity
By Pierre Du Plessis
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."
For further detailed discussion of "Integrity" visit:
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/integrity/
About the Author:
Pierre du Plessis (MBL, 1982, UNISA) is owner
of Leaders Circle, and the web site
www.careeradvancementcentre.com, catering for various niche related products and packages and author of several e-books. This article can be used for re-publishing as long as
it remains unchanged.
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