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Fingarette characterizes self-deception as the refusal to avow or acknowledge a part of oneself; one indirectly recognizes this undesirable part of the self but by refusing to “spell it out,” one leaves it outside the unity of the self. Thus, self-deception arises from the failure to integrate all the constituents of the self. Furthermore, self-deception is a form of corruption, what Collingwood characterizes as a “corruption of consciousness.” One attends to one element in the field of consciousness in order not to attend to another, undesirable element. This project of disattention permeates and corrupts what is attended to. The racist projects the undesired characteristics he disavows for himself upon the targeted group. This hatred of others is really a corrupt form of self-hatred, disguised by projecting the rejected parts of the self onto the external target of racist attitudes. The disavowal of self-deception can never be contained; refusing to integrate the disavowed element with the rest of the self leads to an eventual, overall disintegration of the self. For this reason, self-deception presents a singularly strong challenge to integrity.
| Core Meaning or Root Metaphor (1,1) | Description (1,2) | Features (1,3) | Exercises on Integrity (1,4) | Cases (1,5) |
| Integration,Unity, or Wholeness: a person of integrity unifies character constituents into a single, coherent identity. Components integrated: emotion, thought, values, commitments, projects, beliefs, and attitudes.(2,1) | Integrity functions as a meta-virtue or a meta-value. This means that it prescribes coherence and consistency between the individual virtues of the character or the values that form the core of one's thought and conduct.(2,2) | Vices of excess: (a) rigidity and inflexibility (b) fanaticism or sticking to a position no matter what; (c) unreasonableness; (d)irrationality.(2,3) | Some use Milgram's experiments to argue that situation determines character and action. There are, according to this position, no trans-situational character disposition or traits.(2,4) | Nathaniel Borenstein reformulates and reintegrates his pacifist beliefs (without abandoning them) to help NATO develop a missile launch training program not embedded in the actual launching system.(2,5) |
| Consistency of action across situations that follows from a fully synthesized and integrated character. The same character trait, disposition, or habit is displayed across different kinds of situations.(3,1) | Integrity is often characterized as a virtue, that is, as an excellence of character, thought, and action. Character is formed around four Cardinal Virtues: Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Temperance. (Taken from the Encyclopedia of Catholicism)(3,2) | Vice of Defect: moral chameleon, hypocrite, and wanton. (See Frankfurt and Benjamin on these types of defect.)(3,3) | Some conclude from Zimbardo's prison experiments that identity dissolves into the role one is playing. The students role-playing in his experiment as prisoners and as prison guards become so lost in their roles that they lose their sense of identity.(3,4) | Jim and the Jungle : Utilitarianism and Deontology may dictate that one shoot the villager or leave the scene but they do not properly take into account the cost of either action on personal integrity.(3,5) |
| Commitment : a person of integrity has central beliefs and values to which he or she remains faithful. He or she has something to believe in and thus stands out as a "person of conviction." (4,1) | According to Aristotle, a virtue is “a state of character concerned with choice, lying in a mean, i.e., the mean relative to us, this being determined by a rational principle, and by that principle by which [a person] of practical wisdom would determine it.” (From Ross’s translation of the Nichomachean Ethics in 1106b, 36.)(4,2) | Vices of Corruption : External--disintegration of organizational, group, or collective integrity or unity(4,3) | Strong Evaluation Test : Is it possible to subject core self to rigorous self-examination? Difficulty: Finding an Archimedean point.(4,4) | George the Pacifist : George does not want to work on a weapons project because it violates his strong, core beliefs in pacifism. But he is unemployed and his wife needs to quit her waitress job to go back to school and be with the children.(4,5) |
| Incorruptible : The coherence or solidity of one's core self can stand up to disruptive pressures such as extraneous desire or pressure from the outside.(5,1) | As a virtue, integrity is the mean between extremes of excess and defect.(5,2) | Internal Vice of Corruption : Disintegration of individual integrity or unity/cohesion of character(5,3) | Consistency of first with second-order desires : Frankfort posits the existence of two levels of desire, first/immediate and second/mediate. The gambler gives way to first-order desire to keep on gambling. But second-order desire, opposes the first, and advocates a project to stop gambling. (At which level does the true self arise?) Integrity = aligning first with second order desires.(5,4) | A Man for All Seasons : Play author, Robert Bolt, presents Thomas More as a paradigm of integrity. Susan Wolf, on the other hand, presents him as a religious fanatic. Would More lose his integrity if he signed the oath?(5,5) |
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