Different Views of Integrity

Different Views of Integrity
by Joseph Rowlands

A person shows integrity when they stick with their judgment even under pressure. As a virtue, this is a useful and admirable quality. It's useful because it's not enough to be rational, to be thoroughly honest, to weigh your choices careful and to determine your best course of action. None of that matters if you don't follow through. If all of that doesn't lead to action, it's a waste.

Integrity is also an admirable quality because it isn't always easy to act on your decisions. There are many different factors that can make it difficult to follow through. Sometimes the fear that other people won't understand or agree can tempt you to go along with the views of others and ignore your own best judgment. Temptations for short-sighted gratification can also affect you. Fear of the unknown, fear of loss, fear of loneliness, or fear of anything else can make you want to ignore your conclusions and do what's "safe".

There's a second view of integrity that is different from this first one, but might appear the same at first glance. The second view is a commitment to following your moral code. What's wrong with this? Consider any sacrificial morality.

Moral systems like altruism ask that the practitioner make sacrifices. The moral acts are sacrificial in nature. In fact, the greater the sacrifice, the greater the act of morality. When someone incurs great costs in an attempt to be moral, it shows just how committed he is to his morality.

The problem with demanding great sacrifice is that the morality always acts to impede a person's life and interests. That means cheating his morality, and selecting the immoral option, will reward him. He'll gain something that improves the quality of his life. So sacrificial moralities all share a common enemy: temptation. People will always be tempted to cheat morality because there is always some benefit to cheating. A sacrificial morality like altruism must always fight against temptation.

In light of constant temptation, the usual view of moral integrity is that it is a commitment to doing "the right thing" regardless of temptations. These moralities make integrity, and its commitment to following the moral code, a central virtue. Moral praise is offered based on the magnitude of the sacrifice. The more you give up in the name of morality, the better a person you are. Moral praise is offered for shows of integrity. It is the measure of moral virtue in a sacrificial morality. A saint is someone with absolute moral integrity.

Note that version of integrity is not the same as the first one I mentioned. In this new form of integrity, the way you practice it is to ignore temptations. You need to ignore your needs, ignore the potential benefit you are sacrificing, and ignore any doubts you might have. Integrity requires you to accept the edicts of the moral system blindly and without question. It is an integrity based on evasion and blind commitment. And it needs to be that way because it views morality as being against your interest.

Contrast this with the first view of integrity I offered. It revolves around you using your best judgment. There is no reference to a need to obey moral rules blindly. The benefit of integrity is not that you will be "a moral person". The benefit is that acting on your best judgment is a recipe for successful living, and caving into pressure and ignoring your best judgment is a recipe for failure.

A moral system based on rational self interest is consistent with the first view of integrity. When there are choices to be made, you need to use your best judgment. If there are pressures or temptations that make you want to ignore your best judgment, the proper response is not to clear your mind and follow and blindly follow more edicts. Instead, you should look more carefully at the situation. By looking at the big picture, you will see that the temptations or pressure may provide short term benefits, but come at significant long term costs.

Temptations and pressures work by offering a tantalizing short-term benefit or escape from unpleasantness, combined with an unwillingness to consider longer term consequences. The proper method of integrity is not to narrow your focus in an attempt to blind you of the consequences, but to widen your perspective so you can see clearly that these aren't really the easy way out.

I wrote an article titled "The Path of Most Resistance" which described how a person can take the "easy" path over and over, and find himself in an ever-more desperate situation. The path he considers to have the least resistance is often the one leading to the most resistance. He is fooled by focusing on the short-term effects while ignoring the future costs that keep mounting hire.

These two views of integrity are polar opposites. And yet, some Objectivists view both views as being compatible with a morality of rational self-interest. They may not even distinguish between them.

In this view, an integrity that upholds obedience to your moral principles is essentially equivalent to an integrity that focuses on your best judgment. The thinking goes, if your moral principles are rational, then there's no difference. Following your moral principles is equivalent to using your best judgment. Moral principles inform your best judgment. They are an essential component. So aren't the two views identical or at least compatible in a morality of self-interest?

It all sounds good, but it all hinges on how the term "moral principles" is understood and used. There are two ways of viewing them. The way that I prefer is to view moral principles like any other kind of principle of understanding. Principles are an identification. They deal with wide-reaching generalizations, but these are still identifications. They identify and describe a causal relationship. A moral principle is an identification as well. It describes how certain kinds of actions lead to certain kinds of consequences through a causal relationship.

The other view of moral principles is that they are policy summaries. "You should always tell the truth" is a policy summary. It may be based on a causal relationship, but it is more than a mere identification. It is a conclusion. It states how you should act, given that causal identification. I think this view should be called moral policies instead of moral principles. It more clearly identifies the nature of it. It is not a neutral statement of a cause and effect relationship. It is a pronouncement about the kind of actions that should be taken or should not be taken. It is a moral policy.

Now if we look at the sacrificial moralities again, we can see that that version of integrity is a commitment to moral policies, not to moral principles. Integrity demands that you act in accordance with the moral policies. It demands that you act sacrificially, and avoid the temptations of real benefits that would go with cheating those moral policies.

So if we talk about a morality of self-interest, with this moral principle/moral policy distinction, we can see that these two views of integrity are quite different. The first view of integrity upholds standing by your own best judgment. If your judgment is rational, it takes into account any moral principles you may be aware of. That is, it accounts for all of the identifications of causal relationships you are aware of. Note that when discussing the identifications, you would never say that you "follow" them or are "obedient" to them. The language makes no sense with this meaning.

The second view of integrity upholds commitment to your moral policies. In this case, it is perfectly valid to say that you should "follow" your moral policies, or that you should "obey them. It means that you should act in accordance with these policies. Consistency with the policy is the sign of moral integrity, even if it contradicts your best judgment.

An anticipated response is that if your moral polices are truly rational, your best judgment shouldn't contradict them. It can still be treated as equivalent. The two views of integrity can still be thought of as the same.

On answer to this is that the method of the two kinds of integrity are different. When your best judgment is the measure, temptations are avoided by looking at the full context and long-range consequences. Integrity is won with clarity. But the policy-based integrity is consistent with an entirely different approach. It says to ignore temptations or pressures and stick with the moral policy no matter what. It substitutes loyalty to these policies over clarity. Your devotion to your moral code, your commitment to being a good person and to obeying the moral rules, is the source of integrity.

There is another key difference. The view that you should be loyal to your principles sees it as beneficial that you aren't reevaluating all of your options each time. If you are constantly asking yourself whether you should be honest, for instance, in times where there is pressure you may be more likely to let your emotions guide your choice. Moral policies are considered good precisely because they don't depend on your judgment in adverse circumstance. It is seen as an enhancement of integrity. You will be less likely to try to cheat morality, or cave into pressure, if you view the decision as already settled and blindly follow the policies.

This is a problem in the best judgment form of integrity. Instead of you acting on your best judgment at the time, moral policies tell you to suspend judgment and act according to set policies. Instead of seeking clarity and understanding of the consequences, moral policies demand that you act without consideration. This makes perfect sense in a sacrificial morality. Transplanted into a morality of self-interest, where rationality and judgment are integral components of proper decision making, it makes no sense.

Nor does this approach genuinely promote integrity. Practicing blind loyalty to a set of moral policies leaves you ignorant of the reasons why temptations and pressures are often irrational. If you blind yourself to the fact, you can't consider the long-term consequences. Instead of having clarity that your decisions are right, you are asked to follow the moral policy no matter what. In a sacrificial morality, this makes sense because often the alternative is truly beneficial to your life.

But adopting the same policies, and the same view of integrity, in a morality of self-interest only works to create the impression that those alternatives are beneficial. It blinds you to the long-term negative consequences, and leaves you with the short-sighted impression that temptations are actually beneficial. It leaves you concluding those are the beneficial actions, but then demands that you act according to the policies anyway. It creates the impression of sacrifice, and the illusion that the temptations are better than they are.

Contrast that with the judgment form of integrity. In that view, the way to avoid temptation is to seek clarity of the long-term consequences. Each time you look for these consequences, you get better at seeing them and anticipating them. You get better at using the moral principles to identify likely consequences based on the causal relationships described. The more you use it, the easier it is to use. It is a virtuous circle that promotes integrity by allowing you to trust your best judgment.

These two views of integrity are not only different, but incompatible. They have different methods of decision making, with one promoting good judgment and the other promoting obedience. They have different approaches for dealing with temptations, with one seeking clarity of the consequences and the other demanding blind loyalty to the policies. They have different effects on future integrity, with one view training you to see the consequences more clearly and the other creating the illusion that temptations are beneficial.

There's nothing to be gained from borrowing the sacrificial approach to integrity.

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