critical thinking attitude of integrity

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Describe the critical thinking attitude, confidence:

Learn how to introduce yourself to a patient; speak with conviction when you begin a treatment or procedure. Do not lead a patient to think that you are unable to perform care safely. Always be well prepared before performing a nursing activity. Encourage patient to ask questions.

Describe the critical thinking attitude, thinking independently:

Begin to raise important questions about your practice. Read the nursing literature, especially when there are different views on the same subject. Talk with other nurses and share ideas about nursing interventions.

Describe the critical thinking attitude, fairness:

Deal with situations justly. Listen to both sides in any discussion. If a patient or family member complains about a coworker, listen to the story and then speak with the coworker as well. If a staff member labels the patient uncooperative, I seem to care of that patient with openness and a desire to meet that patients needs

Describe the critical thinking attitude, responsibility and authority:

Or, responsibility and accountability. Ask for help if you are uncertain about how to perform a nursing skill. Referred to a policy and procedure manual to review steps of the skill. Report any problems immediately. Follow standards of practice in your care.

Describe the critical thinking attitude, risk-taking:

If your knowledge causes you to question the healthcare providers order, do so. Be willing to recommend alternative approaches to nursing care when colleagues are having little success with patients

Describe the critical thinking attitude, discipline:

Be thorough and whatever you do. Use known scientific and practice-based criteria for activities such as assessment and evaluation. Take time to be thorough and manage your time effectively.

Describe the critical thinking attitude of perseverance:

Because she is an easy answer. If co-workers give you information about a patient and some facts seems to be missing, clarify the information or talk to the patient directly. If problems of the same type continue to occur on a nursing division, bring coworkers together, look for a pattern, and find a solution.

Describe the critical thinking attitude of creativity:

Look for different approaches is interventions are not working for a patient. For example, the patient in pain might need a different positioning or distraction technique. When appropriate, involve the patient’s family in adapting approaches to care methods used at home.

Describe the critical thinking attitude of curiosity:

Always ask why. A clinical signs or symptoms often indicates a variety of problems. Explore and learn more about the patient so as to make appropriate clinical judgments.

Describe the critical thinking attitude of integrity:

Recognize when your opinions conflict with those of the patient; review your position, and decide how best to proceed to reach outcomes that will satisfy everyone. Do not compromise nursing standards or honesty and delivering nurse care.

Describe the critical thinking attitude of humility:

Recognize when you need more information to make a decision. When you are new to the clinical division, ask for an orientation to the area. Ask registered nurses regularly assigned to the area for assistance with approaches to care.

What are the 11 critical thinking attitudes? Box 15-3 p.200

• Thinking independently
• Responsibility and authority
• Risk-taking
• Perseverance

Decks in Fundamentals of Nursing Class (14):

• Ch. 2 Examples Of Healthcare Services (Box 2–1) P. 17
• Ch. 1 (Nursing Today) Key Terms
• Ch. 2 (Health Care Delivery System) Key Terms
• Ch. 15 (Critical Thinking In Nursing Practice) Key Terms
• Nursing Process
• Ch. 15 Attitudes For Critical Thinking
• Ch. 15 Critical Thinking Skills
• Ch. 16 (Nursing Assessment) Objectives
• Ch. 16 Nursing Assessment
• Ch. 17 Nursing Diagnosis Objectives
• Ch. 17 Nursing Diagnosis
• Ch. 39 Hygiene
• Ch. 44 Nutrition
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• v.22(4); 2014 Aug

Critical Thinking: The Development of an Essential Skill for Nursing Students

Ioanna v. papathanasiou.

1 Nursing Department, Technological Educational Institute of Thessaly, Greece

Christos F. Kleisiaris

2 Nursing Department, Technological Educational Institute of Crete, Greece

Evangelos C. Fradelos

3 State Mental Hospital of Attica “Daphne”, Greece

Katerina Kakou

Lambrini kourkouta.

4 Nursing Department, Alexander Technological Educational Institute of Thessaloniki, Greece

Critical thinking is defined as the mental process of actively and skillfully perception, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of collected information through observation, experience and communication that leads to a decision for action. In nursing education there is frequent reference to critical thinking and to the significance that it has in daily clinical nursing practice. Nursing clinical instructors know that students face difficulties in making decisions related to clinical practice. The main critical thinking skills in which nursing students should be exercised during their studies are critical analysis, introductory and concluding justification, valid conclusion, distinguish of facts and opinions, evaluation the credibility of information sources, clarification of concepts and recognition of conditions. Specific behaviors are essentials for enhancing critical thinking. Nursing students in order to learn and apply critical thinking should develop independence of thought, fairness, perspicacity in personal and social level, humility, spiritual courage, integrity, perseverance, self-confidence, interest for research and curiosity. Critical thinking is an essential process for the safe, efficient and skillful nursing practice. The nursing education programs should adopt attitudes that promote critical thinking and mobilize the skills of critical reasoning.

1. INTRODUCTION

Critical thinking is applied by nurses in the process of solving problems of patients and decision-making process with creativity to enhance the effect. It is an essential process for a safe, efficient and skillful nursing intervention. Critical thinking according to Scriven and Paul is the mental active process and subtle perception, analysis, synthesis and evaluation of information collected or derived from observation, experience, reflection, reasoning or the communication leading to conviction for action ( 1 ).

So, nurses must adopt positions that promote critical thinking and refine skills of critical reasoning in order a meaningful assessment of both the previous and the new information and decisions taken daily on hospitalization and use of limited resources, forces you to think and act in cases where there are neither clear answers nor specific procedures and where opposing forces transform decision making in a complex process ( 2 ).

Critical thinking applies to nurses as they have diverse multifaceted knowledge to handle the various situations encountered during their shifts still face constant changes in an environment with constant stress of changing conditions and make important decisions using critical thinking to collect and interpret information that are necessary for making a decision ( 3 ).

Critical thinking, combined with creativity, refine the result as nurses can find specific solutions to specific problems with creativity taking place where traditional interventions are not effective. Even with creativity, nurses generate new ideas quickly, get flexible and natural, create original solutions to problems, act independently and with confidence, even under pressure, and demonstrate originality ( 4 ).

The aim of the study is to present the basic skills of critical thinking, to highlight critical thinking as a essential skill for nursing education and a fundamental skill for decision making in nursing practice. Moreover to indicate the positive effect and relation that critical thinking has on professional outcomes.

2. CRITICAL THINKING SKILLS

Nurses in their efforts to implement critical thinking should develop some methods as well as cognitive skills required in analysis, problem solving and decision making ( 5 ). These skills include critical analysis, introductory and concluding justification, valid conclusion, distinguishing facts and opinions to assess the credibility of sources of information, clarification of concepts, and recognition conditions ( 6 , 7 ).

Critical analysis is applied to a set of questions that relate to the event or concept for the determination of important information and ideas and discarding the unnecessary ones. It is, thus, a set of criteria to rationalize an idea where one must know all the questions but to use the appropriate one in this case ( 8 ).

The Socratic Method, where the question and the answer are sought, is a technique in which one can investigate below the surface, recognize and examine the condition, look for the consequences, investigate the multiple data views and distinguish between what one knows and what he simply believes. This method should be implemented by nurses at the end of their shifts, when reviewing patient history and progress, planning the nursing plan or discussing the treatment of a patient with colleagues ( 9 ).

The Inference and Concluding justification are two other critical thinking skills, where the justification for inductive generalizations formed from a set of data and observations, which when considered together, specific pieces of information constitute a special interpretation ( 10 ). In contrast, the justification is deduced from the general to the specific. According to this, nurse starts from a conceptual framework–for example, the prioritization of needs by Maslow or a context–evident and gives descriptive interpretation of the patient’s condition with respect to this framework. So, the nurse who uses drawing needs categorizes information and defines the problem of the patient based on eradication, nutrition or need protection.

In critical thinking, the nurses still distinguish claims based on facts, conclusions, judgments and opinions. The assessment of the reliability of information is an important stage of critical thinking, where the nurse needs to confirm the accuracy of this information by checking other evidence and informants ( 10 ).

The concepts are ideas and opinions that represent objects in the real world and the importance of them. Each person has developed its own concepts, where they are nested by others, either based on personal experience or study or other activities. For a clear understanding of the situation of the patient, the nurse and the patient should be in agreement with the importance of concepts.

People also live under certain assumptions. Many believe that people generally have a generous nature, while others believe that it is a human tendency to act in its own interest. The nurse must believe that life should be considered as invaluable regardless of the condition of the patient, with the patient often believing that quality of life is more important than duration. Nurse and patient, realizing that they can make choices based on these assumptions, can work together for a common acceptable nursing plan ( 11 ).

3. CRITICAL THINKING ENHANCEMENT BEHAVIORS

The person applying critical thinking works to develop the following attitudes and characteristics independence of thought, fairness, insight into the personal and public level, humble intellect and postpone the crisis, spiritual courage, integrity, perseverance, self-confidence, research interest considerations not only behind the feelings and emotions but also behind the thoughts and curiosity ( 12 ).

Independence of Thought

Individuals who apply critical thinking as they mature acquire knowledge and experiences and examine their beliefs under new evidence. The nurses do not remain to what they were taught in school, but are “open-minded” in terms of different intervention methods technical skills.

Impartiality

Those who apply critical thinking are independent in different ways, based on evidence and not panic or personal and group biases. The nurse takes into account the views of both the younger and older family members.

Perspicacity into Personal and Social Factors

Those who are using critical thinking and accept the possibility that their personal prejudices, social pressures and habits could affect their judgment greatly. So, they try to actively interpret their prejudices whenever they think and decide.

Humble Cerebration and Deferral Crisis

Humble intellect means to have someone aware of the limits of his own knowledge. So, those who apply critical thinking are willing to admit they do not know something and believe that what we all consider rectum cannot always be true, because new evidence may emerge.

Spiritual Courage

The values and beliefs are not always obtained by rationality, meaning opinions that have been researched and proven that are supported by reasons and information. The courage should be true to their new ground in situations where social penalties for incompatibility are strict. In many cases the nurses who supported an attitude according to which if investigations are proved wrong, they are canceled.

Use of critical thinking to mentally intact individuals question their knowledge and beliefs quickly and thoroughly and cause the knowledge of others so that they are willing to admit and appreciate inconsistencies of both their own beliefs and the beliefs of the others.

Perseverance

The perseverance shown by nurses in exploring effective solutions for patient problems and nursing each determination helps to clarify concepts and to distinguish related issues despite the difficulties and failures. Using critical thinking they resist the temptation to find a quick and simple answer to avoid uncomfortable situations such as confusion and frustration.

Confidence in the Justification

According to critical thinking through well motivated reasoning leads to reliable conclusions. Using critical thinking nurses develop both the inductive and the deductive reasoning. The nurse gaining more experience of mental process and improvement, does not hesitate to disagree and be troubled thereby acting as a role model to colleagues, inspiring them to develop critical thinking.

Interesting Thoughts and Feelings for Research

Nurses need to recognize, examine and inspect or modify the emotions involved with critical thinking. So, if they feel anger, guilt and frustration for some event in their work, they should follow some steps: To restrict the operations for a while to avoid hasty conclusions and impulsive decisions, discuss negative feelings with a trusted, consume some of the energy produced by emotion, for example, doing calisthenics or walking, ponder over the situation and determine whether the emotional response is appropriate. After intense feelings abate, the nurse will be able to proceed objectively to necessary conclusions and to take the necessary decisions.

The internal debate, that has constantly in mind that the use of critical thinking is full of questions. So, a research nurse calculates traditions but does not hesitate to challenge them if you do not confirm their validity and reliability.

4. IMPLEMENTATION OF CRITICAL THINKING IN NURSING PRACTICE

In their shifts nurses act effectively without using critical thinking as many decisions are mainly based on habit and have a minimum reflection. Thus, higher critical thinking skills are put into operation, when some new ideas or needs are displayed to take a decision beyond routine. The nursing process is a systematic, rational method of planning and providing specialized nursing ( 13 ). The steps of the nursing process are assessment, diagnosis, planning, implementation, evaluation. The health care is setting the priorities of the day to apply critical thinking ( 14 ). Each nurse seeks awareness of reasoning as he/she applies the criteria and considerations and as thinking evolves ( 15 ).

Problem Solving

Problem solving helps to acquire knowledge as nurse obtains information explaining the nature of the problem and recommends possible solutions which evaluate and select the application of the best without rejecting them in a possible appeal of the original. Also, it approaches issues when solving problems that are often used is the empirical method, intuition, research process and the scientific method modified ( 16 ).

Experiential Method

This method is mainly used in home care nursing interventions where they cannot function properly because of the tools and equipment that are incomplete ( 17 ).

Intuition is the perception and understanding of concepts without the conscious use of reasoning. As a problem solving approach, as it is considered by many, is a form of guessing and therefore is characterized as an inappropriate basis for nursing decisions. But others see it as important and legitimate aspect of the crisis gained through knowledge and experience. The clinical experience allows the practitioner to recognize items and standards and approach the right conclusions. Many nurses are sensing the evolution of the patient’s condition which helps them to act sooner although the limited information. Despite the fact that the intuitive method of solving problems is recognized as part of nursing practice, it is not recommended for beginners or students because the cognitive level and the clinical experience is incomplete and does not allow a valid decision ( 16 ).

Research Process / Scientifically Modified Method

The research method is a worded, rational and systematic approach to problem solving. Health professionals working in uncontrolled situations need to implement a modified approach of the scientific method of problem solving. With critical thinking being important in all processes of problem solving, the nurse considers all possible solutions and decides on the choice of the most appropriate solution for each case ( 18 ).

The Decision

The decision is the selection of appropriate actions to fulfill the desired objective through critical thinking. Decisions should be taken when several exclusive options are available or when there is a choice of action or not. The nurse when facing multiple needs of patients, should set priorities and decide the order in which they help their patients. They should therefore: a) examine the advantages and disadvantages of each option, b) implement prioritization needs by Maslow, c) assess what actions can be delegated to others, and d) use any framework implementation priorities. Even nurses make decisions about their personal and professional lives. The successive stages of decision making are the Recognition of Objective or Purpose, Definition of criteria, Calculation Criteria, Exploration of Alternative Solutions, Consideration of Alternative Solutions, Design, Implementation, Evaluation result ( 16 ).

The contribution of critical thinking in decision making

Acquiring critical thinking and opinion is a question of practice. Critical thinking is not a phenomenon and we should all try to achieve some level of critical thinking to solve problems and make decisions successfully ( 19 - 21 ).

It is vital that the alteration of growing research or application of the Socratic Method or other technique since nurses revise the evaluation criteria of thinking and apply their own reasoning. So when they have knowledge of their own reasoning-as they apply critical thinking-they can detect syllogistic errors ( 22 – 26 ).

5. CONCLUSION

In responsible positions nurses should be especially aware of the climate of thought that is implemented and actively create an environment that stimulates and encourages diversity of opinion and research ideas ( 27 ). The nurses will also be applied to investigate the views of people from different cultures, religions, social and economic levels, family structures and different ages. Managing nurses should encourage colleagues to scrutinize the data prior to draw conclusions and to avoid “group thinking” which tends to vary without thinking of the will of the group. Critical thinking is an essential process for the safe, efficient and skillful nursing practice. The nursing education programs should adopt attitudes that promote critical thinking and mobilize the skills of critical reasoning.

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Critical Thinking

Developing the right mindset and skills.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

We make hundreds of decisions every day and, whether we realize it or not, we're all critical thinkers.

We use critical thinking each time we weigh up our options, prioritize our responsibilities, or think about the likely effects of our actions. It's a crucial skill that helps us to cut out misinformation and make wise decisions. The trouble is, we're not always very good at it!

In this article, we'll explore the key skills that you need to develop your critical thinking skills, and how to adopt a critical thinking mindset, so that you can make well-informed decisions.

What Is Critical Thinking?

Critical thinking is the discipline of rigorously and skillfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions, and beliefs. You'll need to actively question every step of your thinking process to do it well.

Collecting, analyzing and evaluating information is an important skill in life, and a highly valued asset in the workplace. People who score highly in critical thinking assessments are also rated by their managers as having good problem-solving skills, creativity, strong decision-making skills, and good overall performance. [1]

Key Critical Thinking Skills

Critical thinkers possess a set of key characteristics which help them to question information and their own thinking. Focus on the following areas to develop your critical thinking skills:

Being willing and able to explore alternative approaches and experimental ideas is crucial. Can you think through "what if" scenarios, create plausible options, and test out your theories? If not, you'll tend to write off ideas and options too soon, so you may miss the best answer to your situation.

To nurture your curiosity, stay up to date with facts and trends. You'll overlook important information if you allow yourself to become "blinkered," so always be open to new information.

But don't stop there! Look for opposing views or evidence to challenge your information, and seek clarification when things are unclear. This will help you to reassess your beliefs and make a well-informed decision later. Read our article, Opening Closed Minds , for more ways to stay receptive.

Logical Thinking

You must be skilled at reasoning and extending logic to come up with plausible options or outcomes.

It's also important to emphasize logic over emotion. Emotion can be motivating but it can also lead you to take hasty and unwise action, so control your emotions and be cautious in your judgments. Know when a conclusion is "fact" and when it is not. "Could-be-true" conclusions are based on assumptions and must be tested further. Read our article, Logical Fallacies , for help with this.

Use creative problem solving to balance cold logic. By thinking outside of the box you can identify new possible outcomes by using pieces of information that you already have.

Self-Awareness

Many of the decisions we make in life are subtly informed by our values and beliefs. These influences are called cognitive biases and it can be difficult to identify them in ourselves because they're often subconscious.

Practicing self-awareness will allow you to reflect on the beliefs you have and the choices you make. You'll then be better equipped to challenge your own thinking and make improved, unbiased decisions.

One particularly useful tool for critical thinking is the Ladder of Inference . It allows you to test and validate your thinking process, rather than jumping to poorly supported conclusions.

Developing a Critical Thinking Mindset

Combine the above skills with the right mindset so that you can make better decisions and adopt more effective courses of action. You can develop your critical thinking mindset by following this process:

Gather Information

First, collect data, opinions and facts on the issue that you need to solve. Draw on what you already know, and turn to new sources of information to help inform your understanding. Consider what gaps there are in your knowledge and seek to fill them. And look for information that challenges your assumptions and beliefs.

Be sure to verify the authority and authenticity of your sources. Not everything you read is true! Use this checklist to ensure that your information is valid:

• Are your information sources trustworthy ? (For example, well-respected authors, trusted colleagues or peers, recognized industry publications, websites, blogs, etc.)
• Is the information you have gathered up to date ?
• Has the information received any direct criticism ?
• Does the information have any errors or inaccuracies ?
• Is there any evidence to support or corroborate the information you have gathered?
• Is the information you have gathered subjective or biased in any way? (For example, is it based on opinion, rather than fact? Is any of the information you have gathered designed to promote a particular service or organization?)

If any information appears to be irrelevant or invalid, don't include it in your decision making. But don't omit information just because you disagree with it, or your final decision will be flawed and bias.

Now observe the information you have gathered, and interpret it. What are the key findings and main takeaways? What does the evidence point to? Start to build one or two possible arguments based on what you have found.

You'll need to look for the details within the mass of information, so use your powers of observation to identify any patterns or similarities. You can then analyze and extend these trends to make sensible predictions about the future.

To help you to sift through the multiple ideas and theories, it can be useful to group and order items according to their characteristics. From here, you can compare and contrast the different items. And once you've determined how similar or different things are from one another, Paired Comparison Analysis can help you to analyze them.

The final step involves challenging the information and rationalizing its arguments.

Apply the laws of reason (induction, deduction, analogy) to judge an argument and determine its merits. To do this, it's essential that you can determine the significance and validity of an argument to put it in the correct perspective. Take a look at our article, Rational Thinking , for more information about how to do this.

Once you have considered all of the arguments and options rationally, you can finally make an informed decision.

Afterward, take time to reflect on what you have learned and what you found challenging. Step back from the detail of your decision or problem, and look at the bigger picture. Record what you've learned from your observations and experience.

Critical thinking involves rigorously and skilfully using information, experience, observation, and reasoning to guide your decisions, actions and beliefs. It's a useful skill in the workplace and in life.

You'll need to be curious and creative to explore alternative possibilities, but rational to apply logic, and self-aware to identify when your beliefs could affect your decisions or actions.

You can demonstrate a high level of critical thinking by validating your information, analyzing its meaning, and finally evaluating the argument.

Critical Thinking Infographic

See Critical Thinking represented in our infographic: An Elementary Guide to Critical Thinking .

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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.

Ordinary intuitions about integrity tend to allow both that integrity is a formal relation to the self and that it has something to do with acting morally. 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.

1. Integrity as Self-Integration

2. the identity view of integrity, 3. integrity as standing for something, 4. integrity as moral purpose, 5. integrity as a virtue, 6. types of integrity, 7. integrity and moral theory.

• 8. Integrity in Relation to Social and Political Conditions

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Other internet resources, related entries.

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 corrspondence 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. Strength of will can be displayed by the deluded and the foolishly stubborn. Self-integration is a formal relation of this kind. 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, pp. 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, p. 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, pp. 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, pp. 9-11, Calhoun 1995, pp. 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, p. 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, p. 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, pp. 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, pp. 238-41. Analogously, Victoria Davion 1991, pp. 180-192 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 .)

A related approach to integrity is to think of it primarily in terms of a person's holding steadfastly true to their commitments, rather than ordering and endorsing desires. ‘Commitment’ is used as a broad umbrella term covering many different kinds of intentions, promises, convictions and relationships of trust and expectation. One may be, and usually is, committed in many different ways to many different kinds of thing: people, institutions, traditions, causes, ideals, principles, projects, and so on. Commitments can be explicitly, self-consciously, publicly entered into or implicit, unself-conscious and private. Some are relatively superficial and unimportant, like casual support of a sporting team; others are very deep, like the commitment implicit in genuine love or friendship.

Because we find ourselves with so many commitments, of so many different kinds, and because commitments inevitably clash and change over time, it will not do to define integrity merely in terms of remaining steadfastly true to one's commitments. It matters which commitments we expect a person of integrity to remain true to. Philosophers have developed different accounts of integrity in response to this need to specify the kind of commitments that are centrally important to a person's integrity.

One option here is to define integrity in terms of the commitments that people identify with most deeply, as constituting what they consider their life is fundamentally about. Commitments of this kind are called ‘identity-conferring commitments’ or sometimes ‘ground projects’. This view of integrity, the identity view, is associated most closely with Bernard Williams. It is implicit in his discussion of integrity and utilitarianism (Williams 1973; we examine this discussion below) and also features in his criticism of Kantian moral theory (1981b). The idea is that for people to abandon an identity-conferring commitment is for them to lose grip on what gives their life its identity, or individual character. An identity-conferring commitment, according to Williams, is ‘the condition of my existence, in the sense that unless I am propelled forward by the conatus of desire, project and interest, it is unclear why I should go on at all.’ (Williams 1981b, p. 12).

One apparent consequence of defining integrity as maintenance of identity-conferring commitments is that integrity cannot really be a virtue. This is Williams's view. He argues that integrity is not related to motivation as virtues are. A virtue either motivates a person to act in desirable ways (as benevolence moves a person to act for another's good), or it enables a person to act in desirable ways (as courage enables a person to act well). If integrity is no more than maintenance of identity, however, it can play neither of these roles. On the identity view of integrity, to act with integrity is just to act in a way that accurately reflects your sense of who you are; to act from motives, interests and commitments that are most deeply your own. (Williams 1981a, p. 49) A further consequence of this view of integrity as maintenance of identity-conferring commitments is that there appears to be no normative constraints either on what such commitments may be, or on what the person of integrity can do in the pursuit of these commitments. People of integrity can do horrific things and maintain their integrity so long as they are acting in accordance with their core commitments.

A number of criticisms of the identity view of integrity have been made. First, integrity is usually regarded as something worth striving for and the identity account of integrity fails to make sense of this. (See Cox, La Caze, Levine 1999.) It disconnects integrity from the prevalent view that it is a virtue of some kind and generally praiseworthy. Second, the identity theory of integrity ties integrity to commitments with which an agent identifies, but acts of identification can be ill-informed, superficial and foolish. People may, through ignorance or self-deception, fail to understand or properly acknowledge the source of their deepest commitments and convictions and we are unlikely to attribute integrity to people who hold true to a false and unrealistic picture of themselves. (On the other hand, this view of integrity as maintenance of identify-conferring commitments, recognizes the relevance of self-knowledge to acting with integrity. If people fail to act on their core commitments, through self-deception, weakness of will, cowardice, or even ignorance, then to this extent they may be said to lack integrity.)

Third, on the identity view of integrity, a person's integrity is only at issue when their deepest, most characteristic, or core convictions and aspirations are brought into play. However, we expect persons of integrity to behave with integrity in many different contexts, not only those of central importance to them. (See Calhoun 1995, p. 245.)

Fourth, as noted above, the identity view of integrity places only formal conditions upon the kind of person that might be said to possess integrity. The identity view of integrity shares this feature with the self-integration view of integrity and similar criticism can be made of it on this ground. It seems plausible to observe certain substantive limits on the kinds of commitments had by a person of integrity.

The self-integration and identity views of integrity see it as primarily a personal virtue: a quality defined by a person's care of the self. Cheshire Calhoun argues that integrity is primarily a social virtue, one that is defined by a person's relations to others (Calhoun 1995). The social character of integrity is, Calhoun claims, a matter of a person's proper regard for their own best judgement. Persons of integrity do not just act consistently with their endorsements, they stand for something: they stand up for their best judgment within a community of people trying to discover what in life is worth doing. As she puts it:

Persons of integrity treat their own endorsements as ones that matter, or ought to matter, to fellow deliberators. Absent a special sort of story, lying about one's views, concealing them, recanting them under pressure, selling them out for rewards or to avoid penalties, and pandering to what one regards as the bad views of others, all indicate a failure to regard one's own judgment as one that should matter to others. (Calhoun 1995 p. 258)

On Calhoun's view, integrity is a matter of having proper regard for one's role in a community process of deliberation over what is valuable and what is worth doing. This, she claims, entails not only that one stand up, unhypocritically, for one's best judgment, but also that one have proper respect for the judgment of others.

Calhoun's account of integrity promises to explain why it is that the fanatic lacks integrity. It seems intuitively very plausible to distinguish between fanatical zeal and integrity, but the self-integration and identity views of integrity threaten to make the fanatic a paradigm case of a person of integrity. Fanatics integrate desires and volitions of various orders in an intimidatingly coherent package; they remain steadfastly true to their deepest commitments like no others. On Calhoun's view of integrity, however, we can locate a distinction between integrity and fanaticism. Fanatics lack one very important quality that, on Calhoun's view, is centrally important to integrity: they lack proper respect for the deliberations of others. What is not clear in Calhoun's account, and is in fact very hard to get clear on in any case, is what the proper respect for other's views in the end amounts to. Exemplary figures of integrity often stand by their judgment in the face of enormous pressure to recant. How, then, is one to understand the difference between standing up for one's views under great pressure and fanatically standing by them? Calhoun's claim that the fanatic lacks integrity because they fail to properly respect the social character of judgement and deliberation sounds right, but most of the work is done by the idea of ‘proper respect’—and it is not clear in the end what this comes to.

Calhoun's account of integrity places no material constraints on the kinds of commitments that a person of integrity may endorse. It does not seem necessary on her view that a person of integrity has a special concern with acting morally. Although they have a special concern to understand what in life is worth doing, the person of integrity is not constrained to give moral, other-regarding answers to this question. By contrast, the following account of integrity is explicitly concerned with attitudes towards morality.

Another way of thinking about integrity places moral constraints upon the kinds of commitment to which a person of integrity must remain true. There are several ways of doing this. Elizabeth Ashford argues for a virtue she calls ‘objective integrity’. Objective integrity requires that agents have a sure grasp of their real moral obligations. (Ashford 2000, p. 246) A person of integrity cannot, therefore, be morally mistaken. Understood in this way, one only properly ascribes integrity to a person with whom one finds oneself completely in moral agreement. This concept of integrity does not, however, closely match ordinary use of the term. The point of attributing integrity to another is not to signal unambiguous moral agreement. It is often to ameliorate criticism of another's moral judgment. For example, we may disagree strongly with the Pope's views of the role of women in the Church, take this to be a significant moral criticism of him, and yet admit that he is a man of integrity. In such a case it is largely the point of attributing integrity to open a space for substantial moral disagreement without launching a wholesale attack upon another's moral character.

Mark Halfon offers a different way of defining integrity in terms of moral purpose. Halfon describes integrity in terms of a person's dedication to the pursuit of a moral life and their intellectual responsibility in seeking to understand the demands of such a life. He writes that persons of integrity:

…embrace a moral point of view that urges them to be conceptually clear, logically consistent, apprised of relevant empirical evidence, and careful about acknowledging as well as weighing relevant moral considerations. Persons of integrity impose these restrictions on themselves since they are concerned, not simply with taking any moral position, but with pursuing a commitment to do what is best. (Halfon 1989, p. 37.)

Halfon's view allows that integrity is not necessarily ‘objective’, as Ashford claims, and is similar in a number of respects to Calhoun's. Both see integrity as centrally concerned with deliberation about how to live. However, Halfon conceives this task in more narrowly moral terms and ties integrity to personal intellectual virtues exercised in pursuit of a morally good life. Halfon speaks of a person confronting ‘all relevant moral considerations’, but this turns out to be quite a formal constraint. What counts as a relevant moral consideration, on Halfon's view, depends upon the moral point of view of the agent. Persons of integrity may thus be responsible for acts others would regard as grossly immoral. What is important is that they act with moral purpose and display intellectual integrity in moral deliberation. This leads Halfon to admit that, on his conception of integrity, it is possible for a Nazi bent on genocide of the entire Jewish people to be a person of moral integrity. Halfon thinks it possible, but not at all likely. (Halfon 1989, pp. 134-36)

Other philosophers object to this consequence. If the genocidal Nazi is a possible object of ascriptions of moral integrity, then we can properly ascribe integrity to people whose moral viewpoint is bizarrely remote from any we find intelligible or defensible. (See McFall 1987 and Cox, La Caze and Levine 2003, pp. 56-68. Putnam 1996 draws on the work of Carol Gilligan 1982 to suggest a different way of overcoming the problem of the Nazi of integrity.) Moral constraints upon attributions of integrity need not take the form of Ashford's ‘moralized’ view or Halfon's more limited formal view. One might say instead that attributions of integrity involve the judgment that an agent acts from a moral point of view those attributing integrity find intelligible and defensible (though not necessarily right) —and that this formal constraint does have substantive implications. It prohibits attributing integrity to, for example, those who advocate genocide, or deny the moral standing of people on, for example, sex-based or racial grounds. There are things which a person of integrity cannot do. The Nazis and other perpetrators of great evil were either committed to what they were doing, in which case they were profoundly immoral (or not moral agents at all) and lacked integrity; or else they lacked integrity because they were self-deceived or dissembling and never actually had the Nazi commitments they claimed to have. Judgments of integrity would thus involve judgment about the reasonableness of others' moral points of view, rather than the absolute correctness of their view (Ashford) or the intellectual responsibility with which they generally approach the task of thinking about moral questions (Halfon).

McFall (1987) contains an interesting discussion of the nature of the constraints on proper attributions of integrity. She asks ‘Are there no constraints on the content of the principles or commitments a person of integrity may hold?’ and then invites us to consider the following statements. (McFall 1987, p. 9)

• Sally is a person of principle: pleasure.
• Harold demonstrates great integrity in his single-minded pursuit of approval.
• John was a man of uncommon integrity. He let nothing, not friendship, not justice, not truth stand in the way of his amassment of wealth.

McFall holds that the fact that ‘none of these claims can be made with a straight face suggests that integrity is inconsistent with such principles.’ (McFall 1987, p. 9) The question, however, is whether this is down to the formal constraints or substantive constraints; that is, whether attributions of integrity are constrained by the content of principles a person maintains, or by way certain kinds of principle fail to meet formal constraints on the way persons of integrity holds to their principles. McFall appears to suggest the latter interpretation.

In providing reasons for our dismissal of [i] to [iii] she says (1987, 9-10)

A person of integrity is willing to bear the consequences of her convictions, even when this is difficult … A person whose only principle is ‘Seek my own pleasure’ is not a candidate for integrity because there is no possibility of conflict—between pleasure and principle—in which integrity could be lost. Where there is no possibility of its loss, integrity cannot exist. Similarly in the case of the approval seeker. The single-minded pursuit of approval is inconsistent with integrity … A commitment to spinelessness does not vitiate its spinelessness—another of integrity's contraries. The same may be said for the ruthless seeker of wealth. A person whose only aim is to increase his bank balance is a person for whom nothing is ruled out: duplicity, theft, murder. Expedience is contrasted to a life of principle, so an ascription of integrity is out of place. Like the pleasure seeker and the approval seeker, he lacks a ‘core,’ the kind of commitments that give a person character and that make a loss of integrity possible. In order to sell one's soul, one must have something to sell.

This is an argument that evokes formal incompatibility between particular principles or goals and the proper attribution of integrity. The argument is not conclusive, however. Seeking pleasure, approval or wealth, is not always easy and it seems possible that conflict could arise, for example, between determinations to pursue higher or lower pleasures, long-term pleasures or immediate gratifications. Perhaps McFall identifies too readily certain ways of having a bad character with what it is to lack character entirely. The ruthless seeker of wealth seems to have a ‘core,’—albeit a nasty one—along with a set of principles of a sort and a set of actions that are ruled out on principle. In ruling out these kinds of principle or goal in attributions of integrity, we appear to be making substantive claims about the content of a person of integrity's principles or goals.

McFall is surely right in claiming that the people she describes cannot, under her descriptions, be persons of integrity; the question remains as to how to distinguish such people from those we would claim do have integrity, even though their principles are very different than our own. Is there a limit as to how different their principles and commitments can be, or in what ways they can be different, and still maintain their integrity? McFall does not specify ‘core’ commitments necessary to a person's integrity, but she does introduce what appears to be a substantive constraint upon attributions of integrity. She says (1987, p. 11)

When we grant integrity to a person we need not approve of his or her principles or commitments, but we must at least recognize them as ones a reasonable person might take to be of great importance and ones that a reasonable person might be tempted to sacrifice to some lesser yet still recognizable goods. It may not be possible to spell out these conditions without circularity, but that this is what underlies our judgments of integrity seems clear enough. Integrity is a personal virtue granted with social strings attached. By definition, it precludes ‘expediency, artificiality, or shallowness of any kind.’ [See Webster's Third New international Dictionary, ‘integrity.’] The pleasure seeker is guilty of shallowness, the approval seeker of artificiality, and the profit seeker of expedience of the worst sort.

According to McFall, then, we judge people to be of integrity only if they have commitments which a reasonable person could accept as important. This turns out to be a morally substantive constraint. McFall says (1987, p. 11), ‘Whether we grant or deny personal integrity, then, seems to depend on our own conceptions of what is important. And since most of our conceptions are informed if not dominated by moral conceptions of the good, it is natural that this should be reflected in our judgments of personal integrity.’ To say that judgment of another's integrity depends on our own conceptions of what is important, moral, and good implies substantive constraints on what a person may do and still be judged to have integrity. It also consistent with the view that there are constraints on the principles and commitments of a person of integrity per se . If there are objective moral constraints on adequate conceptions of the good, for example, then on the view McFall articulates there will also be objective moral constraints on the possession of integrity.

McFall thus appears to defend the existence of substantive constraints on integrity. However, she also draws a distinction between personal and moral integrity. (McFall 1987, p. 14) On her view, a person who, in acting on some morally deficient principle, does morally abhorrent things may have personal integrity even if not moral integrity. McFall gives the example of a utilitarian lover of literature who is willing to stop people burning books by killing them. She says of the utilitarian killer (1987, p. 14), ‘Although we may find his actions morally abhorrent, we may still be inclined to grant him the virtue of personal integrity. We would not, however, hold him up as a paragon of moral integrity.’ It is difficult to reconcile McFall's account of the distinction between moral and personal integrity with her more general characterization of the concept of integrity. She appears here to be drawing the distinction between moral integrity and personal integrity in terms of the reasonableness of a person's moral beliefs. The utilitarian killer exhibits personal integrity because he sincerely believes himself to be acting rightly, but he lacks moral integrity because of the grossness of his moral error and thus the unreasonableness of his moral judgment.

However, McFall also points out that integrity requires that one hold principles or commitments that a reasonable person might take to be of great importance. It is hard to see how a reasonable person could take the importance of books to be sufficiently great to justify murder. Where McFall talks of judgments of importance, it is natural to interpret her as referring to judgments of value. But if this is so, her distinction between personal and moral integrity appears to collapse. Personal integrity applied to an unambiguously moral predicament just is moral integrity. The distinction between personal and moral integrity, it seems, is better drawn in terms of the kinds of commitments or kinds of activity that are in frame. Personal integrity would then refer to non-moral aspects of a person's life (if there are any); moral integrity would refer to aspects of a person's life that have clear moral significance. It is unclear, however, whether this way of distinguishing between personal and moral integrity captures ordinary use of the term ‘personal integrity’. ‘Personal integrity’ appears to be a term used more or less synonymously with ‘integrity’. Nonetheless, distinctions between moral integrity, non-moral integrity, and overall integrity, i.e. integrity as a general cast of character, do seem well motivated and relatively clear. And if we accept the compartmentalization of a person's life in this way, then attempts to define integrity as moral purpose would be better described as attempts to define moral integrity.

Defining the overall integrity of character in terms of moral purpose has the advantage of capturing intuitions of the moral seriousness of questions of integrity. However, the approach appears too narrow. Halfon's identification of integrity and moral integrity appears to leave out important personal aspects of integrity, aspects better captured by the other views of integrity we have examined. Integrity does not seem to be exclusively a matter of how people approach plainly moral concerns. Other matters like love, friendship and personal projects appear highly relevant to judgments of integrity. Imagine a person who sets great store in writing a novel, but who postpones the writing of it for years on one excuse or another and then abandons the idea of novel-writing after one difficult experience with a first chapter. We would think this person's integrity diminished by their failure to make a serious attempt to see the project through, yet the writing of a novel need not be a moral project.

All of the accounts of integrity we have examined have a certain intuitive appeal and capture some important feature of the concept of integrity. There is, however, no philosophical consensus on the best account. It may be that the concept of integrity is a cluster concept, tying together different overlapping qualities of character under the one term. In Cox, La Caze and Levine 2003, we argue that integrity is a virtue, but not one that is reducible to the workings of a single moral capacity (in the way that, say, courage is) or the wholehearted pursuit of an identifiable moral end (in the way that, say, benevolence is). We take ‘integrity’ to be a complex and thick virtue term. One gains a fair grasp of the variety of ways in which people use the term ‘integrity’ by examining conditions commonly accepted to defeat or diminish a person's integrity. Integrity stands as a mean to various excesses. On the one side we have character traits and ways of behaving and thinking that tend to maintain the status quo even where acting with integrity demands a change. These are things like arrogance, dogmatism, fanaticism, monomania, preciousness, sanctimoniousness, and rigidity. These are all traits that can defeat integrity in so far as they undermine and suppress attempts by an individual to critically assess and balance their desires, commitments, wishes, changing goals and other factors. Thus, refusing to acknowledge that circumstance in a marriage, or one's passionate desire to write a novel, have dramatically changed (for whatever reasons) may indicate a lack of integrity—a giving in to cowardice for example, and a refusal to acknowledge new or overriding commitments. These same factors can defeat integrity, or an aspect of one's integrity, whether one decides to stay with a marriage or abandon it. In one case staying may indicate a lack of integrity, while in a different case, abandoning the marriage would indicate such a lack.

On the other side, a different set of characteristics undermine integrity. These do not undermine the status quo as much as they make it impossible to discern stable features in one's life, and in one's relations to others, that are necessary if one is to act with integrity. Here we have capriciousness, wantonness, triviality, disintegration, weakness of will, self deception, self-ignorance, mendacity, hypocrisy, indifference. Although the second of these lists dominates contemporary reflection on the nature of integrity, the first also represents, in our view, an ever present threat to our integrity. The person of integrity lives in a fragile balance between every one of these all-too-human traits. (Cox, La Caze, Levine 2003, p. 41). It is not that integrity stands as a mean between the vices that are represented in these two lists. Rather, the person of integrity will find a mean between the excesses of each one of these vices, or traits or practices that can undermine—that do undermine—integrity. Some people will be more prone to a certain set of practices or character traits that undermine integrity than others. The defeaters of integrity are person-relative, and may even be situation-relative.

This account of integrity makes it appear that integrity is much more difficult to achieve than is often thought. It makes integrity a quality of character that one may have to a greater or lesser extent, in certain ways but not others, and in certain aspects or areas of one's life but not others. Having integrity is not on this view an all or nothing thing. To say a person has integrity is to make an “all things considered” judgment: something that we may say of people if we know—and even if they know—that in certain ways and about certain things, they lack integrity.

A conception of integrity as a virtue—either developed along the lines described above or along different lines—is compatible with the existence of constraints on the content of the norms the person of integrity is committed to. Profound moral failure may be an independent defeater of integrity, just as hypocrisy, fanaticism and the like are defeaters of integrity. One might judge as internal to our conception of the virtue the idea that integrity is incompatible with major failures of moral imagination or moral courage, or with the maintenance of wholly unreasonable moral principles or opinions. On such a view, the Nazi could not, all things considered, be a regarded as person of integrity. The Nazi may be self-deceiver and a liar (which is highly probable), but even if he is not, his principles and his actions are not rationally defensible under any coherent moral view. And this latter fact may by itself justify the judgment that the Nazi lacks the virtue of integrity.

References to different types of integrity, such as intellectual and artistic integrity, abound in the philosophical literature on integrity and everyday discourse. Because integrity involves managing various commitments and values, one might conjecture that such types of integrity are simply manifestations of a person's overall integrity, or of their personal integrity. However, there are many people who we are inclined to say have intellectual but not personal integrity—or who have more of the former than the latter. If there is a radical disjunction between the type of integrity which is demanded in one sphere of life and another, integrity overall, or personal integrity, may be undermined, or at least profoundly challenged. There may, for example, be conflict between types of integrity, such as between intellectual and moral integrity. (See Code 1983, pp. 268-282; Kekes 1983, pp. 512-516.)

Is integrity in one area of life likely to flow over into others? This is possible, in that the kind of reflection and self-assessment which goes into maintaining integrity in one sphere of life may help people to reflect similarly in other spheres. However, given human beings' capacity and need for compartmentalization, or psychologically separating out different parts of their lives, this effect will not necessarily occur. The relationship between different types of integrity and moral and personal integrity needs to be carefully charted. Is integrity a zero-sum game, so that for example, the more artistic integrity a person has, the less she has in personal life? This does not seem necessarily to be the case. At the same time, a lack of integrity in one aspect of life does not necessarily mean there will be a lack in other aspects of life. Presumably, a person could lack personal integrity, but still have integrity in a number of restricted areas of life, such as in intellectual and artistic pursuits.

A related question is how different types of integrity are associated with moral integrity. Stan Godlovitch (1993, p. 580) says that professional integrity, for example, is weaker than moral integrity, and is more like etiquette. For him (1993, p. 573), integrity ‘trades between the norms of unity and honesty’. More specifically, Godlovitch (1993, p. 580) argues that the responsibilities of performers, for example, are quasi-moral; they are not truly moral because they are internal to the profession. However, it seems plausible to maintain that professional integrity is better understood as an important contribution to the living of a moral life. Professional integrity is specific to the sphere of a profession, but not entirely independent of morality.

One can also ask how types of integrity are distinguished from each other. Halfon (1989, p. 55) argues that we distinguish between types of integrity in terms of commitments to specific kinds of ends, principles and ideals. However, not every end creates a distinct type of integrity. Trivial ends, like train-spotting, do not introduce a new species of integrity. To count as being a type of integrity, the sphere of action and commitment in question should be a complex and valuable human pursuit that has distinct ways in which integrity is demonstrated. Robust examples are intellectual integrity and artistic integrity. On this way of looking at the matter, personal integrity and various specific types of integrity tend to be run together. Integrity is seen as the one virtue: essentially the same virtue expected of one's life partner, a friend, an employee, a priest, a teacher, or a politician. (See Benjamin, 1990; Calhoun, 1995; Halfon, 1989; and Grant, 1997.) Professional integrity then becomes a matter of the extent to which a person displays personal integrity in professional life. Halfon (1989, p. 53), for example, argues that types of integrity may overlap, ‘So a person who is an artist by profession may come to possess professional and artistic integrity in virtue of performing one and the same action or fulfilling one and the same commitment’.

There are, however, good reasons to resist this running together of various types of integrity. In the first place, our legitimate expectations of people must be sensitive to the roles we have tacitly or explicitly agreed that they perform. If we expect people to act with integrity in a certain professional context, then our judgment of them should be based on an understanding of this context: its special duties, obligations, rights, competencies, and so on. What it is to display integrity in one profession need not, therefore, carry over to other professions; and the difference between acting with integrity in one context may not share a common currency with what it is to act with integrity in another context. It seems that the concept of integrity cannot be demarcated into types without specific characterization of the kinds of challenges and hazards encountered in the relevant field of action.

Consider the example of intellectual integrity. The term ‘intellectual integrity’ is ambiguous between integrity of the intellect and the integrity of the intellectual. While it should, in general, be construed broadly, as integrity of the intellect, and thus applicable to anyone who thinks, here we will concentrate on the integrity of the intellectual, or integrity as the academic's virtue, as Susan Haack puts it. (1976, p. 59) Intellectuals may differ in the extent to which they exemplify intellectual virtues such as honesty, impartiality, and openness to the views of others. Intellectual integrity may then be thought of as the over-arching virtue that enables and enhances these individual virtues by maintaining a proper balance between them.

Halfon (1989, p. 54) argues that Socrates had a commitment to the pursuit of truth and knowledge, and he demonstrated his intellectual integrity in the face of attacks on it. Socrates may be an outstanding example of a person of intellectual integrity; nevertheless, there is more to intellectual integrity than having a commitment to truth and knowledge. Intellectual integrity is often characterized as a kind of ‘openness’— an openness to criticism and to the ideas of others. However, if one is too open, one could absorb too many influences to be able to properly pursue any line of thought. So an adequate account of intellectual integrity must incorporate conflicting claims: that one must be open to new ideas but not be overwhelmed by them. An account of intellectual integrity should recognize other sources of conflict and temptations that impede intellectual integrity, such as the temptations offered by the commercialization of research, self-deception about the nature of one's work, and the conflict between the free pursuit of ideas and responsibility to others.

There are a range of commonly cited intellectual virtues central to our conception of intellectual integrity, such as honesty, courage, and fairness. Plausibly, such virtues as sensitivity and perceptiveness or insightfulness should also be added. In Virtues of the Mind , Linda Zagzebski (1996, p. 114) gives a very comprehensive list of intellectual virtues, adding such items as intellectual humility, perseverance, adaptability and communicativeness. Possession of these virtues is part of what it means for a person to have intellectual integrity, although they may exist in varying degrees without undermining a person's overall intellectual integrity. There are a range of kinds of actions one might expect from a person of intellectual integrity as well: for example, being against plagiarism, refusing to suppress counter-arguments, and consistently acknowledging help. The fact that there are a number of distinct intellectual virtues, involving distinct, and sometime conflicting, dispositions to action, means that we have a need to balance or manage these virtues. For example, a person who has too much intellectual courage may well become a dogmatist, and a person who is excessively impartial will probably lack conviction. It seems plausible to say that intellectual integrity is that quality that enables a person to balance the various demands of intellectual work and to manifest intellectual virtues in a proper order.

This balance cannot be maintained without a certain degree of reflection on the relationship between different intellectual commitments. The importance of appropriate reflection to intellectual integrity indicates that, like personal integrity, it is closely related to self-knowledge. Self-knowledge appears essential to integrity in general, and given that intellectual integrity concerns knowledge itself, the relationship between having intellectual integrity and self-knowledge is particularly close. This close relationship might lead one to assume that self-deception is antithetical to intellectual integrity because it undermines the kind of self-knowledge, such as knowledge of our intellectual strengths and capacities, necessary to such reflection. However, self-deception does not necessarily undermine intellectual integrity. In fact, some self-deception might be necessary to pursue some lines of thought well. Having integrity may be consistent with—may even require—self-deceptive strategies to maintain one's equilibrium in the face of conflicts and obstacles. As Amélie Oksenberg Rorty (1994, p, 218) points out, self-deception can be necessary to be energized to do anything. The mild self-deception that one has a good idea before one really has an idea at all is often necessary to get started on a piece of work.

Nonetheless, some forms of self-deception are seriously detrimental to intellectual integrity. Gabriele Taylor (1981, p. 146) believes that self-deception constitutes the most fundamental and important case of lack of integrity. She discusses an example which shows in an exemplary manner the dangers of self-deception—that of Casaubon in George Eliot's Middlemarch (1994). Casaubon is a cleric working on the connections between different religions, a mammoth scholarly work he has devoted himself to for many years. In Taylor's view, he is self-deceived about his commitment to scholarship. Casaubon's problem may be seen as a conflict between his belief in his capacity and desire to write something very important and his realization of the truth that he is incapable of doing so. The kind of failure of integrity here is partly due to failure to take the views of others seriously, and thus differs from cases where others might encourage one in self-deception. Casaubon acted to prevent his wife Dorothea and others from realising the paucity of his researches. His case is more blameworthy because of this failure and it demonstrates the way in which self-deception can undermine intellectual integrity.

Another important type of integrity is artistic integrity. Bernard Williams (1981) discusses a fictionalized version of Gauguin's story, a discussion that raises questions about the relationship between artistic integrity and other kinds of integrity. On Williams's (1981, p. 22) account, Gauguin ‘turns away from definite and pressing human claims on him in order to live a life in which, as he supposes, he can pursue his art.’ In other words, the fictional Gauguin left his loved ones to paint in Tahiti. Williams's point is that how Gauguin judges himself and how his actions are judged partly depends on the success of his artistic project. In Williams's view, if Gauguin's artistic project fails, we are apt to judge him morally deficient; if his artistic project succeeds, we are likely to see his actions in a more favorable moral light. Although Williams's discussion of this case is focused on the concept of moral luck, there are two important issues concerning artistic integrity here. First, there is the issue of whether Gauguin acted with a kind of integrity at all, and second, there is the issue of whether artistic integrity, if this is what Gauguin's actions manifest, conflicts with moral and personal integrity.

Calhoun (1995, p. 244) notes that ‘… insofar as we imagine that Gauguin, in pursuing ‘what he found his life bound up with’, acted merely on a psychologically deep impulse without critically reflecting on the value of doing so, we may suspect him of not acting with integrity’. He may have lacked personal integrity because he did not take an assessment of his values and commitments seriously enough. Calhoun (1995, p. 244) suggests that perhaps Gauguin believes that morality does not demand he give up partiality to his own artistic project. If this is his view, then the success of his artistic project may contribute to a favorable judgment of his moral integrity. Williams's argument that Gauguin's actions are given some sort of justification by the success of his artistic project is not entirely convincing. There is no reason to think that Gauguin's project could only succeed if he turned away from the people that depend upon him, leaving them to a ‘grim’ life. Posterity may think more of him as an artist because of his work in Tahiti, but it doesn't follow that we should think that Gauguin showed artistic integrity in taking his art to Tahiti, valuing his drive to paint in an exotic location above other commitments. Nor is it clear that being successful in Tahiti contributes to our judgment of his artistic integrity. Would our judgment of his artistic integrity have suffered had he stayed at home producing his art? Artistic integrity may come into conflict with personal and moral integrity, but it is surprisingly difficult to characterize the precise circumstances of such a conflict. Williams's fictionalized portrait of Gauguin does not convincingly demonstrate such a conflict (and nor was it devised by Williams for such a purpose).

There are certainly connections between artistic integrity and the moral integrity of artists, which in turn is connected to the moral features of artworks themselves. Novitz (1990, p. 16), for example, argues that the values we bring to art are social ones, and that so-called pure aesthetic values are themselves socially induced. At the very least, the moral values which artworks suggest or promote are relevant to considerations of artistic integrity. On the one hand, artistic integrity and moral integrity can overlap, particularly if the standards of artistic integrity are high. On the other hand, artistic and moral integrity can come apart in situations of great pressure. Circumstances also vary, and with them both the difficulty of pursuing integrity, and our assessment of its merit. Stewart Sutherland (1996) argues that the case of Dimitri Shostakovich creates difficulties for an account of integrity developed in terms of consistency. The idea is that Shostakovich demonstrated equal if not greater integrity than other more artistically consistent composers writing in more congenial circumstances by coding his works with anti-Stalinist irony. More plausibly, however, one might argue that Shostakovich showed considerable strength of character in difficult circumstances whilst also admitting to his many artistic compromises, compromises which affected his integrity as an artist. Thus, one might rate his moral integrity more highly than his artistic integrity. Expectations of artistic integrity have to be tempered by understanding of the conflicts and pressures, both commercial and political, involved in pursuing artistic values.

Does having one type of integrity mean that one is, to that extent, moral? Halfon says that integrity in one sphere of life is admirable, though less admirable than having integrity overall and a specific type of integrity may interfere with moral integrity rather than be expressive of it. Yet overall integrity demands that this conflict be managed in appropriate ways. Integrity is so broad that it has to encompass morality in a profound way. Artistic integrity is greater if it involves not just following the demands of the profession, but doing so in such a way that one does not diminish others' lives. Daniel Putnam (1996, p. 237) expresses the point well when he says: ‘Integrity reaches its highest point when it unifies and maintains a balance of virtues.’ In that sense, a particular type of integrity, such as intellectual integrity, is greater when it does not interfere with personal and moral integrity.

There certainly can be conflict between types of integrity, particularly where the demands of a profession interfere with personal and moral integrity. Pursuit of one particular project can prevent us from balancing our commitments, as in Williams's fictional Gauguin case. However, while different types of integrity can be sequestered from each other, integrity of one type is more likely to flourish in a context of greater integrity in various spheres of existence. The kind of virtues and skills which are developed in maintaining, say, intellectual integrity, are likely to be available to make use of in dealing with the conflicts and temptations which threaten personal and moral integrity, and conversely.

Despite the fact that it is somewhat troublesome, the concept of integrity has played an important role in contemporary discussion of moral theory. An important and influential line of argument, first developed by Bernard Williams, seeks to show that certain moral theories do not sufficiently respect the integrity of moral agents. (See Williams 1973 & 1981.) This has become an important avenue of critique of modern moral theory. (See, for example, Scheffler 1993 and Lomasky 1987.)

Modern moral theories, the most representative of which are utilitarianism and Kantian moral theory, do not concern themselves directly with virtue and character. Instead, they are primarily concerned to describe morally correct action. Theories of morally correct action generally aspire to develop criteria by which to categorize actions as morally obligatory, morally permissible, or morally impermissible. Some theories of morally correct action also introduce the category of the supererogatory: an action is supererogatory if and only if it is morally praiseworthy, but not obligatory. The two theories of primary concern to Williams are utilitarianism and Kantian moral theory, and both of these are usually interpreted as eschewing the category of the supererogatory. (See Baron 1995 for an argument that Kantian moral theory has no need for the category of the supererogatory.) Williams maintains that both utilitarianism and Kantian moral theory are deeply implausible because of their integrity undermining effects. His argument against utilitarianism makes the more transparent appeal to the concept of integrity and it is this argument that we examine here. (But see Herman 1983, Rogerson 1983, Jensen 1989, and Baron 1995, chapter four, for critical discussion of the Williams's argument against Kantian moral theory.)

Williams's argument against utilitarianism is directed against a particular version of utilitarianism—act-utilitarianism. This is, very roughly, the view that an agent is to regard as morally obligatory all and only actions that maximize general well-being. The act-utilitarian theory that Williams criticizes has an important feature: it aspires to describe the correct form of moral deliberation . It does more than specify what it is for an action to be morally correct, it specifies how an agent should think about moral decisions. Agents should think about which of the actions available to them will maximize general well-being and decide to act accordingly. Notice that this theory is completely impartial and that it makes no room for an agent to give special weight to personal commitments, causes, projects, and the like. Act-utilitarianism recognizes no personal sphere of activity in which moral reflection operates merely as a side-constraint.

According to Williams, an agent who adopted this version of utilitarianism would find themselves unable to live with integrity. As he puts it, to become genuinely committed to act-utilitarianism is for a person to become alienated:

in a real sense from his actions and the source of his actions in his own convictions. It is to make him into a channel between the input of everyone's projects, including his own, and an output of optimific decision; but this is to neglect the extent to which his actions and his decisions have to be seen as the actions and decisions which flow from the projects and attitudes with which he is most closely identified. It is thus, in the most literal sense, an attack on his integrity. [Williams (1973, p. 117)]

Williams's argument is based on the identity theory of integrity, discussed above. Integrity, on this view, requires that persons act out of their own convictions, that is, out of commitments with which they deeply identify. Act-utilitarianism seeks to replace personal motivations of this kind with impartial utilitarian reasoning. Williams's argument appears to make acting with integrity incompatible with acting in accordance with act-utilitarianism.

Williams develops the point with two famous and much discussed examples. (1972, pp. 97-99). The example which best illustrates his argument involves the figure of George, a recent doctoral graduate in chemistry who is having difficulty finding work. George has young children. He also has poor health, limiting his job opportunities. George's (unnamed) wife must work to support the family and on Williams's story this causes a great deal of strain on the family. George has a strong commitment to pacifism, a conviction amounting to an identity-conferring commitment. A dilemma arises for George when more senior colleague tells him about a decently paid job in a laboratory doing work on biological and chemical warfare. If George does not take up the job, it will almost certainly go to another chemist, one without George's pacifist commitment, who will pursue the development of biological and chemical weapons more vigorously than George. Should George take the job or not?

The most likely act-utilitarian conclusion here is that George should accept the job. This would contribute greatly to the well-being of his family as well as probably contributing to general welfare by forestalling some relatively zealous development of weapons of mass destruction. Weighed in the balance are George's feelings in the matter. The utilitarian calculation, if it really does come out this way, is demanding a sacrifice of George: that he put aside his opposition to, and distaste for, biological and chemical weapons development and deal with the anguish and alienation that may result from working in the laboratory.

According to Williams, however, act-utilitarianism in fact demands a different kind of sacrifice from George. It demands that he act without integrity, abandoning or ignoring a longstanding, identity-conferring commitment to pacifism simply because maximum general well-being is to be found elsewhere. This is just one, particularly acute, example of the tendency of impartial utilitarian deliberation to run roughshod over identity-conferring commitments, treating them as no more than one source of utility among others. In general, Williams concludes, identity-conferring commitments cannot play the kind of role in act-utilitarian moral deliberation that is required for an agent to act with integrity, that is, for an agent to act with genuine conviction in matters of grave, identity-determining importance to them.

Williams's critique of utilitarianism has spawned a large and important literature in which the argument has been interpreted and reinterpreted, redrafted, and much criticized. There are, nonetheless, three main lines of response to the Williams's critique of utilitarianism. We consider them in turn. The first reply essentially concedes the point and offers in response a development of utilitarian moral theory, one aimed at avoiding the flaws that Williams sought to demonstrate. One way to do this is by watering down the impartiality of utilitarian theory, explicitly factoring in the permissibility of giving extra weight to one's own personal projects, commitments, and so on. (See Scheffler 1993 for a development of this view, and Harris 1989a and 1989b for criticism of the adequacy of this response.)

Another way to try and improve utilitarianism in response to Williams's argument is to advance a less ambitious form of utilitarian moral theory. Recall that Williams criticizes a version of act-utilitarian moral deliberation , so one may respond to it by describing a version of act-utilitarianism that does not dictate the form of moral deliberation. A moral theory, on this view, primarily describes morally correct action and does not automatically entail a theory of correct moral deliberation. Thus one might subscribe to an act-utilitarian account of morally correct action whilst not demanding that someone like George approach life by deliberating in strictly utilitarian ways. There are however, a number of difficulties with separating out theories of morally correct action and correct moral deliberation in this way. For one thing, it appears to deprive a theory of morally correct action of much point. What is the point, one might ask, of subscribing to a moral theory if it offers no clear practical guidance on how one should act? (See Williams 1981a for a discussion of this point.) Nonetheless, there have been attempts to develop and to motivate versions of utilitarianism not prescribing methods of moral deliberation. (See Railton 1986 for development of such a view and Harcourt 1998 for criticism of it.)

A second possible line of response to the argument is to deny the presupposition of Williams's argument that it is absurd for a moral theory to undermine integrity. It may just be that moral demands upon us really are very stringent, and identity-conferring commitments must sometimes (perhaps often) be sacrificed in the interests of, say, our acting to ameliorate preventable suffering. One might even consider it a virtue of utilitarianism that it demonstrates how genuinely difficult it is to preserve one's integrity when confronting a world of massive and easily preventable suffering. (See Ashford 2000 for an argument along these lines.)

The third, and most influential, line of response argues directly against the idea that utilitarianism demands that agents act against their convictions. Utilitarianism demands that agents adopt utilitarian ideals; that agents give utilitarian ideals the kind of priority that would have them function as the central identity-conferring commitments of their life. Thus utilitarianism does not demand that one live without identity-conferring commitments at all, but that one live with utilitarian identity-conferring commitments. Were George a utilitarian, he would not have been acting against his convictions by taking a job in the chemical weapons factory. He does not lose his integrity simply in virtue of his commitment to utilitarianism. Williams appears to confuse the case in which a utilitarian George acts against his personal interests (in which case his integrity would be preserved) with the case in which a non-utilitarian George is somehow persuaded to act as a utilitarian (in which case his integrity would not be preserved). Acting as a utilitarian when one has no sympathy with utilitarianism may well diminish one's integrity, but such a loss of integrity is not attributable to utilitarianism and has no bearing on utilitarianism's plausibility as a moral theory. (See Carr 1976, Trianosky 1986 and Blustein 1991 for versions of this criticism.)

The matter is not finally settled, however, for notice that Williams's critique is premised on a version of the identity theory of integrity. As we have seen, there are other plausible candidates for an account of integrity and the critique of utilitarianism may well succeed better in their terms. The key issues are whether utilitarian commitment is compatible with a fully satisfactory account of integrity, and if so, whether integrity is of such value and importance that the clash between integrity and utilitarian commitment undermines the plausibility of utilitarian moral theory. An adequate account of integrity needs to deal with these issues and to capture basic intuitions about the nature of integrity: that persons of integrity may differ about what is right but a moral monster cannot have integrity.

8. Integrity in relation to Social and Political Conditions

Even where the social and political dimensions of integrity are discussed, integrity is often seen as largely a private or personal affair—albeit one with important implications in the public sphere. Less attention has been given to ways in which social (eg. family, business, religious) and political (eg. forms of government) structures and processes may affect personal integrity. They can do this either by promoting or undermining features essential to having or practicing integrity; or by aiding, abetting, or being inimical to the defeaters of integrity (eg self-deception). If integrity is as central and important a virtue as recent work on the topic suggests, then ideally the institutions—including forms of government and economic arrangements—that help shape out lives should be structured in ways that promote integrity. Arguably, this is not the case, and why it may not be the case, and how to change it, is as much a problem for social and political philosophy, and ethics generally, as it is for philosophical psychology.

Susan Babbitt (1997, p. 118) says that an adequate account of personal integrity must:

…recognize that some social structures are of the wrong sort altogether for some individuals to be able to pursue personal integrity, and that questions about the moral nature of society often need to be asked first before questions about personal integrity can properly be raised. Questions about integrity may turn out to be, not about the relationship between individual characteristics, interests, choices and so on, and a society, but rather about what kind of society it is in terms of which an individual comes to possess certain interests, characteristics, and so on. This does not imply that questions about personal integrity are entirely moral, not having to do with idiosyncratic characteristics of individuals; instead, it suggests that the very meaning of personal integrity in particular cases sometimes depends upon more general considerations about the nature of the society that makes some idiosyncratic properties identifying and others not. The pursuit of adequate personal integrity often depends, not so much on understanding who one is and what one believes and is committed to, but rather understanding what one's society is and imagining what it could be.

Babbitt explicitly links personal integrity to political and social structures in a way that broadens the concept of integrity. What she says is applicable to all of the views that we have discussed. But her account also enables us to raise questions about the relationship between social structures and personal integrity. The most general question is what kinds of society and what kinds of practice within a society are most conducive to personal integrity?

If society is structured in such a way that it undermines people's attempt at either knowing or acting upon their commitments, values and desires, then such a structure is inimical to integrity. And if integrity is connected to well-being, then adverse social and political conditions are a threat—not merely an ultimate threat, but also a daily threat—to well-being. The twentieth century technical term for this mismatch is alienation. Alienation results when people are so confused or conflicted—are relentlessly exposed, for example, to the social manufacture of incompatible desires—that they take on roles they mistakenly believe they want or deceive themselves about wanting.

Are political and social conditions in contemporary liberal democracies conducive both to acquiring the self-understanding necessary for integrity and, more generally, to the business of acting with integrity? Historically, one of the governing ideals of liberal democratic societies is to provide its citizens, not with the goods they desire, but with certain primary goods, such as freedom, and with political/social/cultural structures (laws, codes, institutions, practices, and so on) that facilitate their capacity to obtain goods they desire for themselves. This is one reason education has always played a prominent role in discussion of liberal-democratic forms of life. Education is seen as a crucial structure in the facilitation of individuals' pursuit of chosen goods. Such an instrumental view of education is rather narrow and omits any role for inculcation of the means to choose goods wisely. Integrity requires more than facilitation of an instrumental capacity to acquired desired goods. It requires the wisdom and self-knowledge to choose appropriate goods, worthwhile goals, and so on. It is, perhaps, hard to see extant social educational structures playing a very significant role in this process, and harder still to imagine real institutions—institutions compatible with the demands and limitations of contemporary life—that would.

If social educational structures fail to facilitate the life of integrity, other structures may be positively hostile to it. Arguably, and despite what might seem like overwhelming choice, job markets are structured by financial and other incentives, restricted opportunities and economic rents. The result is that many people choose careers they do not really want and for which they are barely suited. There are other perhaps more straightforward ways in which social and cultural structures may be inimical to the pursuit of integrity. The ideology of love, for instance, may undermine the integrity of lovers, as it may undermine the possibility of genuine and realistic love. In professional life, people may be called upon (not only tacitly) to lie, bluff or manipulate the truth in ways that directly or indirectly affect their integrity. The construction of a mission statement or a strategic plan is in some ways an open invitation to dissemble, pander and obfuscate. The expectation that one ‘sells oneself’ or ‘sells the company’ provides explicit reward for hypocrites and sycophants. And there are many kinds of assessments, reports and application processes that foster both deception and self-deception. If this is right, then contemporary society is inimical to a life of integrity in many small-scale ways. Broad social structures also have a deleterious effect on our capacity to live with integrity and here, of course, the effects of totalitarian regimes are more extreme than those liberal democracies.

Those who are oppressed seem to be in a paradoxical relation to integrity. On the one hand, members of oppressed groups would seem to be deprived of the conditions for developing integrity: the freedom to make choices how to act and think. As Babbitt (1997, p. 118) notes, one needs to be able to make choices in order to develop the kinds of interests and concerns which are central to leading a life of integrity. On the other hand, oppressed people are often able to reflect on political and social realities with the greater insight because they do not benefit from them. They have no incentive to adopt self-deceptive/self-protective attitudes about circumstances of oppression or to see past them with convenient blindness. Oppressed groups therefore have all the more scope to think about social reality with integrity, and to act out of this understanding with integrity. A capacity for reflection and understanding enables one to work toward integrity even if it does not ensure that one achieves an ideal of integrity.

Any attempt to strive for integrity has to take account of the effect of social and political context. The kind of society which is likely to be more conducive to integrity is one which enables people to develop and make use of their capacity for critical reflection, one which does not force people to take up particular roles because of their sex or race or any other reason, and one which does not encourage individuals to betray each other, either to escape prison or to advance their career. Societies and political structures can be both inimical and favorable to the development of integrity, sometimes both at once.

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• Integrity and Supererogation in Ethical Communities , The Paideia Project, by Eugene Torisky, hosted by Boston University
• The Relationship Between Moral Integrity, Phsychological Well-Being, and Anxiety [PDF] , by Leanne Olson (Wisconsin Lutheran College)

consequentialism | ethics: virtue | impartiality | moral psychology: empirical approaches

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19 Integrity in Research: Authorship and Ethics

• Published: March 2018
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This chapter discusses authorship, ethics in research, plagiarism, and misconduct. It summarizes the general criteria for scientific report authorship according to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE) and Ethics in Research. It discusses ethics in research, based on the famous Tuskegee syphilis study, and the Belmont Report that followed it. Three basic ethical principles derived from the Belmont Report—respect for persons, beneficence, and justice—and their impact on research with human subjects are discussed, along with the direct applications of these three ethical principles: informed consent, risk/benefit ratio, and subject selection. Finally, the chapter reviews the main aspects of research misconduct and presents some examples. Research integrity requires that the research process is governed by honesty, objectivity, and verifiable methods, instead of preconceived ideas and expectations. It is an important topic to be reviewed and discussed before anyone decides to pursue the field of clinical research.

The right thing to do is often hard but seldom surprising. —Adam Gopnik (2012)

Introduction

So far in this book we have had chapters focusing on research methodology, statistical analysis, and trial design, among others. In this chapter we will focus on another important concept: integrity in research. Integrity in research refers to the active commitment to ethical principles, norms, regulations, and guidelines governing the responsible conduct of research. Research integrity requires that the research process is governed by honesty, objectivity, and verifiable methods, rather than preconceived ideas and expectations.

Although practices of responsible conduct of research may vary from country to country or even from one institution to another, there are some shared values, which include, but are not restricted to, the following: honesty, accuracy, efficiency, objectivity, confidentiality, and responsible publication of research findings [ 1 ]. These shared values ensure the accuracy and replicability of study findings, reinforcing the commitment to good practices in research among professionals. Integrity in research governs all the stages of a research process—planning, implementation/execution, interpretation of results, and report writing and publication. Therefore, before starting any research process, all research members involved must be aware of professional codes, government legislations, and institutional policies governing research with human subjects and animals, research misconduct, and conflicts of interest.

In this chapter we will focus on several aspects of integrity in research: authorship, conflict of interest, and ethics.

Publication of the research findings in scholarly journals is one of the most important stages of the research process and a career in academia. Research findings must be disseminated to readers and peers in a standard form, language, and style [ 2 ]. Publication must be done in the most accurate and honest way possible, so research methodologies and research findings can be replicated, and can support future scientific advances. It constitutes an ethical obligation for an investigator to make research findings accessible, in a timely manner, and with sufficiently detail so that other investigators could replicate the study [ 3 ]. The ultimate objective of any research is to make research findings available to the community, and any publication must give the appropriate credit and accountability to all authors who contributed to the scientific work.

Authorship credit is attributed to persons who have substantially and intellectually contributed to the study and to the scientific report. According to the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), authorship provides credit for an individual’s contributions to a research study, has important academic, social, and financial implications, and carries accountability and responsibility [ 4 ]. Since there is no universally accepted standards governing authorship assignment, researchers should be aware of specific practices, guidelines, or recommendations within their own institution. Because authorship order may be governed by different guidelines, some research journals require authors to state for each author the specific contribution to the scientific report. This practice has the advantage of removing some ambiguity surrounding contributions, acknowledging each specific contribution. However, this does not resolve the problem of quantity and quality when assigning authorship.

The ICMJE developed guidelines with specific criteria for authorship. Authors should be accountable for their contribution, and also should be able to identify the contribution and responsibility of co-authors listed in the scientific report. This definition of authorship acknowledges an author’s accountability for his or her own work, as well as co-authors’ contributions. Therefore, according to ICMJE, in order to be considered an author, the individual must meet the following criteria:

Considerable contribution the research process, including study design and main concept; or data acquisition, data analysis, or interpretation of the research findings; and

Substantial work on drafting or reviewing the scientific report, with important intellectual contributions; and

Provide final approval of the version to be published; and

Be responsible and accountable for all the aspects related to the accuracy or integrity of the published work.

Thus, every investigator who meets these four criteria should be listed as an author, and those who do not meet the four criteria should be acknowledged (in the acknowledgment section of the manuscript) for their contribution to the study. It is important to stress that if the first criterion is met, individuals should be given the opportunity to work on the report, including drafting, revising, and approving the final version of the scientific report. This is the collective responsibility of the authors listed in the manuscript, and it is not a responsibility of the journal where the work is going to be published. Some journals require details about authorship (i.e., a list of each specific author’s contribution) and some even require authors to sign a statement on authorship responsibility, conflict of interests (COI) and funding, and copyright transfer/publishing agreement. If an agreement among authors on authorship cannot be reached, the institutions where the work was conducted should be requested to investigate and find an appropriate solution. After the manuscript submission or publication, any change in authorship—order, additions, deletions, contributions being attributed differently—should be justified, and journal editors should require a signed statement of agreement from the requested change from all listed authors, including those being added or removed.

According to the American Psychological Association (APA) [ 5 ], people who provided mentorship, or funding or any resources to the project, but did not participate in the final report, should not necessarily qualify for authorship. Despite these efforts from ICMJE and APA, among others, in providing guidelines governing scientific publication, several institutions do not follow them. For instance, in some institutions it is a common practice that heads of the department are listed as authors even though they have never been directly involved in the research process or contributed to the final publication. These are the so-called guest authors or gift authors (including authors who did not contribute significantly to the report) (Table 19.1 ), and this practice is not endorsed or allowed by many of the most important peer-reviewed journals.

“Ghost authorship” happens when someone that significantly contributed to the scientific work and has no authorship position assigned in the manuscript (Table 19.1 ). It is also a practice of some companies (such as pharmaceutical companies) to hire “ghost” writers for clinical studies and to use others names as authors in the manuscript. Other examples of gift or guest authors is when busy investigators hire someone to write their own manuscripts, or when someone is invited to participate in the manuscript due to prestige or as a way of “returning a favor.” One of the problems with ghost writers is that they may not fully understand the underlying experiments, and may not be able add any intellectual contribution to the final report, or to explain the experiment and findings to other scientists (Table 19.1 ).

Authorship Order

According to the ICMJE guidelines, authorship order should always be the co-authors’ joint decision. Authors should be informed of authorship order, as well as the reasons for that particular order. In some cases, authors are listed alphabetically, with the justification that all authors made equal contributions to the study and to the publication. Whenever this happens, it is important to make that clear in the manuscript, by adding a note in the manuscript.

A general recommendation to a young researcher who has made substantially intellectual contributions and may have drafted the manuscript is to be the first author in a paper and/or the corresponding author. For someone in career progress, being the last author or the corresponding author usually means that this person is a senior author in the field or was the main person responsible for the contents of the manuscript/and the study [ 8 ].

Decision diagram for authorship order [adapted from 9].

The following are some descriptive guideposts on authorship order to help in deciding the sequence of authorship (based on [ 10 ]):

Authors sequence should be determined by their relative overall contribution to the study and the manuscript. Equal contributors should be highlighted in the manuscript.

Typically, the first author is the one that takes responsibility for writing the first draft of the manuscript. However, in certain cases, especially when the first author is a research student without experience in manuscript writing, the senior author may take responsibility for drafting the manuscript, or, supervisors/senior researchers give the student a fixed period of time (for instance, 3 months) to write the first draft of the manuscript. If the student does not deliver or if he or she completely fails to complete the first draft, the supervisor may then take full responsibility for writing the manuscript (and therefore, will put his or her name first).

The first author should be the person who contributed most to the work, including manuscript writing. This person may be associated with the development of the basic concept of the study, the main hypothesis, study design, data collection, (and/or) data analysis. This person was certainly one of the major contributors to the main data interpretation and discussion in the manuscript. It is also worth noting here the possibility of co-first authorship, where two or more individuals who equally contributed to the manuscript have the opportunity to share the primary credit. In this case, it is recommended that co-first authors be listed in alphabetical order. In cases of co-first authorship, and if this is made clear in the manuscript, being listed as second or third or even fourth should not be seen with prejudice. First authors, along with senior/last/corresponding authors, also typically assume primary responsibility and accountability of the reported results and conclusions.

The last author is typically the one who plays a mentoring/stewardship role for the overall conduction of the study, supervising and providing overall guidance for the research project. He or she is typically the head of the laboratory that hosted most of the research. The last author is usually an established and senior researcher in the field for that particular work. Similarly to all authors, the last author should meet all criteria for authorship in order to be listed as author in the manuscript.

For the middle authors there is less clarity around the significance of authors’ contributions. Order may quantify contribution, meaning that authors are listed according to their overall contribution to the manuscript. In some research fields, the second author is listed as the second person, following the first author, who contributed more to the research project and manuscript writing. And, the second-to-last author is also a senior author in the research field who has made substantial contributions to the manuscript.

One curious and interesting aspect is that in other fields of science, authorship order has other criteria compared to those just discussed that are used in health sciences. In fact, promotion committees should pay more attention to the real authors’ contribution as cited at the end of the articles, as requested by some journals; this may decrease, at least at some extent, some of the authorship disputes.

Authorship Disputes

In theory, assigning the appropriate credit for intellectual contributions in a scientific work is a straightforward process. However, authorships disputes regarding authorship position are somewhat frequent. In most of the cases, these disputes happen because it may not be easy to define whether someone’s contribution was substantial or not [ 6 ].

In order to minimize the likelihood of authorship disputes, it is generally recommended that all potential authors in a research project discuss authorship with the principal investigator (PI) when the study in still being planned [ 4 ]. It is the responsibility of both co-investigators and the PI to prioritize this conversation. If necessary, researchers can use a signed agreement, in the format of a contract regarding publication intent. In this case, researchers agree about their responsibilities/roles in the project and also about authorship order. The agreements can also specify that authorship order can be renegotiated if researcher’s responsibilities change substantially, or if a researcher fails to perform his or her role as previously agreed. Winston (1985) [ 11 ] suggested a procedure for determining authorship order in any research publication. The basic concept of this authorship instrument is that potential authors should complete it in a collaborative way, with discussion that includes all contributors. This checklist helps facilitate the organization and delegation of responsibilities in the research project, and provides the opportunity to discuss and negotiate authorship and authorship order in a collaborative way.

Even though authorship should be discussed or negotiated in advance, this good practice does not always prevent authorship conflicts. At the time of manuscript writing, authorship has to be reassessed. Therefore, it is important to ask the following type of questions: Have all investigators fulfilled their contributions according to what they agreed upon initially? Has the scope of the project changed during its course and therefore the contribution of the participating research study members [ 12 ]?

In order to prevent authorship disputes, it is important to follow four basic principles:

Create and reinforce a culture of ethical authorship (be informed about the institution policies on authorship, or propose one if there is not, and discuss that with your PI and research team);

Start discussing authorship when planning the research study (when it is possible, discuss that in a face-to-face meeting, so all authors will be aware of authorship decisions);

Reassess authorship during the course of the study (if there are any substantial changes in the roles of any author, authorship may be discussed as the project evolves); and

Decide authorship before manuscript writing (discuss expectations and responsibilities on manuscript writing, revision and submission to a journal) [ 6 ].

Summary of Authorship

Everyone who makes substantial intellectual contribution to a research project is a potential candidate for authorship. In addition to the contributions to the researcher project, the researcher needs to make substantial intellectual contributions to the manuscript in order to be listed as author. All persons who substantially contributed to the research project, or who are listed as authors in the manuscript, should have the opportunity to participate in the manuscript writing and to approve the final version to be published. It is ultimate responsibility of the lead investigator(s) to manage authorship credits and authorship order with integrity and honesty, and to promote and facilitate discussions within the research team whenever authorship disputes occur.

Finally, authorship has a great impact on the scientific career, because it means credit and recognition for the work performed. However, it also involves responsibility and accountability for the published work.

Ethics in Research

Scientific research is built on a foundation of trust and credibility. Both society and the scientific community expect that every scientist is devoted to describing the world in the most accurate and unbiased way. This trust in research conduct and research findings has led to unparalleled scientific investments and productivity in the last centuries. Nevertheless, it is important to stress also that the history of science includes examples of research misconduct or unethical procedures. Despite the negative consequences of these research trials, it is important to stress that they also impacted the quality of research, by promoting the need to create guidelines and rules governing research conduct. One famous example of this is the case of the Tuskegee syphilis study.

The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study

In 1932, the US Public Health Service, working with the Tuskegee Institute, began a study of the effects of syphilis on the human body. The study took place in Macon County, Alabama. The true objective of this study was to study the natural course of syphilis in black men. This study was called the “Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” When this study was designed, there were no proven available treatments for syphilis, and no knowledge about the natural course of the disease. Initially, researchers enrolled a total of 600 African American males, 399 with untreated syphilis (experimental group) and 201 without the disease (control group). The recruitment was performed by government officials and participants were told that they would be compensated for their participation in the study with “free medical care,” free examinations, and free meals on the days of the examination, and burial insurance. The recruited men were mostly sharecroppers from Macon County, in Alabama, due to a high rate of syphilis cases in that region. These men had difficult lives and very limited access to health-care services. They were never told by the research team that they had syphilis, but solely that they were being treated for “bad blood”—a vague term used at that time to describe several types of diseases. They were never told also that autopsies would eventually be required in order to get the final data necessary to complete the study. In fact, they never signed any consent form or received details about the experimental procedures, or the potential benefits and risks related to their participation in the trial. Since the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of untreated syphilis, the 399 syphilitic subjects did not receive the “treatment that they were assigned to,” and were never told that the “treatment” that they were receiving was placebo (i.e., without any medical properties). The objective of the researchers was solely observing the natural progress of untreated syphilis. In addition, the study, which was previously projected to last 6 months, went on for about 40 years. And in order to prevent possible dropouts from the participants, researchers used specific promotional campaigns with suggestive titles such as “Last Chance for Special Free Treatment.”

The experiment continued in spite of the Henderson Act in 1943 (a public health law requiring testing and treatment for venereal disease) and also in spite of the World Health Organization’s Helsinki Declaration in 1964 (see details about the Helsinki Declaration later in this chapter and in [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]). In fact, even when penicillin was introduced as a possible cure for syphilis in 1947, none of the subjects participating in this study had access to this treatment or was informed about this possible available treatment. In 1972, when this study was exposed, a total of 28 men had died of syphilis and 100 men were dead due to complications related to the disease. In addition, about 40 wives have been infected, and 19 children contracted the disease at birth.

The study was ended on July 25, 1972, when Jean Heller of the Associated Press broke the story, both in New York and Washington. (For more details about this study, see Brandt et al. [ 16 ].)

The Belmont Report: Three Principles for Ethical Research

The Belmont Report summarizes the basic ethical principles identified by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. It provides ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of research.

This report was prompted in reaction to previous violations involving human subjects. Examples of these violations include the Tuskegee syphilis study and the Nuremberg trials on human experimentation, among others. The report resulted from an intensive four-day period of discussions that were held in February 1976 at the Smithsonian Institution’s Belmont Conference Center. The Belmont Report was published in the Federal Register and was made available to scientists, institutional review boards, and federal employees in order to rapidly and easily change boundaries between research and practice in the United States.

The Belmont Report resulted in two important definitions: (1) the boundaries between research and practice, and (2) basic principles governing research with human subjects. Practice is defined as any intervention that aims to solely enhance or improve the well-being of any individual. Research is defined as any activity designed to test hypotheses, generate conclusions, and add knowledge to the existing theories and practices.

The three basic principles are (1) respect for persons, (2) beneficence, and (3) Justice (Figure 19.2 ).

According to the Belmont Report (1979), ethics in human research should be based on three interrelated basic principles: respect for persons, beneficence, and justice.

Respect for persons in research refers to the basic ethical principle that participants involved in the research study are volunteers and have the right to be informed about the research goals (such as the objective of the study, benefits, risks, etc.). This basic principle involves two important ethical considerations. The first one is that the participant should be treated as an autonomous being (i.e., a person who has the right to make decisions or deliberations about her or his personal goals and desires). The second one is that persons who are not able to make decisions for themselves (any vulnerable populations, such as children, prisoners, people with some mental disorders or impairments) should be protected from any type of coercion from others or any activity that can cause any harm to them.

Beneficence refers to the obligation of maximizing possible benefits and minimizing possible harm to the participants involved in the study. In this sense, investigators and institutions have to plan to maximize benefits and minimize risks to the participants, following the best judgment possible, with the available knowledge. By following the principle of beneficence, investigators will use the available knowledge to decide whether there is another way to obtain the data/knowledge but with lower risks to participants, and therefore, benefits should outweigh the risks.

The principle of justice refers to the distribution of benefits and burdens related to the experimentation, so that there is fairness and study participants are treated equitably. The principle of justice will guide, for instance, the selection of participants, preventing that some populations that are easily available or vulnerable or easy to manipulate are systematically recruited, rather than participants being chosen for reasons directly related to the research problem being studied.

Applications of the Belmont Report

Informed consent.

The informed consent process is an important and mandatory component of respecting human participants. Voluntary participation in any study should always be preceded by the informed consent and should protect the privacy of all volunteers. The informed consent form is a written summary of information about the study. It should be written in a way that participants will be able to understand the objective of the study, all the procedures involved in the study, and all the direct benefits and risks associated with his/her participation in the study. And, therefore, it should enable people to voluntarily decide whether they want to participate as research subjects. There are several rules governing the informed consent process, and some of them may vary according to the specific research protocol and also specific institutional guidelines. In general, the consent form process requires that

Informed consent is always prospectively obtained from participants or their legally authorized representatives;

Both parties (research team, participant and/or legal representative) have access to a signed and dated copy of the consent form;

All information should be conveyed in understandable and adequate language (avoiding excessive use of scientific terms);

Participants are given sufficient time to read, understand, and decide whether they want to participant in the study;

Any type of coercions or influence must be avoided when performing the informed consent process;

Participants must not be made to give up legal rights or any treatment in order to be involved in the study.

Assessment of Risks and Benefits

The careful assessment of potential benefits and risks to participants before starting any study derives directly from the basic principle of beneficence. The basic principle of beneficence is that it is the ultimate responsibility of the research team and all the institutions involved in research to assess all potential risks and benefits before starting any research protocol. All procedures must be performed with the least risk possible to participants, and risks must be reasonable in relation to benefits. Research must be performed in a way that does not cause any harm to participants, and confidentiality should always be maintained.

Selection of Subjects

According to the principle of justice, there must be fair procedures and outcomes in the selection of research participants. Therefore, researchers must avoid exploitation of vulnerable populations and avoid providing benefits only to populations that they favor.

When confronting an ethical dilemma in research, the first option is always to carefully examine the situation and keep these three ethical principles in mind. This may help in clarifying some issues and making appropriate decisions. The example presented in the preceding—the Tuskegge syphilis study—is an example of a clinical trial in which researchers violated all three of these principles, as participants were lied to about their condition, about the “treatment” they were receiving during their participation in the trial, and about the objectives of the study. Additionally, participants were selected based on race, gender, and economic class.

Research Misconduct

Research misconduct occurs when standard codes, regulations, and ethical behavior that governs scholarly conduct research are violated [ 17 ]. The main purposes of research misconduct policies and guidelines are to provide clear definitions of research misconduct, to provide protection for those accused of research misconduct, and to outline standard procedures of reporting and investigation of any research misconduct [ 1 ]. According to the Singapore Statement on Research Integrity, drafted in 2010 at the Second World Conference on Research Integrity in Singapore, and with 51 countries represented, there are four common principles of research integrity:

Honesty in all research stages;

Accountability in the conduct of research;

Professional courtesy and fairness in working with others; and

Good stewardship of research on behalf of others [ 18 ].

In order to be considered research misconduct, three criteria should be fulfilled:

The behavior represents a clear and significant deviation from accepted practices, policies, and guidelines governing research; and

These evidences can be proven; and

There are clear evidences that the behavior was committed intentionally, and with negligence. The primary author and other authors whose results are found culpable are accountable.

When there is any suspicion of research misconduct, all researchers who are involved in the specific data and publication are investigated. In order for a formal investigation to occur, an investigative committee is appointed by the associate provost. This committee has the responsibility to determine whether research misconduct has occurred or not, and to determine possible disciplinary sanctions to those involved in research misconduct. When federal funding is involved, that particular funding agency must be informed that a formal investigation of possible research misconduct has been initiated. The formal investigation can take several days and usually requires the examination of several research documents related to the subject being investigated, correspondence, and interviews. When the formal investigation is completed, the chair of the investigation prepares a detailed report to be sent and discussed with the associate provost. The disciplinary procedure may vary dependent on the status of the researcher (i.e., if he or she is a faculty member, a research assistant, a student, etc.).

Examples of misconduct in research include data fabrication or falsification, plagiarism (both plagiarism-fabrication and self-plagiarism), ghost writing, data manipulation, and breaches of confidentiality (Box 19.1 ). Honest mistakes or divergent opinions are not considered research misconduct, and therefore should be approached in a different manner. Research misconduct needs to be proven by sufficient evidence, and the behavior must be committed intentionally.

Falsification of data on scientific reports

Data fabrication

Failure to report all adverse events/reactions or serious adverse events/reactions related to the study

Failure to report all data [ 19 ].

In 2008, the Office of Research Integrity from the US Department of Health and Human Services carried out a study to examine scientists’ reports on suspected misconduct in biomedical research. In their final report, a total of 192 scientists have reported 265 incidents of research misconduct, which were coded and evaluated based on the federal definition of research misconduct. Overall, 64 descriptions (24% of the total) did not meet the criteria of the federal research misconduct. The remaining 201 reports were related to fabrication or falsification (60%) and plagiarism only (36%) [ 20 ]. However, in general it seems that researchers fail to report 37%–42% of suspected research misconduct findings. The reasons for that may be due to lack of protection for the whistleblowers, lack of knowledge on the research misconduct, and the need of a system with clear policies and guidelines for reporting these allegations in an anonymous way. And the researchers who are more likely to observe and report research misconduct are the ones who are more familiar with the institutional misconduct policy.

Case Study: Much Ado about Nothing—A Dispute for a Place in Heaven

A long dispute means both parties are wrong. —Voltaire (French Philosopher 1694–1778) 1

The Vendetta—A Surprise during the Argentinian Summer

The past months have been really difficult for Juan Guevara—a postdoctoral fellow in the neurobiology department at Macondo Institute of Mental Health in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has been in an authorship dispute with his PhD mentor, Prof. Isabel del Carpio, that could have a significant impact on his career. He has been exhausted by this situation. Stressed and sleep-deprived, he feels that no solution would address all the problems. He is at a crossroads and has to decide whether to fight for what he believes is fair, or to accept a compromise solution to protect his future career. 2

The main reason for this dispute is the authorship of a study Juan Guevara has been working on for years—transplantation of neuronal cells to robotic devices—that would certainly gain publication and an editorial in a top scientific journal with a huge impact factor such as Nature .

Juan remembers in detail the day that everything started. It was the warmest day of the year in Buenos Aires, between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The city was virtually empty; besides some loyal tourists who could be seen in local restaurants, it seemed that everybody had left town—including his family, who was in Florianopolis (Brazil) enjoying the summer on the marvelous beaches. Juan Guevara, though, had stayed at Macondo Institute with his research. He thought he was alone when Prof. del Carpio arrived. He knew that there was something wrong, as she usually did not go to the institute during holidays.

“Hi Juan! I am glad to see you here!”

“Hi Isabel!” he replied “I am using the holiday break to prepare my oral presentation for the next Congress and to start writing our Nature paper.”

“Yes—about that . . . we need to talk, Juan,” she said, changing her expression. “Prof. Carlos Ferrucci [head of the neuroscience department of Macondo Institute] and I talked yesterday, and although we are glad to have you as first author in the abstracts—you will not be the first author of this paper, Juan. I am sorry, but I hope you understand.”

“What? How is that so, Isabel?” He was starting to lose control of his emotions. “I have been leading this research for years—and we talked about this in the beginning and it was implicit that I would be the first author of this study; otherwise, I would have gone to another lab.”

“Juan, things change and science is a dynamic process. Also we are a team of 12 researchers! We have been leading this research! I have also put a lot of work into this project. And also thanks to Prof. Ferrucci, who earned a huge grant of the Ministerio de Salud, we were able to pay the scholarships of four postdoctoral fellows—including you , Juan—and to import equipment from overseas, to avoid the premature termination of the project. I am sure you remember this, Juan. In a nutshell, you are the arms of our study, but Prof. Ferrucci is the soul of our great, collective work. In addition, he had the idea for our work and he helped significantly with the design of this study; that’s why he will be the first author. Besides, Juan, you should see the big picture here: you are at the beginning of your career and you will have lots of opportunities to get your first author paper. We really need to think here on what is best for our group and the institution.”

Juan Guevara was furious. “But I did more than him—this project is my life. I dedicated so many years to it—this is really unfair! And I suppose you are the last author, aren’t you ?”, Juan replied, becoming increasingly more aggressive.

“Naturally, Juan, I am the mentor of this work,” she said. “That’s it, you are the arms, I am the head, and Prof. Ferrucci is the soul. You can be the second author—but I have good news, we also talked about writing an invited review on the topic for an Argentinian science journal. You can write it, we will help you, and you will be the first author for this one. You are young and one day you will understand. If you work with us, we will help your career.”

Juan was perplexed. He could not recognize the person in front of him. He had always admired Isabel del Carpio as for him she was the role model of a scientist—someone who stayed in Latin America and had been able to, despite all the challenges, change knowledge in her field of research. But he would not accept that. “Sorry, Isabel. I don’t agree with you. I deserve to be the first author. You know it. This question is still unsettled.”

“Juan Guevara, you are such an idealist. You should focus more on science instead of politics . Please do not become a rebel here; we are trying to accommodate everyone in this situation; besides, a second authorship in a paper such as Nature is a great breakthrough for you.

“Again, you are very smart, and also very young. I am sure you are going to publish many papers in the future,” she continued, but her expression then became harsh. “Besides, you don’t want to go against Prof. Ferrucci and me. You do not want to ruin your career for a paper, do you?”

The Issue of Authorship

Authorship of a paper is a more complex matter than it seems to be: in fact, in academic settings, the overall number of articles published and the number of first-authored publications heavily influence how colleagues view the researcher. Therefore, authorship is not a trivial matter and it is recommended that it should be discussed before the trial/study starts. Failure to do so might lead to authorship disputes that can waste a significant amount of time and energy of the involved authors and result in significant damage to one’s career. One important issue is that either small or large collaborations can lead to authorship disputes if not well planned.

The importance of authorship is not only to acknowledge someone’s work; it is the critical piece for appointments in medical centers, promotion, grant support, and participation in society committees. Therefore, it is crucial for academic life. In the traditional authorship model, authorship order is of vital importance, and usually the first and last author get most of the credit for the work performed.

There are other forces playing into authorship disputes, such as scientists’ self-esteem. Currently when a paper is cited, it is cited usually as the first author’s name followed by “et al.”—for instance, “Guevara et al. presented remarkable findings . . ..” Though this is never noted as an official reason in debates, this certainly plays an important role. Scientists are in a sense very similar to artists, and some are known for having an over-inflated ego.

One important issue of authorship is that only researchers who have contributed intellectually to the work should be included in the list of authors. The manuscript should be seen as the intellectual product of the research. So, for instance, the clinician who refers patients to the study or the technician who only does the laboratory experiments do not qualify for authorship according to medical journals and the ICMJE. The problem here is how then to acknowledge a clinician who has dedicated time referring and finding patients to the study, as this person might have been critical for a clinical study to happen. That is one of the problems of clinical research—lack of extrinsic motivators.

Radical Solutions

Juan was really stressed by this situation. He stopped all of his work and could not function well—he spent hours on the Internet looking for similar cases. This project was his life—something he had worked very hard for, and he could not let go of this issue, even knowing that it could have detrimental consequences for his career.

While thinking about how to act on this issue, he was considering a more dramatic approach, such as filing a lawsuit. In fact, he knew about a recent dispute between two microbiologists at the University of Gottingen that ended up in court. Juan knew that it was a similar case to his. In this story reported in Nature , 3 the team leader removed the name of the postdoctoral fellow at the last minute and the postdoctoral fellow decided to take legal action. In the end, the court ruled in favor of the postdoctoral fellow, based on the original verbal agreement that both researchers had agreed to in the 14 months before the submission. According to the court, “this understanding constituted an implicit contract.” He was prepared to go in that direction if needed; however, he knew that this would have devastating consequences, as the academic world is a very small one and he could be labeled as a “difficult researcher” and no one might agree to work with him in the future. But on the other hand, he kept remembering a famous Argentinian saying, “Hay que endurecerse” (in English: “have to become stronger”).

Another radical solution would be to send an email to the editor of the journal expressing his disagreement with the authorship order. Usually, editors do not want to publish papers in which there is a dispute on authorship. This could persuade his mentor to go back and agree with him about being the first author. However, he knew that this option would also bring much grievance and impact his career negatively. Also he knew he needed a letter from his mentor to get a permanent academic position. He was feeling like a hostage to this situation. He decided then to try to cool off and wait some weeks before doing anything radical.

Diplomatic Solutions

Summer had long finished in Buenos Aires and things were not going well for Juan Guevara. He had tried to schedule a meeting several times with Prof. Feruccci but he always refused, rescheduled, or simply missed the appointment. Finally, when Juan sent him a firm email, Prof. Feruccci agreed to meet, but they failed to settle the question. In fact, he was very rude, threatening Juan with losing his position and career if he continued to stand with his “rebel point of view.”

Juan, then, decided to act. He sent an email to Dean Catarina Mendez, Dean of Research Integrity for Malcondo Institute. A few days later, during a long, tense meeting, Juan explained to Prof. Mendez what was going on in the Neurobiology Department. She listened carefully. One point that was not clear to her was the implicit agreement they had made. In Guevara’s own words, “Dean Mendez, this is what every PhD student expects: that he or she would be first author in his or her main PhD project—if this was not the case this should have been communicated to me before.” After a pause, Dean Mendez commented, “Well, Juan, I understand, but again this is a gray area that may be interpreted in different manners. But let me see what I can do.” Later, after she had listened to Prof. Feruccci and Prof. del Carpio, she realized she had a time bomb in her hands and she would need to address the situation very carefully. In fact, she realized the problem was too important for her to judge alone. She did not want Juan or the others to get into a personal war. One option here would be to set up a committee. There are two committee options:

To create an internal, advisory committee—this committee would listen to both sides and would try to provide a fresh set of eyes for the problem, suggesting an ethical, professional, and fair solution to the quarrel. This option would be less aggressive and would aim to provide a “gentleman’s” solution. This committee would not, therefore, impose anything; it would only provide a recommendation. However, she also thought things had gone too far in this matter, and that neither side could be reasonable anymore.

To create a mandatory committee—in this case, the committee would listen to both sides, but ultimately support one of them. Also, such a committee would have the power to institute disciplinary actions if authorship abuse were seen. The advantage would be to provide a clear, final solution on the matter. The disadvantage is that it would be an authoritarian solution that goes against the principles of academia. Also, such a committee would not obviously have “force of law”—that is, someone could get very angry with the solution and tell the media about what is going on—possibly ruining the institution’s reputation, or could leave the institution with some of the data, burying the paper’s publication.

Time for a Decision

Juan had another conversation with Dean Mendez and she explained that this was a difficult situation. She also mentioned that she understands that he could make a radical decision as he explained to her initially (such as filing a lawsuit); but she advised him to consider it carefully and that a diplomatic solution could be worthwhile (such as setting up this review committee). Juan was relieved to talk with Dean Mendez; he felt that she was ethical and fair. But he did not make up his mind yet and also did not know if Prof. Feruccci and Prof. del Carpio would support such a committee. It was like playing chess—the next play would be decisive.

Juan listed the options in his head: (1) do nothing; (2) file a lawsuit; (3) complain to the editor-in-chief; (4) try to convince the dean to set up an advisory committee or a mandatory committee). Since the first conversation with Prof. Carpio, 6 months had passed and it was mid-July in Buenos Aires, and a light snowfall was expected for that evening—the first in 90 years! He was freezing. He knew that authorship conflicts happen all over the world. He got on the bus and, for just this day, the slow traffic near the La Plata River did not bother him as he had too much to think.

Case Discussion

This case discusses an authorship dispute between a postdoctoral researcher—Juan Guevara—and his PhD mentor—Prof. Isabel del Carpio. Juan has to decide whether to fight for what he believes is fair (i.e., being the first author), or to accept a compromise solution with his mentor and, therefore, be the second author. This decision is rather difficult, and both have pros and cons. First authorship position is very important to both Juan and del Carpio—it has an important career impact and represents recognition for their hard work and contribution to the final work.

Cases like Juan Guevara’s remind us that ethical ideals and integrity in research often bend to the reality of ego, power, and self-interest in the real world. Regardless of how one thinks this case should ethically be resolved, we must acknowledge that many times in practice, we fail to live up to the normative expectations we set for ourselves. There are important open issues from this case to allow for disagreement about assignment of authorship. For example, if it were true that Carlos was the main idea generator for the research and was the key study designer, and that Juan executed Carlos’s ideas while intellectually contributing less as results came to be known, it might make sense to assign co-first authorship to both. The point is, the only way we can ethically “solve” this dispute is for each party to honestly detail precisely what and how he or she contributed to the study. Of course, each party will infuse his or her own contribution with as much substantive importance as possible and this is where leadership from an impartial judge proves vital to maintaining procedural integrity. Whether Dean Mendez or her faculty colleagues or others can fill this role is context specific, but it should be clear that Isabel is no longer a “neutral” party. This case also reveals the importance of “anticipatory authorship ethics.” When so much is at stake, it behooves all junior investigators who have made a commitment to a career in scientific investigation to proactively engage their mentors/senior project advisors on the issue of how authorship is assigned on work coming out of the lab. Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on “understanding” and “expectation” from customary practices. Ideally, junior investigators should choose labs and mentors only after they have a clear understanding of how their “boss” approaches authorship assignment. At a minimum, junior investigators should have a clear understanding of how their “boss” will manage specific potential authorship disputes.

This case is important therefore to make the reader consider what he or she would do it in this case, also what would be the scenario if Juan were right or vice versa? This exercise can help to resolve and perhaps prevent future authorship disputes.

Case Questions for Reflection

What are the issues in this case that resulted in the dispute?

What are the authors’ concerns? And the institution’s?

What should the authors consider in making the decision?

Have you experienced a similar situation?

Further Reading

Gopnik A. Facing history. New Yorker . April 9, 2012 .

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3. Graf C , Wager E , Bowman A , Fiack S , Scott-Lichter D , Robinson A. Best practice guidelines on publication ethics: a publisher’s perspective. Int J Clin Practic . 2007 ; Supplement (152): 1–26.

Web of Science

4. Editors ICoMJ. International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE): uniform requirements for manuscripts submitted to biomedical journals: writing and editing for biomedical publication. Haematologica . 2004 ; 89(3): 264.

5. Association AP. Publication practices & responsible authorship. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/research/responsible/publication/

6. Albert T , Wager E. How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers. The COPE Report 2003 ; 32–34.

7. Babor TF , McGovern T. Coin of the realm: practical procedures for determining authorship. In: Babor TF , Stenius K , Savva S , eds. Publishing addiction science: a guide for the perplexed . 2nd ed. London: Multi-Science Publishing Company; 2004 : 110–123.

8. Bhattacharya S. Authorship issue explained. Ind J Plast Surg . 2010 ; 43(2): 233–234. 10.4103/0970-0358.73482

9. Strange K. Authorship: why not just toss a coin? Am J Physiol-Cell Physiol . 2008 ; 295(3): C567–C575. 10.1152/ajpcell.00208.2008

10. Riesenberg D , Lundberg GD. The order of authorship: who’s on first? JAMA . 1990 ; 264(14): 1857.

11. Winston RB. A suggested procedure for determining order of authorship in research publications. J Counsel Devel . 1985 ; 63(8): 515–518. 10.1002/j.1556-6676.1985.tb02749.x

12. Liesegang TJ , Schachat AP , Albert DM. Defining authorship for group studies. Arch Ophthalmol (Chicago, Ill: 1960). 2010 ; 128(8): 1071–1072. 10.1001/archophthalmol.2010.159

13. World Medical Association. World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. JAMA . 2013 ; 310(20): 2191–2194. 10.1001/jama.2013.281053

14. Rickham P. Human experimentation: code of ethics of the world medical association: Declaration of Helsinki. BMJ . 1964 ; 2(5402): 177. 10.1136/bmj.2.5402.177

15. World Medical Association. World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki: Ethical principles for medical research involving human subjects. Bull WHO . 2001 ; 79(4): 373.

16. Brandt AM. Racism and research: the case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. The Hastings Center Report . 1978 ; 8(6): 21–29. 10.2307/3561468

17. Nylenna M , Andersen D , Dahlquist G , Sarvas M , Aakvaag A. Handling of scientific dishonesty in the Nordic countries. National Committees on Scientific Dishonesty in the Nordic Countries. Lancet (London, England) . 1999 ; 354(9172): 57–61. 10.1016/S0140-6736(98)07133-5

18. Resnik DB , Shamoo AE. The Singapore statement on research integrity. Account Res . 2011 ; 18(2): 71–75. 10.1080/08989621.2011.557296

19. Titus S , Bosch X. Tie funding to research integrity. Nature . 2010 ; 466(7305): 436–437. 10.1038/466436a

20. Titus SL , Wells JA , Rhoades LJ. Repairing research integrity. Nature . 2008 ; 453(7198): 980–982. 10.1038/453980a

21. Misconduct OFPoR. 2005. Available from: http://www.ostp.gov/html/001207_3.html .

Professor Felipe Fregni and Dr. Brunoni prepared this case. Course cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. The situation in this case is fictional. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements or sources of primary data. All rights reserved to the author of this case. Reproduction and distribution without permission are not allowed.

Dispute over first authorship lands researchers in dock, Nature . 2002; 419 (p. 4).

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How to Talk About Academic Integrity so Students Will Listen:  Addressing Ethical Decision-Making Using Scenarios

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• Lee-Ann Penaluna   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2155-4964 4 &
• Roxanne Ross   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0511-2389 4  

Part of the book series: Ethics and Integrity in Educational Contexts ((EIEC,volume 1))

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The field of academic integrity in higher education has made significant gains in exploring the proliferation of integrity issues, the frequency of student misconduct behaviours, and in identifying strategies for embedding academic integrity education more broadly into the curriculum. Regardless of calls for institution-wide approaches which focus on preventing academic misconduct, those of us engaged in the field can attest that there will always be a need to address academic misconduct behaviours and support the development of those students who engage in them. As student affairs practitioners in a Canadian post-secondary institution, we present our approach to creating meaningful teaching and learning experiences that enable students with misconduct violations to critically explore potential misconduct situations and practice the skills needed to make alternative decisions. Utilising existing work that frames academic integrity as ‘standards of practice’, this chapter demonstrates our application of key themes from the academic integrity literature within our teaching and learning practice. Recognizing that mandated academic integrity education can be a challenging learning experience, we discuss our approach to engaging these students in analyzing the common situational factors that post-secondary students face that pose potential academic integrity conflicts and the way ethical decision-making frameworks can support their ability to navigate academic integrity concerns in the future. We conclude the chapter with our key learnings and recommendations for implementing an engaging experience with students who are mandated to attend instruction following an academic integrity violation.

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Does an educative approach work? A reflective case study of how two Australian higher education Enabling programs support students and staff uphold a responsible culture of academic integrity

Anthea Fudge, Tamra Ulpen, … Carol Carter

Academic Integrity Through Ethical Teaching and Assessment: Overview and Current Trends

• Academic integrity
• Decision making
• Student affairs
• Student misconduct

The predominant post-secondary institutional framing of academic integrity in ethical-legal terms has been widely critiqued as problematic (Adam et al., 2017 ; Bertram Gallant, 2008 ) with studies involving students illustrating the potential ways that this positioning can alienate students and ultimately hinder their learning (Ashworth et al., 1997 ; Gullifer & Tyson, 2010 ). Scholars argue that presenting academic misconduct as a student’s moral failing or refusal to comply to rules situates the problem solely with the student (Bertram Gallant, 2008 ) and oversimplifies the nuances within academic integrity constructs such as plagiarism and collusion, for which studies have demonstrated that even faculty are challenged to arrive at unified definitions (Barrett & Cox, 2005 ). This has led for calls to move away from the punitive approaches that ensue from ethical-legal institutional discourses to a situating of academic integrity as a teaching and learning issue within the academy (Bertram Gallant, 2008 ; East & Donnelly, 2012 ). A teaching and learning focus allows for an understanding of students as learners, grappling with news ways of knowing and presenting knowledge, and thereby presents greater opportunities to engage students in discussions of academic integrity in all its complexities. In the context in which we teach academic integrity, mandated sessions for students who have experienced issues with our academic misconduct policy, a teaching and learning approach is essential. While there has been an increasing focus on teaching and learning approaches to academic integrity in the literature (East & Donnelly, 2012 ; Orr, 2018 ), very little discussion of theory and practice exists in relation to supporting the learning and development of students who have had academic misconduct breaches. In particular, there is a dearth of literature sharing practical approaches that address the challenges and sensitivities involved in engaging students who have experienced academic misconduct. This chapter focuses on our approach to delivering academic integrity education to those who have recently been found responsible for an academic misconduct and, have been mandated to attend an academic integrity workshop. In both shifting and deepening the conversation from the punitive to the developmental, we hope to contribute to the scarcity of literature that explores the methods by which those students that have been found responsible for an academic misconduct violation can be supported through educational programming to avoid recidivism. Taking direction from and offering critique of the existing literature, we present and critically assess our instructional approach. In sharing our experience, we aim to expand upon the scarcity of literature that informs practice with this population of students and seek to emphasize the necessity of a nuanced perspective of academic integrity, one that incorporates educational responses to, as East ( 2010 ) suggests, issues of “convention” (p. 69) and ethical dilemmas.

As student affairs practitioners in academic support services, our work is situated within a student-facing unit in a large post-secondary institution in Western Canada. Our department provides a range of services broadly classified into three areas: advising, learning, and writing. Academic integrity programming is situated within the learning classification. In addition to web-based educational resources including hyperlinks to the Student Academic Misconduct Policy and Procedure, the Student Academic Integrity Handbook, factsheets and other online resources, two core workshops are offered: Academic Integrity: Strategies to Avoid Plagiarism and Academic Integrity: Collaborating with Peers. Both workshops were developed in 2016 as a collaborative endeavour with faculties and Library staff for the primary purpose of providing academic integrity education for those students who had academic integrity breaches, and who had previously been required to attend individual meetings with a member of our unit’s staff. In addition to addresses issues in scalability, we transitioned our one-on-one approach to academic integrity instruction to group sessions, in an effort to foster provide students with a more engaging and collaborative learning experience. Although the academic integrity workshops are open to all students, attendees are almost exclusively students who have been found responsible for academic integrity violations and have been mandated to attend by their faculty as part of sanctioning.

The Workshops

The workshops are delivered throughout the year, though we experience peak periods of demand that often coincide with mid-terms or the exam period at the end of each semester. Since their introduction in 2016, the number of attendees has increased which has resulted in an increase in the number of workshops offered. During peak periods up to six weekly workshops can be offered over the course of three weeks. After the peak period one workshop is delivered per week, alternating between the Plagiarism workshop and the Collaboration workshop.

The students self-register for the workshops by using the university’s online booking system. If they have been mandated to attend, they are issued a deadline for completion by their Associate Dean. The duration of each workshop is 90 min with a maximum capacity for in-person delivery of 28 students. Each workshop is delivered by one facilitator.

Conversations surrounding the theme of academic misconduct can be highly emotive and negatively charged, even for those students who are not responsible for an academic misconduct violation but are answering to an accusation of one (Latopolski and Bertram Gallant, 2020 ). A students’ emotional state can be adversely affected by the stress caused by the academic misconduct investigative process itself (Baird & Dooey, 2014 ). In our practice, we observe the outward expression of a students’ prior experiences with the process. Students overtly display a range of emotions; distress, anxiety, vulnerability, sensitivity or embarrassment, anger and frustration. In the workshops, these emotions present in several ways in student behaviours. For example, some students will position themselves furthest away from the facilitator and other students, they may display defensive body language, avoiding eye contact with facilitator or with other students and appear closed to conversation. We are intentional about framing each workshop as a learning opportunity for all students regardless of what their previous relationship with the academic integrity process may be, however based on institutional data and workshop participation, we can discern that approximately 95% of student attendees are mandated to attend. Although the decision to maintain an open workshop model poses challenges in that we are unable to determine the few students who are attending the session out of their own volition, this model provides us with an opportunity to protect student privacy, which we determined was of primary concern in establishing a safe learning environment for our mandated students. To further reinforce that anonymity, we do not ask for introductions in the room, taking attendance through student ID numbers. The relief in the room can be palpable. Students markedly change their body language, reacting in a way that suggests that they were anticipating a negative experience or were preparing for a combative session.

Students Reported for Academic Misconduct

Similar to our experience above, studies of students reported for academic integrity violations, though limited, demonstrate that these students experience a range of negative emotions as a direct result of their experience with the academic misconduct process (Pitt et al., 2020 ; Sutherland Smith, 2013 ). For instance, Pitt et al. report some students that have experienced academic misconduct allegations describe the experience as “the hardest, most challenging or worst experience of their lives” ( 2020 , p. 5). That same study contains numerous impactful quotations from students who described the emotional impact of the accusation. Students comment that the experience “…was the worst phase of my life maybe” ( 2020 , p. 5) and “If I could just describe that period, there's nothing darker than that, that I have experienced in my whole life. It was just a mixture of stress, embarrassment, mixture of losing my future, losing what I have been working for and towards. Honestly it was really bad” (Pitt et al., 2020 , p. 5). Likewise, in Sutherland Smith's ( 2013 ) study engaging students who have been reported for academic integrity breaches related to collusion, shared that they “felt like a criminal” (p. 57). These previous negative interactions and the associated emotions illustrates why educating these students is unlike educating students who have yet to have a violation. As practitioners we may categorize the workshops as educational, realizing the intrinsic benefit of this developmental process, yet we must anticipate and acknowledge that to these students the workshop is not initially perceived as educational, it is simply an extension of the sanctions issued by faculty. In fact, mandatory attendance at academic integrity workshops is listed under ‘educational sanctions’ in our institutional policy. We acknowledge the place for formal academic integrity processes and the practice of sanctions. However, as we will discuss below, sanctioning practices framed within potentially alienating ethical-legal academic integrity discourses pose significant challenges in creating positive educational experiences for students who have had experiences with academic misconduct. A review of the broader academic integrity literature as well as the ethical decision-making scholarship related to academic integrity, demonstrates an increasing trend towards more nuanced understandings of how students encounter academic integrity. This literature described below, has been important in guiding our workshop development in response to the particular challenges of our teaching context. In the section below, we provide an overview of this scholarship.

Reframing Ethical-Legal Academic Integrity Discourses

In moving toward educational approaches for supporting students with reported instances of academic misconduct, we have sought to develop teaching and learning practices that reframe traditional ethical and legal academic integrity discourses and focus on developmental approaches. Much work has been done in problematizing the predominant academic integrity institutional frames of morality and rule compliance. In challenging these perspectives, Bertram Gallant ( 2008 ) emphasizes the binary nature of these perspectives and the failure to take into consideration broader “organizational, institutional [and] societal” (p. 49) contexts that impact of academic integrity issues. For instance, we have found in our discussions with students that there are significant disciplinary differences in relation to notions of groupwork and what constitutes a breach in academic integrity. Research on unauthorized collaboration confirms students lack clarity in distinguishing collusion violations from legitimate group learning (Sutherland-Smith, 2013 ). Our experience in our workshops confirms that students are often unable to identify differences between collusion and collaboration.

In addition, the “hazy nature of plagiarism” (Ashworth et al., 1997 , p. 191) in particular, has been emphasized in several studies engaging students in discussions of academic integrity (Adam et al., 2017 ; Ashworth et al., 1997 ; Gullifer & Tyson, 2010 ). Price's ( 2002 ) analysis of integrity policies illustrates the complex and contextualized nature of plagiarism that defies institutions’ attempts to present the construct as “fixed and absolute” (p. 89). This lack of clarity points to significant problems with the positioning of academic integrity as an immoral act or unwillingness to follow rules and raises issues of intention. However, in spite of recommendations to do so (Bertram Gallant, 2008 ), scholars point out that there is often little to no distinction given in academic integrity policies between intentional and unintentional plagiarism (Price, 2002 ).

Given the complexities of the skills needed in incorporating the voices of others in academic work and the nuanced understandings required in distinguishing when and how it is acceptable to work with others, framing academic integrity as part of students’ overall development as learners seems much more appropriate. We would argue that this is particularly important in approaches to supporting students who have violated the academic integrity policies. As discussed above, our experience with engaging this student population is that those students who are on the receiving end of academic integrity processes framed as immoral or dishonest acts can come to us feeling alienated, vulnerable and somewhat let down by their institution. This is confirmed by Sutherland-Smith’s ( 2013 ) study of students who went through the academic integrity process for collusion, with students expressing feelings of low academic self-worth, anger and continued confusion following their conduct experience.

This is not to ignore that there are academic integrity issues that do activate ethical questions, however. Although, we adopt a teaching and learning approach in our workshops rather than an overall ethical-legal framework, we follow East’s ( 2010 ) view that there are times when students engage in behaviours that they themselves recognize as lapses in personal ethics and that as an academic community are more straightforwardly identified as unethical. As East points out, cheating may be one of those particular instances. In my own experience (Roxanne) as a former academic writing instructor, my assumptions that academic integrity was primarily an issue of convention were significantly challenged in the first meeting I encountered with a student who submitted a purchased paper. Important to academic integrity education for students who have been reported for academic misconduct issues in our view then, is the necessity of holding space for academic integrity as potentially an issue of “morality or convention” (East, 2010 , p. 74). Our approach to supporting the learning of students who have been reported for academic misconduct, is therefore responsive to both possible origins of students’ actions; that is, challenges in understanding institutional conventions, challenges with decision-making in alignment with the values of the institution or a blend of both. We now turn to the significant body of literature on the application of ethical decision-making frameworks that has emerged in response to the ethical implications of students’ academic integrity decisions.

Ethical Decision-Making

Similar to conversations more broadly on academic integrity, ethical decision-making scholarship has also become increasingly more sophisticated in its depiction of students’ academic integrity decision-making practices. Early literature tended to frame academic misconduct situations as an example of a moral situation or an ethical dilemma; where the student was expected to discern the correct from the incorrect decision. If the student were to make an incorrect decision, Dalton ( 2015 ) terms this an “ethical failure” (p. 72), a “moral situation[s] in which students act in unethical ways.” (p. 74). For several decades scholars have attempted to explain how individuals respond to ethical dilemmas in a field of study known as ethical decision-making. Much of this early research utilized seminal work by Kohlberg and his theory of moral development which dominated the literature from the 1960s. Building on the early work of Piaget, Kohlberg was focused on the moral development of individuals, describing how they move unidirectionally through three levels of moral reasoning and six sub-stages. This was suggested as being predictive of an individual’s ability to reason in a given situation (Kohlberg, 1984 ). Much emphasis is placed on a student’s level of moral reasoning in relation to ethical decision-making with several studies concluding that students with a high level of moral reasoning are less likely to make poor ethical choices (Cummings et al., 2001 ; Malinowski & Smith, 1985 ). Despite critique of Kohlberg’s research, the hierarchical nature of this research formed the basis for subsequent ethical decision-making theories, models and tests and its application across many situations and contexts, such as Ethics of Care (Gilligan, 1993 ), the Defining Issue Test (Rest, 1986 ), the Person-Situation Interactionist model (Trevino, 1986 ), the Issue-Contingency Model (Jones, 1991 ), the Action-Controlled model (Ferrell et al., 2016 ), the Moral Balance Model (Nisan, 1991 ), and the Moral Judgment Test (Lind, 2008 ). More recently, contemporary models highlight the influence of both individual and situational factors on the ethical decision-making process. In combining these two areas Schwartz ( 2016 ) proposed an Integrated Ethical Decision Making model that recognizes the complexity of the individual, noting that ethical behaviour is contingent on which individual is facing the dilemma. This offers reasoning as to why individuals do not respond identically and according to predetermined outcomes.

Despite the theoretical concepts, models and tests that outline what we expect the rationale behind ethical decision-making to be, students still make decisions that contradict theoretical expectations. The ethical decision-making process is multifaceted; a complex consolidation of factors pertaining to the individual, the situational context and any issue-specific variables. No one theory is able to fully explain the intricacies and combinations of variables that converge in that moment of decision-making and influence a student’s choice, however two themes associated with decision-making in misconduct breaches can be identified: a lack of awareness or error in understanding institutional rules leading to a question of intentionality, and the multicultural and diverse nature of the student population within post-secondary education.

One crucial element of the decision-making process requires the individual to identify that they are facing an ethical dilemma. This would be the basis of a discussion on intentionality; an individual making a conscious decision to violate a rule. Barnhardt ( 2016 ) argues that in some academic misconduct cases the student has been unable to distinguish intentionality and that interpreting the students’ incorrect behavioral choice as a lack of morality is problematic. Certainly, it is noted by Christensen Hughes and McCabe ( 2006a ) that “many students may engage in these behaviours simply because they don’t believe they are wrong” (p. 18). Therefore, a student should not be deemed morally deficient when a decision breaches the academic misconduct policy if there was a lack of awareness that the situation presented is an ethical dilemma. Once the student has identified the situation as relating to academic integrity, the focus can then shift from a question of intentionality to one of decision-making.

In recognizing that even those individuals who demonstrate a high level of morality do still commit acts that are considered academically dishonest (Heriyati & Ekasari, 2020 ), we are drawn to consider the conflict that presents when prior experiences and personal values encounter institutional rules. Such differences are often the starkest between westernized and non-westernized cultures. For example, in China, students engage in copying behaviour, not to cheat, but to obtain their grade in the most efficient manner (Robinson & Kuin, 1999 ) and in Russia, not only is plagiarism considered normal practice, but students progressing into higher education are noted to be more vulnerable to collusion-based activities due to their extensive exposure to group work in early schooling (Frost & Hamlin, 2015 ). Christensen Hughes and McCabe ( 2006b ) in their investigation of Canadian students also identify national culture as a contributing influence in students’ academic integrity behaviours. These examples remind us that students are making decisions that are grounded in prior, culturally-influenced experiences. In addition to the complexities brought by prior experience and culture, the process of decision-making can also be influenced by their personal values (Weber, 2019 ). Academic misconduct may present as an ethical issue, but it is also combined with values that themselves are inextricably shaped by culture (Zhang & Yin, 2020 ). Students from different cultures and countries also have differing personal values and these personal values can be predictors of a student’s decision-making (Arambewela & Hall, 2011 ). The increasingly nuanced perspectives that emerge from within both ethical decision-making literature and literature on academic integrity discourses, in addition to our own day to day engagement with students who share their encounters with academic integrity have led us to shape our practice in various ways. These practices, described below, include using a standards of practice frame in initiating academic integrity conversations (Bertram Gallant, 2008 ) and engaging students in applied decision-making practice through pedagogy centering on nuanced discussions and authentic scenarios.

A Standards of Practice Frame

In the recommendations section of Academic Integrity in the twenty-first century, Bertram Gallant advocates for adopting a standards of practice frame to “guide faculty and student behaviors for the enhancement of the teaching and learning environment” ( 2008 , p. 98) similar to codes of conduct found in professional contexts. Although standards of practice models necessarily involve ethical considerations, they are tangible examples of contextualized ethical values, values that have been operationalized within a specific community. With this distinction from the traditional positioning of academic integrity as an expression of ‘universal’ values (East, 2010 ), introducing academic integrity to students as values that are shaped and enacted within the context of the institution, places a much greater emphasis on the newcomer’s role as a learner. In her discussion of plagiarism, Price ( 2002 ) argues for the value of being transparent with students about its contextualized and shifting nature. She writes:

We can explain that what we call plagiarism is located in a specific setting: this historical time, this academic community. We can demonstrate that ideas such as “common knowledge” and “original” are informed by their particular contexts. And once we have acknowledged to students and ourselves that plagiarism is part of an ongoing, evolving academic conversation, we can invite students to add their own voices to that conversation. (p. 90)

In the development of our workshops, we have found the standards of practice framing of academic integrity particularly helpful in engaging students who have been reported for academic misconduct in positive teaching and learning dialogues for several reasons which we elaborate on below. As an example of this in practice, one activity we begin a session with involves asking students to generate words that come to mind when they think of the word integrity, first on their own and then with a partner. After a short time of partner discussion, we ask each pair to share one word with the group and record each contribution, so they are visible to everyone. We then discuss the similarities in the words that were generated as a group, words such as honesty, respect, responsibility, etc. and compare those to definitions of academic integrity as well as professional codes of conduct found in Engineering and other disciplines. In addition to beginning the session interactively and in such a way that we hope validates students’ prior knowledge, acknowledging the similarities in values that emerge within our classroom community and the definitions across different communities demonstrates the important ‘integrity’ learning that is required in order to understand the nuances of how integrity is operationalized within whatever communities we engage.

A standards of practice framing acknowledges integrity and thus, academic integrity as an ongoing learning process that students engage with as members of the community. It acknowledges that certain conventions that may seem arbitrary (East, 2010 ) initiate from particular values in the community and that as we encounter these conventions for the first time it is understandable to question their relevance and need support in their application. Setting up academic integrity as an ongoing learning process illustrates for students that asking questions about academic integrity is necessary to engaging in a community with integrity. This moves academic integrity understandings beyond rules to be memorized, to a recognition that students need to actively apply the general principles of academic integrity to ever new situations. This is important in particular for students who have had violations and may be extremely anxious about having another issue. When we position academic integrity from an ethical-legal perspective as simple rules within a policy and students who fail to apply these rules as lacking in morality, we effectively shut down a dialogue and inhibit students from asking good questions about how academic integrity principles apply in their day-to-day experience. This is significantly problematic for the future success of students who have experienced violations and for whom a second violation could potentially end their academic study.

In reviewing literature related to educational approaches involving the conventions of academic integrity, scholarship on teaching students to avoid plagiarism in the context of academic writing has been most prominent. This work has emphasized the need to move beyond sharing policy documents to instead focus on supporting students’ understanding and development of skills associated with successful academic writing that incorporates the voices of others (Price, 2002 ). There is consensus in the literature that avoiding plagiarism, as embedded in the process of learning to write in academic contexts, involves a number of complex skills ranging from critical reading to shaping academic voices in support of an argument (Adam et al., 2017 ; Powell & Singh, 2016 ; Vardi, 2012 ). Powell & Singh ( 2016 ) distinguish between “conceptualisation” (p. 16) and “application” (p. 16) in relation to students’ understanding of plagiarism, with conceptualisation involving naming and identification of plagiarism and application the ability to apply this understanding to new learning environments. Their study in which students experienced scaffolded instruction and practice, illustrated that educational interventions can support students’ abilities in both conceptualizing and applying an understanding of plagiarism. Schuetze ( 2004 ) found a similar benefit in students’ understanding in an evaluation of teaching strategies that allowed students to practice skills associated with the academic writing conventions of paraphrasing and citation.

Scholarship on plagiarism has also been the origin of most critical work on academic integrity, with scholars questioning “the assumptive stances taken by the institution” (Bertram Gallant, 2008 , p. 57) and advocating for an emphasis on the contextualized nature of definitions of plagiarism as they are applied in Western institutions (Price, 2002 ). These critical perspectives have influenced academic integrity pedagogies that focus on presenting definitions of plagiarism as shifting and unstable and as such, necessitate students’ involvement in a process of ongoing learning (Price, 2002 ). Situating notions of plagiarism as contextualized conventions, rather than traditional ethical discourses, provides an opportunity to openly discuss rationalizations and values that underpin current practices within Western academia (East, 2010 ), acknowledge that different historical and cultural practices exist (Howard, 1995 ) and invite students to engage actively in understanding and querying conventions as participants within a discourse community (Price, 2002 ). Overall, the practice of engaging students in discussion about conventions as important to supporting students’ learning of academic integrity is emphasized in much of the literature on plagiarism (Price, 2002 ; Schuetze, 2004 ; Thomas & Sassi, 2017 ) and appears also in recommendations for supporting students’ understanding of collusion (Sutton & Taylor, 2011 ).

Addressing Ethical Decision-Making: Scenarios

As discussed above, institutions may anticipate that ethical themes are universally understood and therefore, when presented with an ethical dilemma that contravenes institutional rules, an incorrect decision denotes a student that intended to breach the rule or one who has low morality. We challenge this notion of a decision being binary, rejecting the idea that decisions that result in a breach of the academic misconduct policy are wholly explained by a students’ lack of morality or ethics, and should simply be punished. We have seen that the factors associated in making a decision in academic misconduct situations are multifaceted and complex. The diversity of students within individual post-secondary institutions results in a population that has extensively different personal values and ethical experiences that cannot simply be explained as a lack of morality. We must recognize that a student’s prior ethical experience and personal values, which has the potential to be linked to a cultural component, has a role to play in ethical decision-making. Rather than a personal attack on their morality, students need support in understanding how the specific values of academic integrity are operationalized within the institution.

While issues of unintentionality, through misidentification of the situation presenting as an ethical dilemma, may be rectified through exposure to, and discussion of, the relevant academic integrity policies, the roles that culture and value conflicts play in decision-making necessitates a different approach. Scenarios are utilized widely in the literature to aid in the development of student ethical decision-making, and in particular, can be used to explore those situations that have the potential to lead to academic misconduct violations. These scenarios are not simply a case study designed to identify right or wrong actions, they are more a complex narrative identifying multiple factors that we recognize can influence decision-making. Embedding ethical dilemmas into morally themed scenarios, to highlight the grey areas in such situations, enables a deeper discussion to take place that can facilitate thinking and reasoning (Wong, 2020 ) and in turn, allow students to successfully understand and navigate the situation. The method by which the scenarios are explored with students is important. The learning outcome of the scenarios should not simply be identifying the ethical dilemma, but also to identify skills that can be used to implement their ethical choice, allowing the students to simulate, rehearse and practice their actual responses and master the skills necessary to navigate the potential academic misconduct situations (Basak & Cerit, 2019 ; Drumwright et al., 2015 ; Riemenschneider et al., 2016 ). In addition, we also propose that cultural themes and perspectives, prior experiences and personal values should form a major component of the decision-making conversation.

While the discussion of scenarios is frequented in the literature, the scenarios that are described above are used with students who have not yet had a misconduct violation. It is more difficult to identify scholarly pieces that focus specifically on our target population. Orr ( 2018 ) describes an academic integrity seminar that, similarly to ours, was not restricted to those that had an academic misconduct violation. Unfortunately, the seminar itself and the scenario-based activities were not described in detail. However, although we are unable to glean the specific activities that were used in the workshop, the student feedback obtained after the seminars shared by Orr allows us to conclude that those who have had a misconduct violation responded positively to this type of developmental education. This is also our experience in observing students’ participation in scenario-based activities within our workshops. Below we present our practical approach to using scenario-based instruction to improve the ethical decision-making skills of students who have been mandated to attend academic integrity programing.

We use scenarios for the specific purpose of allowing students to practice their decision-making processes and skills to explore, propose and critique decisions without reprimand or judgement. The combination of factors that led to a violation are limitless and addressing each specific combination is impossible. In the workshops we encounter students that are keen to explore their own experiences of academic misconduct, but in that group programming setting accommodating the unique contextual situation of each student’s academic misconduct violation is not possible. In an attempt to overcome this, we aim to combine an understanding of the academic integrity values and how they are operationalized in the institution, with specific delivery of related educational information and examples pertaining to the misconduct type of concern and then offer a range of scenarios to allow students to practice their decision-making skills. Similarly to Wong’s ( 2020 ) description of moral stories, the scenarios produced for the academic integrity workshops are comprised of multiple characters (students, peers, friends, the university) which facilitate discussions of personal and societal perspectives on academic integrity situations. Intertwined with the characters are high stakes implications for not breaching the policy, e.g. failing a course, losing a scholarship, a friend not helped. Each scenario is framed by three main questions. Students are asked to comment on the behaviours within the case study that have the potential to lead to an academic misconduct, whether rationalizations are justified and what strategies could be adopted to avoid the situation. Students initially answer as anticipated, often very briefly, noting the obvious behaviours that put the student in the scenario at risk of an academic misconduct violation. Students can easily identify the rationalizations and very rarely accept them as valid justifications for the misconduct related behaviour. They are also able to offer basic strategies for avoiding the situation in the future.

This level of engagement and answering are witnessed more frequently in discussions around plagiarism, where the student can recite why citations and the requirement to paraphrase are important and how using reference management software, improving academic writing skills and addressing time management issues are potential strategies. However, scenarios concerning group work and helping a friend in need with an assignment are more complex to unpack with students. This is reflective of research in this area. Barrett & Cox ( 2005 ) found that students were able to identify plagiarism as unacceptable practice but struggled more so with the distinction between collaboration and collusion. The variations in uncertainty about what is acceptable collaboration when two students work together was noted as being especially problematic with the influence of disciplines of study, where the distinction and acceptance is nuanced. In framing the situation as “the ‘mythical line’ between collusion and collaboration” (p. 55), Sutherland Smith ( 2013 ) presents the difficulties faced by students in attempting to understand what constitutes collaboration and collusion. Students highlighted discipline differences: “I don’t think collusion is seen the same way by all areas of the university. […] How consistent is this across the university anyway?” (p.54), their personal values in helping friends; “[…] some of the younger Vietnamese students were struggling with all the readings […] As an older student […] it is my moral obligation to help. I mean, what kind of person would I be if I did not help?” (p.56) as well as continued confusion after a breach of the policy; “When I got the letter, I felt like a criminal. The worst thing was I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I still don’t!” (p. 57). In these conversations the role of the facilitator is paramount.

The facilitator for the workshops does not accept superficial answers to complex scenarios. They probe the student into deeper, more critical thinking. This questioning aims to encourage the student to be completely open and honest when answering, encouraging the student to apply their personal values, ethical experience and cultural perspectives against the situation. Questioning strategies include: could you honestly say no to a friend in need? What would that look like, what wording would you use? What if the stakes were high not breaching the rules resulted in you/ your friend failing a course/ reducing your Grade Point Average (GPA)/ risked losing a scholarship? In this type of questioning, we notice immediate discomfort from students and consider this a visual manifestation of their colliding personal values and prior ethical experience and culture with the institutional rules. Students are less fluid with their answers. The difficulty they have with articulating the practical aspect of the scenarios reflects what we know from the literature; students need to practice the skills necessary, and that includes what wording to use. This practice can take the form of role play. The facilitator plays the role of the student in need. In mimicking the scenario, the facilitator asks a student in the group for help. The student is encouraged to formulate and give a response to the facilitator.

At the end of each workshop, students are asked to reflect upon the session. To guide their reflection they are asked to anonymously answer two brief questions: what was one thing that surprised you and what will you take away from the session. Students most often comment on a specific misconduct type that they were not aware of (such as self-plagiarism), an impactful news story (e.g. the Measles, Mumps and Rubella vaccination fabrication) and the breadth of resources that are available to them to help support their studies. We have used this feedback to make amendments to the content of the workshops and also to produce additional online resources.

Recommendations for Teaching and Learning

As Bertram Gallant points out, regardless of proactive teaching and learning approaches to academic integrity, which we also participate in, there will likely always be students who engage in academic misconduct (2017), the reasons for which stem from lapses in decision-making, lack of awareness of institutional policies, or incongruent values to name a few. Moving away from moral or legal binaries in academic integrity instruction to instead focus programming on a scenario-based curriculum alongside a standards of practice framework can provide student affairs practitioners with a flexible and responsive approach to the difficult task of responding to student audiences with have a variety of experiences with academic misconduct that we often find ourselves in.

In our situation the nature and specific details of the students’ academic misconduct violation is unknown. This can present a problem with content design for the workshop. Students can become frustrated if their academic misconduct case was a violation of exam regulations and cheating and yet they are mandated to attend workshops on plagiarism or collusion. Therefore, we develop scenarios that incorporate a variety of potential academic misconduct themes. We also maintain an open dialogue with faculty so that common trends or themes in academic misconduct cases can be identified and utilized to continually update the scenarios.

Programming needs to be current and responsive in order to be effective. In developing academic integrity workshops or programming, consider workshops that focus on other academic misconduct types such as cheating. There is perhaps a tendency to focus on what are considered to be the most common types of academic misconduct, such as plagiarism and collusion, in offering programming, but as we are experiencing with the COVID-19 pandemic there is a shift in the types and nature of cases. In our practice, where additional workshops have not been created, we include content in both workshops that cover all misconduct types, current trends and themes and facilitate discussion in those areas.

Student timetables are often very busy and inflexible which can leave little time to attend a workshop. Students should not be forced to miss a normal lecture due to the need to attend a workshop. In planning the timetable for the workshops, we aim to offer a variety of different days and times, sometimes offering early morning or later evening slots. Where students have a full course load and have a short timeframe with which to attend a workshop, we may meet with the student on a one-to-one basis. It is worthwhile for student affairs providers to collaborate with Associate Deans to stay informed of cases so that additional workshops can be added to the schedule.

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• Published: 12 December 2017

Organizational ethical integrity: good and bad illusions

• Paweł Łukasz Polowczyk 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  3 , Article number:  46 ( 2017 ) Cite this article

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Integrity has always been an ambiguous or vague concept. Integrity as a general concept seems to be too problematic in philosophical or scientific language. This paper will aim to improve and preserve the specific notion of integrity—the concept of moral integrity as a virtue and as a moral purpose, and its opposite—the concept of counterfeit moral integrity or false moral integrity. It stresses a strong relationship between the concepts of morality and the concept of moral integrity: if moralities are diverse, moral integrity has many forms too, and the forms are only as good as the morality behind them. The paper emphasizes their organizational dimensions because any organizational impact—due to its scale—can be especially beneficial or detrimental to society. The first objective is to introduce a preliminary conceptual order by means of definitions and typologies to support clearer (language analysis) and more critical (Critical Theory) thinking on organizational moral integrity: establishing definitions of moral and ethical integrity, new definitions of material and formal moral integrity, descriptions of irrational and rational moral integrit, and individual and organizational moral integrity. The definitions and typologies are designed to be prototypes of false integrity “detectors”. The second objective is to outline an ideal of a total and rational moral commitment for every organization: organizational material ethical integrity (OMEI). The ideal of OMEI points out that most self-proclaimed ethical organizations are probably not ethically committed. The third objective is to justify the theses that (1) moral integrity can be good or bad, not simply good, and that (2) false moral integrity can be good. Whether we think of “Kantian-Nazi” integrity of Adolf Eichmann or lethal and irrational integrity of Islamic State fighters, moral integrity based on bad morality is bad. False ethical integrity (or rational moral integrity) is always bad because it imitates good morality for a bad purpose, for example: rational discourse on integrity can be a “smokescreen” to hide exploitation of labor or environmental degradation. As in the case with Irena Sendler who pretended to be “a good slave” to save children’s lives, false moral integrity can be ethically good if it simulates bad morality for a good purpose. The paper offers ethical justifications for “ethical prestidigitators”, “warriors of illusions”, masters of “moral aikido”: persons and organizations that use counterfeit integrity to maximize ethical values.

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Introduction

Royal Dutch Shell declares that three core values, honesty, integrity and respect for people, govern the company, but “The oil giant Shell has agreed to pay $15.5 million (£9.6 million) in settlement of a legal action in which it was accused of having collaborated in the execution of the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other leaders of the Ogoni tribe of southern Nigeria” (Pilkington, 2009 ). Whatever the interpretation of this contradiction is, society sees unconscious, innocent, neatly dressed workers at petrol stations and omnipresent, vivid, joyful advertisements. Who is to blame?

Numerous critical authors, like G. Debord, M. Albert, J. Bakan, N. Chomsky, S. Žižek, N. Klein, and M. Yunus, think that organizational and corporate discourse on morality has become a part of a pseudo-moral, illusionist spectacle as a more or less indeterminate boast that aims to protect the concentration of power and capital. Like politicians’ speeches, the discourse of integrity can resemble obscuring rhetoric or even an Orwellian newspeak when we read business magazines or lofty declarations on companies’ websites. Even less radical scholars admit that Corporate Social Responsibility or corporate codes of ethics are sometimes used as a front to conceal immoral or criminal activities of big companies. The disturbing social situation of moral integrity under capitalism is an impulse behind my philosophical analysis. My objective is not to collect new empirical data on social life, but to organize some of them with ethical tools, first and foremost by means of ethical typologies. Theory of integrity is a multidisciplinary issue.

We need better understanding of integrity, false and true, good or bad, so the paper has two purposes—theoretical and practical. Its theoretical purpose is to build up a fragment of a conception of moral integrity as moral commitment, and to clarify the idea of false (counterfeit) moral integrity. The concept of counterfeit moral integrity demands certain fundamental characteristics of integrity, but does not require any fully elaborated theory of integrity. The paper will demonstrate certain possibilities for developing the ideas of real and counterfeit integrity. This paper aims to preserve the notion of moral integrity as a moral commitment. This article offers a “bird’s eye view” of the proposed approach to integrity. This text combines analytic descriptions with preliminary synthetic perspective.

The political purpose of the paper is to create a prototype of a practical tool to identify good and bad false moral integrity. It is is political because counterfeit integrity produces political results: organizations regarded wrongly as morally praiseworthy entities are able to continue with their immoral trajectory under the cover of morality if their true identity is unknown, and ethical organizations can do more good if they gain support to apply good fake integrity. The word “political” is used here in the broad sense: it signifies all relations of power: parliamentary, economic, cultural etc. The concept of integrity is not neutral and therefore it requires Critical Theory in the meaning originated by the Frankfurt School and developed by its successors.

Counterfeit integrity needs critical thinking and critical action to expose it and blow it up when it is applied by oppressors against the oppressed. However, false moral integrity of the oppressed can be presented as a method of defense, attack or counter-attack against detrimental illusions, as a beneficial mirage, a strategic cover. I am going to describe good false moral integrity as related to appearances, outer layers of wrong or bad morality. I hope these abstract deliberations on moral integrity can somehow help to weaken or defeat ideological use of integrity.

Morality and definitions of integrity

Integrity is criticized as a highly ambiguous or vague notion (e.g., Audi and Murphy, 2006 ). The question arises if every concept of integrity should be eliminated from scientific or philosophical literature as useless and rhetorical, something suitable as a means of moralizing, and as a trick of business propaganda in order to create shiny corporate images.

One of the reasons that the concept is so nebulous and confusing is that its content orbits around different definitions and theories of morality. Conceptualizations of moral integrity as parts of moral theories can be founded on descriptive or normative meanings of the term “integrity”. Depending on the results of the choice between them, integrity can turn into something subjective, objective, absolute or relative, vary from something non-contradictory to contradictory, from irrational to rational, from partial to impartial, etc.–hence the outcome is able to fundamentally change inferences and shape incompatible points of view.

Integrity and moral integrity, descriptive and normative approaches

The term “morality” has both descriptive and normative senses, but—as in most philosophical moral theories—my arguments are grounded in the latter. The normative senses differentiate between good and bad morality, right and wrong morality, rational or irrational morality (see, for instance, Nietzsche, 1998 ; Bergson, 1977 ; Harris, 2010 ). In ethical theories one can find repeated features of preferred morality, usually with reference to coherence, rationality, and fundamental values (see, for instance, Singer, 2002 ; Gensler, 1996 ; Mepham et al., 2006 ; Harris, 2010 ; Gert and Gert, 2016 ). My concept of integrity is based on those highly general notions. I do not develop them. The function of this chapter is to show the background to the concept of integrity.

Good morality can be described as rational, supported by high quality moral thinking. Rational morality contains the three principles of rationality: the principle of coherence, the principle of right sources, and the principle of right methods.

The principle of coherence. The principle “Be coherent in your moral life” is formal. The principles are formal i.e., “expressible using only variables and constants—where the constants can include logical terms, terms for general psychological attitudes (like believe, desire, and act), and other fairly abstract notions (like ought and ends-means)” (Gensler, 1996 , p 17).

Coherence can be understood as “a form of entailment” or “explanatory support between propositions” (Young, 2015 ). Consistency is “a special case of coherence” (Wintgens, 2012 , p 238). Coherent moral life means coherence in true descriptions of moral life.

In good morality described by good ethical theory, consistency includes logicality, ends-means consistency, and conscientiousness. “Logicality: Avoid inconsistency in beliefs. Ends–means consistency: Keep your means in harmony with your ends. Conscientiousness: Keep your actions, resolutions, and desires in harmony with your moral beliefs”. (Gensler, 2010 , p 315).

One can also add that fundamental principles must be coherent, and derivative rules must be coherent with fundamental principles whatever notion or theory of coherence is chosen. Rational morality must be free of serious contradictions, otherwise moral thinking and behavior is paralyzed by them: “You ought to be just and simultaneously you ought not to be just”.

Impartiality can be deemed a form of coherence. The principle of impartiality says: “Make similar evaluations about similar actions, regardless of the individuals involved” (Gensler, 2010 , p 317). Impartial morality does not favor any conscious being due to non-moral reasons or because of their identity, e.g., racial or sexual. This type of morality is universal and not particular, since moral principles are applicable to every moral patient (Rowlands, 2013 ). The morality must employ something similar to “the veil of ignorance” (Rawls, 1999 ), equal consideration of interests (Singer, 1993 ) or “the point of view of the universe” (Lazari-Radek and Singer, 2014 ) to jettison particularism, e.g., racism, classism or species chauvinism.

Other types of principles of consistency encompass: “Golden rule: Treat others only as you consent to being treated in the same situation. Formula of universal law: Act only as you’re willing for anyone to act in the same situation—regardless of imagined variations of time or person” Gensler, 2010 , p 317).

Dialectical types of ethics exclude the condition to some extent: “For Adorno, there is simply no noncontradictory ethics” (Hohendahl and Fisher, 2002 ), but this is a relative and not an absolute exclusion of coherence. “Marx did not repudiate the principle of non-contradiction, but he clearly felt that it had limited usefulness when studying a system in motion. As A. Anthony Smith pointed out, in dialectics “the same thing is not both affirmed and denied of the same object at the same time and in the same respect,” and the dialectical method goes beyond, while including, the principle of identity and non-contradiction” (Wilde, 1991 ).

Coherence is not necessarily something static and absolute. If we adopt a more empirical or phenomenological stance, our coherent descriptions must be modified by new facts, new situations, new discoveries, new understanding.

The principle of right sources says: the sources of moral beliefs are experience and reason. We should use perception, introspection, phenomenological experience, or even a-priori reasoning to find moral truths. The same sources are regarded as more or less reliable in epistemology (Steup, 2016 ). The sources do not originate in biases, prejudices, wishful thinking, desires, unquestionable authorities or dogmas. The principle does not exclude any type of experience, usually accepting empirical and phenomenological experiences. Morality of high quality stands on knowledge about particular situations and at least partly on knowledge about certain features of the world, especially society.

The principle of right methods says: the methods of acquiring moral knowledge are various types of correctly applied observations and experiments, as well as inductive or other reasoning (cognitive rationality). It does not follow that ethical thinking cannot be inspired by religion or mysticism, but that religious or mystical moral claims must be rationally justified.

Both principles are linked to moral cognitivism and moral realism. They assume that “moral statements do express beliefs and that they are apt for truth and falsity” and “moral statements are apt for robust truth and falsity and that many of them are in fact true”(van Roojen, 2016 ). They are also connected to moral naturalism, the meta-ethical view stating that moral beliefs describe objective facts, whether they are reducible or not reducible (the case of supervenience) to non-moral features of the universe.

The principle of fundamental values: good morality focuses at least on four values: justice, freedom, happiness, love Justice, freedom, happiness and love are prevalent in Western moral theories and present in other ethical traditions (Mepham et al., 2006 ). If they belong to core values of moral systems, the systems and related practises are less vulnerable to anti-values, such as injustice, slavery, misery, and hatred. The morality of fundamental values harmonizes with moral intuitions that enable us to refute wrong moralities that maximize anti-values, moral systems more or less similar to the Viking morality or to the Nazi morality.

Four types of normative morality emerge from the division: coherent morality, right source morality, right method morality, and fundamental values morality. If a morality fulfils the first three conditions, it will be named “rational morality”, if it applies all the conditions, it will be called “maximalist morality”. Maximalist morality is the foundation of my ideals of material ethical integrity (MEI) and organizational material ethical integrity (OMEI). Formal integrity itself is founded on coherent morality. Material integrity itself is grounded on fundamental values morality.

The necessary condition to accept the theses of this paper is to approve the existence of any good morality as the opposite to bad morality, and to recognize any interpretation of the features of good morality in question. You cannot reconcile them with conceptions according to which all moralities are equally valuable or incommensurable, and according to which Genghis Khan and Saint Francis or Adolf Hitler and Janusz Korczak have the same moral level.

Definitions of moral integrity

It is better to use multiple concepts of integrity (integrity + attribute) than to argue about which concept is the right one. I do not deny that some authors have contributed to moral theory by working on integrity in general, but I believe that we should change our direction to get more scientific outcomes. Very general discussions seem to be a waste of time, because they may be a struggle for our favorite terminology. The most general conceptual conventions without relative agreement in the research community lead to tremendous diversity in ethical discourse that may be possibly limited by more dense, practice-oriented concepts (this is my strategy in the text) or categorical resignation with extremely polysemous words (like in logical positivism). If social sciences and philosophy do not have standard, common definitions for the most general terms, no unifying body, nor their own one meter rod in Paris, it is easier to elaborate specific, detailed concepts, and more technical terms strictly related to certain practices than to cling to highly problematic ordinary language. Therefore I am here developing notions of moral integrity and counterfeit moral integrity—less general ethical concepts. However my attempt is skeptical. It is just a part of an interesting debate.

Numerous authors have complained about ill-defined, ambiguous or vague ideas of integrity: “Integrity remains vague and ill-defined after more than 50 years of research” (Rieke and Guastello, 1995 , p 458). In social sciences and philosophy the concept must be improved or abandoned, left for non-scientific discourse. I suggest modified versions of philosophical terminology, a proposal of new, hopefully more fruitful conceptual conventions.

The proposed definitions belong to the tradition of describing integrity as a moral purpose and as a virtue (Ashford, 2000 , Halfon, 1989 , Scherkoske, 2012 , Cox et al., 2003 , Audi and Murphy, 2006 ). Moreover, they strive to develop and modify some characteristics suggested by theorists believing that (moral) integrity is something very general rather than a narrowly conceived moral quality.

I am not going to go over all the problematic definitions of moral integrity—this has been done by various other authors (e.g., Cox et al. 2016 )—but below my definitions readers can find explanations for why I use the definitions, and what possible advantages may be drawn from the new conceptualization. Needless to say, the definitions are not hypotheses or theories but conventions that must justify their usefulness and coherence. The proposed conceptualization is just a first step to much more complex descriptions of moral integrity and for that reason is preparatory rather than final.

If readers cannot accept these definitions denying that the definienda (e.g., moral integrity) and the definientia match each other, they can treat the article as a sketch of a conception of moral and ethical commitments.

Definition 1 Formal moral integrity is a) a relatively coherent b) relatively permanent, freely chosen, and deliberate commitment c) linked to moral life in general.

The integrity as commitment to coherent morality involves coherence between basic moral norms (principles) and derivative rules, e.g., if we follow the principle of maximizing happiness, we cannot make aggressive wars that make masses miserable. It also demands coherence between moral ends and means, e.g., immoral means do not justify moral ends and moral means do not justify immoral ends (see section 3.1.).

Moral integrity does not need coherence between declarations and practices as its necessary condition for good declarations in bad situations can cause pain or death (see section 3.1.).

Integrity is always associated with a sort of integration, so the definition retains this intuition. This relative integration does not exclude changes, dynamism, improvements. It is just a regulative ideal the person of integrity aspires to. Integrity of the mortal, integrity of the finite is always incomplete, imperfect.

The coherence is relative not because it is subjective or whimsical but due to its objective relations to inner or outer circumstances and knowledge of the moral agent.

Like every virtue, integrity is not a temporary or accidental attitude: it must be relatively permanent and well thought out. It is freely chosen, not imposed by a society for fear of terrestrial or infernal punishments. For example, when morality in organizations is enforced and virtues are only for show, the situation violates the freedom and rationality of persons.

Integrity does not involve a specific moral goal, like being polite to a particular person, otherwise even a Mafia boss is a man of integrity—he is sometimes nice. Institutions can help to build wells in Africa and at the same time repeatedly exploit workers and destroy the environment, so they actually lack integrity. Integrity is a general moral commitment, a general attitude to life. All structures of organizations must be devoted, in a more or less appropriate way to certain moral goals before they can be called institutions of integrity. Otherwise any criminal organization could be deemed an organization of integrity if it has performed any morally praiseworthy act or when it treats anybody well. Integrity is something general, not something particular. The moral feature is planned as a quality of the whole person or the whole organization, not as a good fragment of them.

Formal moral integrity is strictly linked to morality, but this morality can variously be flawed, high-quality, rational, irrational, tolerant, strange, caring, murderous etc. The word “integrity” is also a form of praise, but if moral integrity is a commitment, the ordinary praise reveals its odd nature: commitment to bad morality breeds bad moral integrity. Gandhi’s satyagraha (“insistence on truth”) is an almost non-controversial sort of formal moral integrity. However, “Kantian-Nazi” integrity of Adolf Eichmann or lethal integrity of some Islamic State fighters are specific varieties of formal integrity: they are relatively coherent, relatively permanent, freely chosen, and deliberate commitments linked to moral life in general. The first has the appearance of rationality, the second is overtly irrational. Both of them have wallowed in blood. Formal moral integrity does not demand good or rational morality—any morality will do. Moreover, this integrity is not necessary for the sake of morality. Instead of moral objectives, it can be an interest in earning money, worshiping gods, or pleasing beloved leaders.

Definition 2 Formal ethical integrity is a) a relatively coherent, b) relatively permanent, freely chosen, and deliberate commitment c) linked to rational moral life in general d) for the sake of rational morality.

Rational morality encompasses the principle of coherence, the principle of right sources, and the principle of right methods (see section 'Integrity and moral integrity, descriptive and normative approaches'). Rational moral life is an application of those principles, although I do not think that rationality must be reduced to the three principles. As in Stoicism and Aristotelianism, rationality is at the center of ethical integrity, hence cognitive values are in accordance with ethical values due to their rational nature.

The consequences of rational integrity both for individuals and organizations are far-reaching: they have to learn, study and practice rational morality as frequently and profoundly as possible. Every ethical institution ought to resemble ancient philosophical schools because its main goals are ethical, but if institutions are not philosophical schools, they should be focused on practical and applied ethics: How to alleviate suffering of patients? How to reduce unemployment? How to build a better social system?

Unlike the case of moral integrity, ethical integrity requires an additional condition: morality has to be practised for the sake of morality, not for gods, money or social acceptance. Morality is an end, not a means. The notion excludes being “socially responsible” to earn money, or else organizations can benefit from wrongdoing when their situation aids profits from immoral activities, for example by sending technologies to the Nazi concentration camps—as in the case of IBM (Burkeman, 2002 ).

The concept of ethical integrity posits that rational moral values are at the top of hierarchy of values regardless of their harmony or dissonance with other values. Without this feature, any non-moral value is able to transform the person of integrity into somebody who easily violates ethical principles when other values are taken into consideration.

The superiority of ethical values is based on the assumption that some moral values are distinct from certain non-moral values, e.g., rational moral values are separated from pure business values, such as profit. On the other hand, linkages among moral and non-moral values are possible and actual.

In some theoretical structures it is possible to regard aesthetic values as internally linked to ethical values. The concept of integrity in this paper remains open in this area, although the author believes in maintaining strict linkages between the two groups of values.

The superiority of ethical values does not necessary imply that cognitive or aesthetic values are at lower positions in the hierarchy of values—they can be interconnected or they can merge together.

Definition 3 Material moral integrity is a) a relatively coherent, b) relatively permanent, freely chosen and deliberate commitment c) linked to moral life in general d) for the sake of morality and e) it aims to maximize central ethical values, such as freedom, justice, happiness and love.

This definition demands core values that are rooted in human moral intuitions, and even more in rational ethical traditions of the East and the West. I would here mention at least four values: freedom, justice, happiness and love. I do not assert that those values are the only necessary values for ethical integrity, but they have been extremely relevant in various moral discourses.

The first reason is that these values are widespread in many moral systems, cultures, and religions, including philosophical theories. The Torah is full of references to justice, almost all ancient Greek philosophers pursued eudaimonia , Christianity centers its message around agape , Mahayana Buddhism around karuna . Ethics from the Renaissance onwards has been focused on freedom, especially after the French Revolution. The second reason is that they are very useful in applied ethics in the form of an ethical matrix (Mepham et al., 2006 ). The third reason is that all ethical values might possibly be either reduced or internally related to them (Polowczyk, 2013b ).

Definition 4 Material ethical integrity is a) a relatively coherent, b) relatively permanent, freely chosen and deliberate commitment c) linked to rational moral life in general, and d) for the sake of rational morality, and e) it aims to maximize central ethical values, such as freedom, justice, happiness and love.

The concept of normative morality has been outlined in section 'Integrity and moral integrity, descriptive and normative approaches'. According to this, good normative morality is internally linked to rationality and central moral values, such as happiness, justice, freedom and love.

Material ethical integrity can be treated as a moral maximum: its content is the most demanding, its requirements both intellectual (coherence, rationality) and practical (permanence, impartiality, justice, love, freedom, happiness) are the highest. Formal moral integrity can be described as a moral minimum: its content is the least demanding, its requirements are not determined, so they may be lenient.

I have developed an ideal of integrity strictly linked to an ideal of morality. I call it “material ethical integrity”. If somebody prefers other wording, I can refer to it as “the real moral integrity” or “the only moral integrity”, but the cost is that if we have to establish one morality and one moral integrity, simultaneously we have to jettison Christian integrity, Buddhist integrity, Epicurean integrity etc.

Moral integrity as a first level virtue

Moral integrity is a virtue because it requires constant effort, deliberation and “spiritual exercise”. It motivates people to study and practice moral principles, and to develop cognitive skills and habits, like the understanding of coherence. Those features do not entail that people who have less intelligence or who are illiterate, are not able to possess these traits. This virtue requires minimum cognitive skills and habits for a conscious being that cannot change its inborn aptitudes. Ethical integrity is more cognitively demanding, because it needs mastering principles, perceiving coherence, and learning different types of observations and reasoning. Both moral integrity and ethical integrity are contingent on cognitive skills and knowledge, so rocks, plants and shrimps cannot possess these qualities and neither can humans with seriously damaged brains or foetuses.

I suggest a concept of integrity as a first level virtue . Moral integrity can be seen as first level virtue because all other virtues demand moral commitment as a necessary condition, and integrity does not require other virtues in temporal order. In the first phase of moral life it only needs activities towards building up virtues. In other phases moral integrity maintains other virtues as a “will to morality”. In a logical order it is always connected with pre-virtues and second level virtues. Pre-virtues are germs of virtues, virtues in progress, virtues “under construction”, such as pre-courage, pre-justice, pre-moderation etc. As a decision to be moral, as a moral attitude and effort, moral integrity assists in creating them. They have no raison d’etre without integrity. We do not desire to become courageous, just or moderate unless we want to be moral at all. Second level virtues, such as courage, justice, moderation etc., are also contingent on moral integrity: their existence, maintenance and conservation are redundant without moral commitment. We do not need to be courageous, just or moderate unless we want to be moral at all.

It is significant to show a partial but essential disagreement between my concept of moral integrity and theoretical propositions of some influential authors. An interesting distinction among concepts of integrity was made by Audi and Murphy (Audi and Murphy, 2006 ). The authors differentiate between the aretaic and integrational sense of the word “integrity”. “The aretaic sense (from the Greek arete meaning ‘virtue’), in which integrity is identified either with specific virtues such as honesty or, significantly if less commonly, with virtue in general” (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 12) is distinct from “integrity in the integrational sense: as an integration among elements of character” (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 9). The researchers believe that “no moral commitment or standard is entailed by the trait in question”, i.e., integrity in the integrational meaning (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 18). They also distinguish between “substantive moral virtues, such as honesty, fairness, and beneficence (…) traits that are morally good in themselves” (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 11) and adjunctive virtues—like courage and conscientiousness—that “strengthen moral character”, but none of them is “a self-sufficient ethical standard” (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 12). These scholars maintain that integrity belongs to the category of adjunctive virtues (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 12).

I see integrity neither as a “specific virtue”, nor as virtue in general. Integrity is not a classical higher-level virtue like justice or kindness. Aretaic virtues need integrity to arise and survive: the primary virtue exists to construct them and cherish them. Integrity is not a “super virtue” that is “a synthesis of virtues, working together to form a coherent whole” (Solomon, 1999 , p 38). It is just a first-level virtue. Moral integrity is neither a commitment to honesty and sincerity, nor an involvement in courage or conscientiousness—it makes possible any moral virtue because the primary virtue is a beginning, conservation and development of any moral life.

My use of the term “integrity” resembles both the aretaic sense and the integrational sense, but actually it is something else. Its integrational function and aretaic function work on a disparate, more fundamental level and in a different way: neither by synthesis of virtues nor by the force of particular virtues but by creating, maintaining and improving virtues.

My demarcation between first and second level virtues is dissimilar to the division between higher-level substantive and adjunctive virtues. Moral commitment as a first level virtue is fundamental: both higher levels substantial moral virtues and adjunctive virtues require it to come into existence and to flourish.

Moral integrity is neither adjunctive virtue nor higher-level substantive virtue. Moral integrity is a first-level substantive virtue because moral commitment is good in itself: it creates, conserves and develops other virtues. Moral integrity not so much strengthens the moral character as enables it: if you do not possess courage, you can possess a will to build up courage; if you do not exercise your courage, you can lose it. In a word: you can exhibit moral integrity as a relatively consistent moral commitment without courage and other adjunctive virtues.

Moral integrity enables elaborating, cherishing, improving any other virtues due to its nature of moral will and moral action. It also incorporates moral insights or moral knowledge without which it would be “blind”: we need to know what is moral to be moral, and what is the world to act in the world, even if our thinking is a modifiable set of hypotheses. If persons do not want to be virtuous and they do not act to be virtuous, they will not be virtuous. Moral integrity has to be a fundamental moral virtue, something morally good in itself, because serious morality does not exist without moral commitment. If I could agree that “no moral commitment or standard is entailed by” integrity (Audi and Murphy, 2006 , p 18), I would say that it is because integrity is a moral commitment in itself.

My analysis can be compared to Hary Frankfurt’s account of self-integration when the author describes various levels of volitions and desires: first-level (or first-order), second-level (or second-order) etc. (Frankfurt, 2003 ). Footnote 1 I perceive moral integrity as a last level of moral commitment: the will to morality itself, the desire to be moral. For example, I can refuse to eat highly caloric sweets although my organism has a fleeting desire to do so. This is first-level desire. I have decided to do it due to my sports plan in callisthenics. This is second-level desire. I want to be strong, fit, and healthy. This is my third-level desire. Morality has not started yet. I want to be strong, fit, and healthy because it will help me to be courageous. This is the first step in morality. The fourth-level desire. I want to be courageous to maximize freedom in the world. The fifth-level desire. I want to maximize freedom in the world because I have chosen to be moral. This is the source of any intentionally selected morality: moral commitment, the first-level virtue. The virtue is connected here to the sixth-level desire, but I do not insist that there are only six levels of desire. The description aims to point out similarities and to facilitate understanding of my idea of integrity, not to put forward another new hypothesis.

Definition 5 Organizational formal ethical integrity is a) an institutional, b) relatively permanent, freely chosen and deliberate commitment c) linked to rational moral life in general, d) for the sake of rational morality.

Social institution is “a stable, valued, recurring patterns of behavior” (Huntington, 1965 , p 394); “a complex of positions, roles, norms and values lodged in particular types of social structures and organizing relatively stable patterns of human activity with respect to fundamental problems in producing life-sustaining resources, in reproducing individuals, and in sustaining viable societal structures within a given environment” (Turner, 1997 , p 6) or “(…) an interlocking double-structure of persons-as-role-holders or office-bearers and the like, and of social practices involving both expressive and practical aims and outcomes” (Harre, 1979 , p 98). Organizational integrity is not ephemeral. It must be an institution, something organized around some moral goals.

“Institutional” means that this integrity is a part of social relations, and as such this virtue can be regarded as either interpersonal, shared or collective. Interpersonal interpretations are in accordance with individualistic methodologies, while collective interpretations harmonize with non-individualistic approaches. Some authors believe that moral agency cannot be ascribed to organizations (see, for example, Watkins, 1957 ). Others are convinced that one can legitimately attribute moral agency to organizations (see, for example, Pettit, 2009 ). This second approach indicates that moral agency should be neither ascribed only to individuals according to common sense, nor generally attributed to them. Organizations can be simultaneously unifying and divisive, for example as stratified conglomerates, that may involve class conflicts when various groups have different moral agency and separate responsibilities. For example, from a Marxist point of view, corporate moral agency as a particularly significant version of current institutional agency is sometimes viewed as severely constrained by inter-capitalist competition and class struggle (Nunn, 2012 ). It is also possible to think about distributed, fuzzy agency when integrity is identified as shared but not collective (Polowczyk, 2012 ). This type of integrity is trans-individual and trans-contributive. “Trans-individual” means that the general contribution is not a sum of individual contributions, because there are no absolute borders between individuals and the groups to which they belong. The borders are fuzzy and changeable. “Trans-contributive” means that organizational integrity does not include only real results of activity and passivity but also probable results—expected results are linked to group intentions that belong chiefly to institutional centers of power (Polowczyk, 2012 ).

I’m not going to settle here whether the institution should be described in an interpersonal, shared or collective manner. It is enough to agree that integrity can be institutional, or that institutions can be devoted to moral goals.

Corporate integrity is seen as an especially relevant case of organizational integrity in modern capitalist society. Goodpaster believes that corporations have a mindset, i.e., “habits and practices that are action-guiding and not merely thought-guiding” (Goodpaster, 2007 , p 35). M. T. Brown (Brown, 2005 ) describes different dimensions of corporate integrity: cultural integrity as openness, interpersonal integrity as relational wholeness, organizational integrity as pursuing a worthwhile purpose, social integrity as civic cooperation, environmental integrity as natural prosperity. The question arises whether corporations fall short of this ideal.

According to my definition of OEMI, transnational corporations—when they want to be organizations with ethical integrity (“maximalist organizations”)–should be identified by: (1) institutionalized moral intentions and actions (organizational culture of integrity): integrity as a virtue must be consciously planned, expressed and developed; (2) all institutional structures must be internally related to studied and practised rational morality; (3) real actions devoted to ethical goals ought to be performed in every unit of the organization. We have a great deal of articles and books that have found that these companies do not get very close to this ideal (for example: Bakan, 2005 ; Michalowski and Kramer, 2006 ; Pontell et al., 2007 ; Yunus, 2007 ; Polowczyk, 2013a ).

The standards are high, but moral philosophers often set high standards for persons and low standards for organizations. Corporate Social Responsibility is an example of low requirements that can signify surrender or flattery (Polowczyk, 2013a ).

Definition 6 Organizational material ethical integrity is a) institutional, b) a relatively permanent, freely chosen and deliberate commitment c) linked to rational moral life in general and d) for rational moral sake, and e) it aims to maximize central ethical values, such as freedom, justice, happiness and love.

Organizations supporting freedom should be focused on cherishing and promoting freedom inside and outside of them: any form of institutional tyranny or dictatorship—economic or political—must be eliminated. They should be characterized by institutional concern about freedom, knowledge of freedom, “spiritual exercises” of freedom, and totality of involvement in freedom in every unit, department or subsidiary. One of the interpretations of this requirement determines direct democracy, participatory democracy, and deliberative democracy as necessary conditions for ethical organizations (Polowczyk, 2013b ). The same relates to justice, happiness and love. The organizations which claim to have ethical integrity ought to do their best to get close to their ethical targets, but they do not need to be perfect.

Good and bad counterfeits of integrity

There is not one morality, and there is not one moral integrity as moral commitment, so there are different types of integrity and different types of false integrity. If we do not think that all moralities are equally good, so we must change our evaluations of particular types of moral integrity and false moral integrity. Clear distinction between integrity and false integrity concerns truth and falsity and it does not relate directly to evaluation in some other respects. Evaluation of integrity and false integrity is connected with concepts of coherence, rationality, fundamental values, etc. (see section 'Morality and definitions of integrity').

Typology of false moral integrity

The question of the moral value of fake integrity is the issue of moral value of appearances or illusions. Traditionally false identities were linked to lies, temptations, deceptions, and generally seen as morally reprehensible: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil” ( Matthew, 5, p 37 ) as Jesus of Nazareth put it. In Buddhism the powerful demon Mara is the epitome of deceptive, dark forces that hinder spiritual enlightenment. It is sometimes thought that only bad people or morally wrong activities are connected with illusions. Platonic and Kantian ethics are mostly expounded in this manner. Moreover numerous business authors, when writing of integrity, describe the notion as a sort of naive self-presentation: “We hold honesty and integrity as our guiding principles” or “We are proud of the integrity, sincerity and transparency our employees demonstrate every day” (Ashkenas, 2011 ).

But the interpretation of this tradition is wrong and oversimplified. Jesus of Nazareth hid his identity as he “warned his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Christ” ( Matthew, 16, p 20 ). The Buddhist zen master Hakuin concealed his goodness and lost his reputation to save an abandoned baby (Reps, 1998 : pp 12–13). Sometimes good organizations and good people have to hide their real identities for a cause. Camouflages are created for diverse purposes, morally good, bad or neutral. Let us think of the Polish nurse and social worker, Irena Sendler, a member of the Polish Underground in German-occupied Poland. Under the pretext of carrying out sanitary inspections within the Warsaw Ghetto, she and her group (the children’s section of Żegota) smuggled out and saved 2500 Jewish children. To help the most powerless victims of Nazism, she assumed the nom de guerre “Jolanta” and provided them with false identity documents (Zimmerman, 2015 : p 304, p 415). Falsehood can be “a moment of truth”. Irena Sendler counterfeited an obedient slave. She simulated a variety of slave morality against their overlords in an act of “moral aikido”. Camouflage can be ethically good if misleading appearances can minimize suffering, slavery, injustice and hatred, and maximize happiness, freedom, justice and love.

False (counterfeit) integrity is a set of features that simulate integrity but they do not form integrity. False integrity is not a simulation of particular behaviors, emotions, desires or beliefs. One moral behavior is not equivalent to a relatively permanent and consistent moral commitment, and one fake moral behavior is not a sort of false integrity. If emotions, beliefs, desires, actions, behaviors do not form a practical, perceivable moral system, and do not point towards a general moral attitude, they are not counterfeits of a moral commitment. False integrity imitates a first-level virtue and the highest-order volitions, something that holds them together and that is expressed by them.

Pseudo-integrity is false integrity in symbolic respect: in descriptions as a language illusion or in a wider sense as a symbolic illusion in paintings, sculptures, murals, soundtracks, films, websites etc. False OMR without deluding symbolic representations seem to be rare, because symbols are usually able to reinforce desirable results. Fake moral integrity is the camouflage made of invisibility, incomprehensibility, and illusions. The camouflage helps organizations or systems to survive and achieve their goals.

These characteristics do not clinch whether the features are deliberately or incidentally produced as pretense. Let us imagine someone whose whim was to offer 100$ to a beggar. People may perceive the person as a man of integrity when he keeps doing this. What if he always kills the beggar afterwards and nobody knows of that? Let us assume that the killer does not want to pretend. Thus “the integrity” is really false but the phenomenon seems to be true “in the eye of beholder”.

We can distinguish between intentional false integrity and incidental false integrity . It is about an agent’s intentions or lack of intention. The division does not concern the observer or the interpreter. The observer and the interpreter are captured in the difference between effective false integrity and ineffective false integrity.

Effective false integrity is false integrity perceived as true integrity by some subjects. The illusion is active, successful and victorious. Somebody has been trapped. Slaves supporting “a good slave owner”, bondsmen admiring “merciful” feudal lords, strikebreakers causing harm to their social class, or hostages defending their captors in the classical Stockholm syndrome case belong to this category. Effective false integrity is a type of wrong perception and misunderstanding. This erroneous recognition is more or less pernicious to the interpreter. Ineffective false integrity is an unsuccessful, futile, vain illusion. Nobody sees it as reality. The phenomenon is imperceptible or someone sees through it.

George Orwell describes the totalitarian social system in which borders between integrity and counterfeit integrity are “deconstructed”: “War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength” (Orwell, 2013 ). “ Integrity 1984 ” is a sophisticated type of counterfeit integrity that enables destruction of concepts, minds and lives from within. Like a bacteriophage changing its victim’s DNA, integrity 1984 transforms not just single concepts, but the whole symbolic system. The attacked bacterium has become one of “the living dead”. The seeming identity with old notions is just a face of the dead worn by the murderer. But the stratagem is more treacherous because the new identity contains somehow the old identity. Behind the mask hides the new man who is his mask.

The following types of false moral integrity are directly contingent on definitional properties of ethical integrity. I call them fundamental types of false integrity. Counterfeit integrity lacks rationality, truth, permanence or generality.

Irrational false integrity means that persons or organizations intend to be morally good but they do not conduct any scientific or philosophical research and do not use experience or reasoning to find out about the best possible ethical principles and rules. Irrational false integrity can be divided into irrational false moral integrity and irrational false ethical integrity . The first is related to an almost totally irrational attitude to moral principles and rules, linked to blind obedience to authorities, dogmas, superstitions, whims, impulses etc. The approach is uncritical, unquestioning, below the level of quasi-rationality of theological deliberations. The second simulates significance of rationality, produces deductions and inductions, performs experiments, and makes observations to conceal its dogmatism, reasoning-resistance, and wishful thinking. Its representatives know in advance what conclusions have to be drawn, and what theses should be refused.

Show integrity is the false integrity based in false commitment. In this case moral commitment is just a show, illusion, “magical trick”. Moral actions are not taken and they are replaced by means of PR, propaganda, myths or actions which are taken without moral intentions to gain power, profits, favors, land etc. Organizations with profit-oriented hierarchy of values fake their moral commitment by means of attractive websites, advertising campaigns, CSR departments, hyped charity but actually money is their god—they buy the public with “moral currency”.

Ephemeral integrity is a temporary moral commitment, e.g., during an inspection. The feature cannot be a virtue because virtues require relatively permanent commitment. Ephemeral integrity is either unsuccessful virtue or show virtue.

Local integrity is spatially or geographically limited commitment, e.g., to one department, one branch, one subsidiary etc. Real moral integrity needs the whole person or organization to be morally involved. Counterfeit integrity produces moral façades.

False integrity as incoherence encompasses three forms: unnecessary incoherence between declarations and practices, incoherence between moral norms, incoherence between moral ends and means.

Incoherence between declarations and practices should not be reduced to hypocrisy. In hypocrisy as an example of unnecessary incoherence between declarations and practices moral wrong puts on the mask of rigorous morality, in case of necessary incoherence between declarations and practices, moral good disguises itself as passivity, ignorance, or other forms of acceptance of a bad situation in order to defend good or defeat evil.

Incoherence between moral ends and means concerns the incoherence between moral norms of higher and lower order, e.g., incompatibility between moral principles and moral rules. It can be exemplified by the thesis that the end justifies the means, that the moral end justifies the immoral means. e.g., introducing paradise on earth by infernal methods: torture, execution etc. But this is not the only case. Immoral purposes can be justified by moral practices. Malevolent dictators and greedy corporations are able to do praiseworthy deeds to “buy” their position in the state or on the market. Building motorways or sending computers to Africa may be a method: the motorways are meant to serve the army and the computers are just a toxic e-waste.

False OMR can adopt various strategies depending on the three variables— symbolic presentation , minor (superficial, secondary) activities , major (core, primary) activities . Three of them seem to be prevalent: “the empty symbols strategy”, “the hidden-core strategy”, “Sendler’s strategy”.

“ The empty symbols strategy ” is a typical pure propaganda strategy—reality behind symbols does not exist: organizations are not involved in any morally good actions, neither in core activities nor in superficial ones, but they propagate their morally glorious image to achieve their goals. Institutions make use of public relations techniques, political propaganda, advertising campaigns, “artificial worlds” of branding, hollow promises, brainwashing etc.

According to the Gospel of Matthew 23,27, Jesus of Nazareth said “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness”. “ Whitewashed tombs strategy ” or “ The hidden-core strategy ” means that primary bad activities are imperceptible “behind the curtain” of secondary good activities of the organization.

In “ Sendler’s strategy ” false self-description or other symbolic misrepresentation is combined with superficially wrong behaviors. Superficial manifestation of anti-values, seeming cooperation with moral wrong or moral evil in order to weaken it, outwit it, defeat it, and to reinforce the disadvantaged, the poor, the needy, to rescue its victims, is equivalent to becoming a noble warrior of illusions. Irena Sendler is an exemplar of this kind of strategy. Her cooperation with the Nazis in minor matters was just a cover for good core activities: saving human lives from exceptional bestiality. Like a master of aikido, she used energy of a Nazi institution—its permits and possibilities—against it.

The empty symbols strategy and the whitewashed tombs strategy are examples of false ethical integrity—their agents want to pass for representatives of good or the best morality, e.g., “master morality” or overrated common sense morality, but actually they personify degenerate morality, something irrational, full of hatred, injustice or misery. The Sendler’s strategy is an expression of genuine ethical integrity although simultaneously the ethical magic presents itself as bad morality in its outer layer.

This part is crucial. I argue here that illusions of integrity have no single ethical value. Their assessments vary greatly in detail. Some of them are morally reprehensible, others are relatively neutral or even praiseworthy.

Bad illusions

Bad false moral integrity is one of the most dangerous and powerful phenomena playing a leading and sinister role in the history of the human race. Ethics should devote more effort to exposing and defeating the underrated combat camouflage of false integrity. False moral integrity as an ideological weapon should be much more recognizable than it is. Ethics, business ethics and political philosophy need sensitive instruments to combat moral counterfeits.

When rational morality is feigned to offer an excuse to kill, when justice, love, freedom and happiness are faked to control, enslave, and torture, that form of integrity has to be wrong or evil. It is not about bad morality or amorality that presents its essence in an easy, straightforward manner, but the problem relates to bad morality or amorality depicted as if it was good morality or rational morality.

Counterfeits integrity can exist in every domain of society. Stalinism is an extreme and bloody version of false ethical integrity on organizational and systemic levels. This ideology was a call to action in the name of science (rational society), freedom (liberation of the working class), justice (rejecting unjust capitalist relations of production), happiness (for workers), and care (non-capitalist welfare state). The conceptual apparatus of Stalinism was “infected” in a similar way to Orwell’s Oceania with its English Socialism, Ministry of Plenty, Ministry of Truth, and Ministry of Love (Orwell, 2013 ). Critical thinking was replaced by an obligatory unquestioning attitude, liberation proved to be slavery, “happiness” meant “overworking” or “heroic death” for Stalin, care had one fundamental, excluding subject—God-Stalin.

The Stalinist system and its institutions were involved in ethical goals irrationally (dogmatically) and falsely. Incompatibility between their lofty declarations and despicable practises was enormous. Analogously there was incoherence between their pseudo-main principles (“You shall liberate the working class” etc.) and their practical rules and directives (kill the members of the working class if they do not obey), as well as incompatibility between moral ends and means, e.g., introducing paradise on earth by infernal methods: torture, famine, murder, genocide. On top of that, Stalinism was deeply anti-Marxist and its existence was the most effective method of subjugating the working class and rejecting real Marxism (Chomsky, 1986 ).

Although nowadays Stalinism is an easy target for liberal criticism, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) still needs to be argued over. Numerous critical authors, such as M. Albert, J. Bakan, N. Chomsky, S.B. Banerjee. G. Aras, D. Crowther, A.C. Fernando, E. Chiapello, S. Žižek, M.Yunus, have put forward a great deal of strong arguments against transnational corporations and CSR.

According to M. Yunus CSR forms two basic types (Yunus, 2007 ): weak and strong CSR. The weak follows the principle: “Do not harm to people or the planet (unless that means sacrificing profit)” (Yunus, 2007 , p 15). The strong version prefers a more positive attitude: “Do good for people and the planet (as long as you can do so without sacrificing profit) (Yunus, 2007 , p 15). If this is an adequate description of CSR companies, the problem with corporate “integrity” is that corporations treat moral commitment as a means not as an end . “The virtue” is often regarded as a method of earning money by corporate centers of power: “the effort should be profitable in the judgment of senior leadership. The guiding principle is that a good corporate responsibility strategy is about how to make money, not give it away” (Jerome and Kleinbaum, 2012 ). Pseudo-integrity related to CSR is not freely chosen as a moral obligation but enforced by law, PR requirements, branding, market competition etc. This attitude violates my definitional condition of ethical integrity: morality for moral sake (See Definition2 and its explanation). “Of course, CSR is not always imposed by law, but that does not make it ethically optional in the sense of not obligatory. Ethics knows no optional obligations. CSR apparently does. That is a substantial difference. Motivation also becomes shallower in the transition from ethics to CSR” (van Luijk, 2011 , p 8). CSR seems to be a part of business interests rather than a component of an ethical commitment.

In many cases “integrity” of CSR companies is fragmentary —one department, one activity, a few employees are regarded as a proper expression of moral commitment (Polowczyk, 2013a ), but actually rational moral commitment is always total (see Definition 1 and its explanation). Microsoft has its own CSR policies: “At Microsoft, our policies and business practices reflect a commitment to making our planet a better place” (Microsoft, https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/about/corporate-responsibility ), and the company was ranked number one in CSR in 2013 (Reputation Institute, https://www.reputationinstitute.com/Resources/Registered/PDF-Resources/The-2013-CSR-RepTrak%C2%AE-100-Study-Results.aspx ), but the company is repeatedly accused of spying on their customers and violating their privacy: “Windows snoops on users, shackles users and, on mobiles, censors apps; it also has a universal back door that allows Microsoft to remotely impose software changes. Microsoft sabotages Windows users by showing security holes to the NSA before fixing them“ (Stallman, 2015 ). In other words: Microsoft software is a sort of malware. If it is true, moral commitment of one of the greatest CSR companies is at best fragmentary.

“Integrity” of CSR companies can be incoherent due to their morally self-contradictory activities—their show virtues and hidden vices. Many well-known transnational corporations have CSR policies and at the same time they are in the reports and books on immoral corporate practices or corporate crimes. For example, “socially responsible” Citibank was forced by The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to pay “$700 million in consumer relief for illegal credit card practices” (CFBP: https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-orders-citibank-to-pay-700-million-in-consumer-relief-for-illegal-credit-card-practices/ ). One of the most “satanic” scenarios happens when “the same company that devotes a penny to CSR spends 99 cents on moneymaking that make social problems worse” (Yunus, 2007 : 16). Their mindset seems to be similar to this: “Make as much money as you can, even if you exploit the poor to do so—but then donate a tiny portion of the profits for social causes or create a foundation to do things that will promote your business interest” (Yunus, 2007 , p 16). This strategy enables companies to create an excellent corporate image while doing very little (Aras and Crowther, 2010 ). Corporate Social Responsibility can be a part of a corporate Janus face.

Corporate “integrity” is at least partially irrational. Ethical commitment entails serious study of practical and applied ethics (see Definition 2 and its explanation). Organizations need not be universities but they ought to systematically devote a certain amount of time to honing their moral life if they are really interested in morality. Theoretical knowledge and moral exercises are methods to strive after moral perfection. CSR companies rather fall short of this ideal. Although some companies teach business ethics, it does not mean that they are ethically committed. It is difficult to find any company whose members regularly study and practice rational morality.

This is not an exposition of arguments against “corporate integrity” and CSR, but just several instances of the systemic critical potential of the concept of material ethical integrity. It means that it is probably not necessary to reach for higher level virtues and more complex theories to undermine CSR organizations.

In general, if states or transnational corporations simulate ethical commitment, they choose effective and detrimental methods of propaganda. The type of camouflage is frequently offensive and aggressive: it aims to weaken or destroy other states and competitors, to subjugate people, to wipe out trade unions, to exploit labor etc. Counterfeits of ethical integrity are always ethically reprehensible, because they imitate moral good to bolster moral wrong or evil . The delusions are especially powerful and misleading if they are institutional or systemic rather than individual. In moral terms, fake integrity “wreaks havoc” by seduction and is one of the most powerful ways to spread slavery, injustice, misery and callousness on the planet. Instead of individual, malicious, psychopathic seducer, we see institutional or systemic “vampires”, smiling, charming, lethal, living “whitewashed tombs”.

Good illusions

Counterfeit integrity can be either ethically good or bad. Everything depends on the quality of accepted morality. The premise of the reasoning—that one should not treat every moral system as equally valuable (see 1) - belongs to the tradition of normative perspective on morality.

Bad versions of morality help to deceive and enslave humans, make them unhappy, as well as steal their lands, resources, time, health or life, e.g., the moral camouflage of sweatshop owners or Jihadists. Good versions undermine or dismantle bad situations or systems, e.g., the moral camouflage of human rights organizations or ethical-political groups, like early “Solidarity” in Poland or contemporary hacktivists.

Ethical integrity does not demand naive, irrational self-presentation: telling the truth to anybody, anywhere in any circumstances, on any condition whatever the price may be. Misleading self-presentation can be an expression of integrity because ethical integrity does not exclude stratagems, delusions, smoke screens etc. The ethical strategy entails truthfulness at least in certain respects, and do not stand in contradiction to hiding the truth in other respects—when “dishonesty” is able to gain freedom, do justice or save life.

Ethical self-presentation does not require full transparency or a naive kind of sincerity in every situation. However, ethical self-presentation excludes: (1) self-deception because ethical agents ought to have self-consciousness and make self-assessment in moral matters; and (2) true self-presentation that leads to unnecessary suffering and death, or to injustice and slavery. Ethical self-presentation demands: (1) true presentation to recognized ethical community, e.g., members of the resistance movement; (2) true presentation to opponents and enemies if the presentation may minimize moral wrong.

The idea of crystal-man or crystal-organization as a totally transparent unit in every circumstance seems to be attractive, but crystals can be easily broken if they are not in a heaven or in a just society of the (im)possible future. Camouflage, appearances, simulacra, stratagems can be ethically good in hostile, corrupt environments when slavery, serfdom, racism, exploitation of labor is regarded as permissible or even desirable. The conclusion is that they are in many cases more or less ethically needful but not always inescapable. They are not moral ends—they are just moral means.

Fake formal OMI is possible and morally good when: (1) agents and institutions imitate an external side of bad morality (symbols, language etc.) to survive or to help the persecuted, but any essence of bad morality cannot be adopted; (2) they pretend to accept passivity but the real activity is a fight against the system, especially if the structure of society is linked to suffering, distress and death.

Integrity freed of illusions is a product of a sloppy thinking or a method of enslaving others by knowing their secrets and weaknesses. The man of integrity must be at least occasionally a man of illusions, an ethical prestidigitator. Noble lies are tools of care, justice and well-being. If Big Brother is watching, counterfeits of Maoist morality or other harmful morals serve as the proper tactics to undermine his power. Camouflaging oneself as a Christian in the hell of the Holy Inquisition, pretending to be a Muslim in the abyss the Islamic State can be correct ethical responses to an “infernal” environment.

Conclusions

I have established the concept of organizational material ethical integrity (OMEI) as an ideal or maximalist sort of integrity for organizations. OMEI is an institutional, relatively permanent, freely chosen and deliberate commitment to rational moral life in general and for rational moral sake, as well as having the aims of maximizing central ethical values, such as freedom, justice, happiness and love. If we use the ideal of OMEI and compare it to integrity of many self-proclaimed ethical organizations, both their declarations and practices seem to be quite far away from rational moral commitment. Neither CSR institutions, nor social businesses are ethically committed in this way.

In practical terms, OMEI requires from business institutions far more than common CSR practices: their members ought to study rational ethics—profits or power should not be their main purposes, maximization of ethical values must be their fundamental purpose in every activity, every department, every subsidiary, every day. In other words, OMEI organizations, have to resemble philosophical schools but still remain focussed on their specific practices, e.g., economic, politic or medical.

OMEI resembles the idea of social business: the organization must be cause-driven, but it concerns any kind of institution, political, cultural etc. Unlike social business, the OMEI organizations is focused on improvement of the rational moral life of its members: studying and exercising rational morality. This highly ambitious ideal may not be realistic in current capitalist society, and if so, it may be a call for a change of the social system, for a construction of a more ethical world.

I distinguish the following types of false moral integrity: pseudo-integrity, intentional false integrity, incidental false integrity, effective false integrity, ineffective false integrity, integrity 1984, irrational false moral integrity and irrational false ethical integrity, show integrity, ephemeral integrity, local integrity, false integrity as incoherence, false integrity as “The empty symbols strategy”, false integrity as “Whitewashed tombs strategy”, false integrity as “Sendler’s strategy”. They may be helpful in practical identification of diverse varieties of falsehood in moral life because they offer more complicated bases for moral assessments instead of oversimplified divisions into always good true integrity and always bad false integrity.

Ethical integrity is not naive sincerity. Naive sincerity puts morally committed persons at risk of harassment, torture or death. Camouflage can be ethically good if a misleading appearance can minimize suffering, slavery, injustice and hatred, and maximize happiness, freedom, justice and love. The concept gives ethical justification for tools of self-defense and counter-attack under bad circumstances: masks, mirage, simulacra, smokescreens, covers, false identities etc. I do not think here about faking particular activities, behaviors, actions or emotions. If you imitate specific behaviors, somebody can recognize that the behaviors do not form a system, so they do not express a general attitude, something more fundamental, your moral commitment—so you are suspect or dead.

Counterfeit ethical integrity is always ethically bad because when somebody simulates secondary features of a good morality without applying its essential qualities, it is a kind of bad morality and it can be used as destructive camouflage against individuals and organizations. This is a strategy used by oppressive organizations.

Sometimes the oppressed or rebels need “counter-illusions”. Counterfeit moral integrity can be ethically good if it simulates bad morality for a good purpose. The simulation does not concern any fundamental principles of bad morality. Misleading appearances imitate symbolic and less ethically wrong features of bad morality. It opens possibilities for ethical prestidigitators either on individual (Irena Sendler) or organizational levels (Żegota).

The consciousness that creating illusions, even very general illusions, is not in contradiction with moral integrity, and that it is its possible component, can not only be helpful but also liberating for individuals and organizations. Ethically committed members of resistance movements, revolutionaries, whistleblowers or hackivists may find additional justifications for their risky, courageous, and cause-driven activities.

Data availability

Data sharing is not applicable to this paper as no datasets were generated or analysed.

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• What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

What Is Critical Thinking? | Definition & Examples

Published on May 30, 2022 by Eoghan Ryan . Revised on May 31, 2023.

Critical thinking is the ability to effectively analyze information and form a judgment .

To think critically, you must be aware of your own biases and assumptions when encountering information, and apply consistent standards when evaluating sources .

Critical thinking skills help you to:

• Identify credible sources
• Evaluate and respond to arguments
• Assess alternative viewpoints
• Test hypotheses against relevant criteria

Table of contents

Why is critical thinking important, critical thinking examples, how to think critically, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about critical thinking.

Critical thinking is important for making judgments about sources of information and forming your own arguments. It emphasizes a rational, objective, and self-aware approach that can help you to identify credible sources and strengthen your conclusions.

Critical thinking is important in all disciplines and throughout all stages of the research process . The types of evidence used in the sciences and in the humanities may differ, but critical thinking skills are relevant to both.

In academic writing , critical thinking can help you to determine whether a source:

• Is free from research bias
• Provides evidence to support its research findings
• Considers alternative viewpoints

Outside of academia, critical thinking goes hand in hand with information literacy to help you form opinions rationally and engage independently and critically with popular media.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Critical thinking can help you to identify reliable sources of information that you can cite in your research paper . It can also guide your own research methods and inform your own arguments.

Outside of academia, critical thinking can help you to be aware of both your own and others’ biases and assumptions.

Academic examples

However, when you compare the findings of the study with other current research, you determine that the results seem improbable. You analyze the paper again, consulting the sources it cites.

You notice that the research was funded by the pharmaceutical company that created the treatment. Because of this, you view its results skeptically and determine that more independent research is necessary to confirm or refute them. Example: Poor critical thinking in an academic context You’re researching a paper on the impact wireless technology has had on developing countries that previously did not have large-scale communications infrastructure. You read an article that seems to confirm your hypothesis: the impact is mainly positive. Rather than evaluating the research methodology, you accept the findings uncritically.

Nonacademic examples

However, you decide to compare this review article with consumer reviews on a different site. You find that these reviews are not as positive. Some customers have had problems installing the alarm, and some have noted that it activates for no apparent reason.

You revisit the original review article. You notice that the words “sponsored content” appear in small print under the article title. Based on this, you conclude that the review is advertising and is therefore not an unbiased source. Example: Poor critical thinking in a nonacademic context You support a candidate in an upcoming election. You visit an online news site affiliated with their political party and read an article that criticizes their opponent. The article claims that the opponent is inexperienced in politics. You accept this without evidence, because it fits your preconceptions about the opponent.

There is no single way to think critically. How you engage with information will depend on the type of source you’re using and the information you need.

However, you can engage with sources in a systematic and critical way by asking certain questions when you encounter information. Like the CRAAP test , these questions focus on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

When encountering information, ask:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert in their field?
• What do they say? Is their argument clear? Can you summarize it?
• When did they say this? Is the source current?
• Where is the information published? Is it an academic article? Is it peer-reviewed ?
• Why did the author publish it? What is their motivation?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence? Does it rely on opinion, speculation, or appeals to emotion ? Do they address alternative arguments?

Critical thinking also involves being aware of your own biases, not only those of others. When you make an argument or draw your own conclusions, you can ask similar questions about your own writing:

• Am I only considering evidence that supports my preconceptions?
• Is my argument expressed clearly and backed up with credible sources?
• Would I be convinced by this argument coming from someone else?

If you want to know more about ChatGPT, AI tools , citation , and plagiarism , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Critical thinking refers to the ability to evaluate information and to be aware of biases or assumptions, including your own.

Like information literacy , it involves evaluating arguments, identifying and solving problems in an objective and systematic way, and clearly communicating your ideas.

Critical thinking skills include the ability to:

You can assess information and arguments critically by asking certain questions about the source. You can use the CRAAP test , focusing on the currency , relevance , authority , accuracy , and purpose of a source of information.

Ask questions such as:

• Who is the author? Are they an expert?
• How do they make their argument? Is it backed up by evidence?

A credible source should pass the CRAAP test  and follow these guidelines:

• The information should be up to date and current.
• The author and publication should be a trusted authority on the subject you are researching.
• The sources the author cited should be easy to find, clear, and unbiased.
• For a web source, the URL and layout should signify that it is trustworthy.

Information literacy refers to a broad range of skills, including the ability to find, evaluate, and use sources of information effectively.

Being information literate means that you:

• Know how to find credible sources
• Use relevant sources to inform your research
• Understand what constitutes plagiarism
• Know how to cite your sources correctly

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search, interpret, and recall information in a way that aligns with our pre-existing values, opinions, or beliefs. It refers to the ability to recollect information best when it amplifies what we already believe. Relatedly, we tend to forget information that contradicts our opinions.

Although selective recall is a component of confirmation bias, it should not be confused with recall bias.

On the other hand, recall bias refers to the differences in the ability between study participants to recall past events when self-reporting is used. This difference in accuracy or completeness of recollection is not related to beliefs or opinions. Rather, recall bias relates to other factors, such as the length of the recall period, age, and the characteristics of the disease under investigation.

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Critical thinking leads to integrity, confidence, and wisdom

Zoe Weil is a blogger for Psychology Today , and we share her blog posts here.

When I teach, I often begin my classes by telling students not to believe me. They’re usually surprised by this. It’s uncommon for teachers to discourage their students from believing what they say. What would be the point of schools and universities if teachers weren’t reliable sources of knowledge?

It’s not that I want my students to distrust me. Rather, I want them to be able to distinguish fact from opinion and to be dedicated to ascertaining the validity of any statements or statistics they hear, watch, or read.

This is no easy task. How can any of us know whether the information we’re exposed to is accurate?

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15 Attitudes of Critical Thinking in Nursing (Explained W/ Examples)

Last updated on August 19th, 2023

Critical thinking is a powerful tool that nurses use to make informed decisions, provide top-notch care, and untangle complex problems.

Think of it as a toolbox filled with skills that let nurses dig deeper, understand better, and think smarter.

In this article, we’re going to explore the 15 super-important attitudes of critical thinking in nursing .

Each attitude is like a special key that helps nurses unlock the best care for their patients. Let’s dive in and learn about each attitude.

How To Improve Critical Thinking Skills In Nursing? 24 Strategies With Examples

15 Attitudes of Critical Thinking in Nursing

1. Independence

Independence is like thinking for yourself and making your own choices. Imagine you’re deciding what book to read, and you pick one that interests you, not just what others like – that’s being independent.

In nursing, independence means using your own judgment to provide the best care.

For, example, consider Rachel, a nurse, who considers various options to treat a patient’s pain, not just following what others do. Rachel’s independence helps her find solutions tailored to each patient’s needs.

 Just like choosing your own book, independent nurses think critically and make decisions based on what’s best for their patients.

2. Confidence

Confidence is like believing in yourself and your abilities, even when faced with challenges. Imagine you’re trying a new activity, and you trust that you can learn and do well – that’s having confidence.

In nursing, confidence means having faith in your skills and judgment to provide excellent care. Example: For instance, think of Ava, a nurse, who remains composed when a patient’s condition suddenly worsens.

She knows she can handle the situation because of her training and experience. Ava’s confidence allows her to make quick and effective decisions during critical moments.

Just like trusting yourself in a new activity, confident nurses trust their expertise to deliver top-notch care to their patients.

3. Fair-Mindedness

Fair-mindedness is like treating everyone equally and making judgments based on facts, not personal feelings. Imagine you’re playing a game, and you give every player the same chance to win – that’s being fair-minded.

In nursing, fair-mindedness means being impartial and considering all viewpoints without bias.

For example, picture Liam, a nurse, who listens to both the patient and the family when making a decision about treatment.

He doesn’t let his own opinions influence his judgment. Liam’s fair-mindedness ensures that he provides balanced and patient-focused care.

Just like being fair in a game, fair-minded nurses make decisions that are just and unbiased, promoting the best outcomes for their patients.

4. Insight into Personal Biases

Insight into personal biases is like looking at yourself from the outside to see if your own feelings might affect your decisions. Imagine you have a favorite color, and you realize you tend to choose things in that color even if other options might be better – that’s being aware of your bias.

In nursing, insight into personal biases means being mindful of your own preferences and not letting them cloud your judgment.

For instance, think of Maya, a nurse, who knows she might prefer a particular treatment because it worked for her family member.

However, she steps back and considers what’s truly best for her patient’s situation. Maya’s insight helps her provide care that’s unbiased and patient-centered.

Just like being aware of your color preference, insight into personal biases helps nurses make decisions that are based on what’s right for their patients, not influenced by their own feelings.

5. Intellectual Humility

Intellectual humility is like knowing that you don’t have all the answers and being open to learning from others. Imagine you’re playing a video game, and you ask a friend for tips because they’re better at it – that’s being humble about your skills.

In nursing, intellectual humility means recognizing that you can always learn more and considering others’ expertise.

Picture James, a nurse, who seeks advice from experienced colleagues when faced with a complex case.

He knows that learning from others can lead to better patient care. James’s intellectual humility helps him grow as a nurse and keeps him open to new perspectives.

Just like seeking gaming tips, intellectual humility encourages nurses to value knowledge from various sources and continuously improve their practice.

6. Intellectual Courage to Challenge the Norms

Intellectual courage to challenge the norms is like having the bravery to question things that everyone believes are true. Imagine you’re playing a game with your friends, and everyone agrees on the rules – but you speak up and suggest a new way to play.

In nursing, intellectual courage means daring to question established practices and seeking innovative solutions.

For instance, think of Sarah, a nurse, who notices that a routine procedure might be improved for patient comfort.

Instead of staying silent, she speaks up and proposes a change, backed by research and careful thought. Sarah’s intellectual courage drives her to challenge the status quo for the sake of better patient care.

Just like suggesting a new game rule, nurses with this attitude challenge norms to advance healthcare practices and outcomes.

7. Integrity

Integrity is like being honest and doing the right thing, even when nobody’s watching. Imagine finding a lost wallet on the street – instead of keeping it, you return it to its owner because it’s the right thing to do.

In nursing, integrity means always acting ethically and responsibly, even in challenging situations.

Picture Emma, a nurse, who follows protocols and makes decisions based on what’s best for her patients, not personal gain.

 Emma’s integrity shines when she prioritizes honesty, fairness, and patient well-being in every action she takes.

Just like returning that wallet, integrity is a nurse’s commitment to uphold high moral standards and maintain the trust placed in them by patients and their families.

8. Perseverance

Perseverance is like having a never-give-up attitude, even when things get tough. Imagine you’re trying to solve a challenging puzzle – even if it takes time and effort, you keep going until you find the solution.

In nursing, perseverance means facing obstacles and difficulties head-on without giving up.

For example, consider Mark, a nurse, who’s dealing with a complex patient case. Despite encountering roadblocks and uncertainties, Mark doesn’t lose hope.

He keeps researching, consulting colleagues, and trying different approaches until he finds the right solution for his patient.

Just like working through a tough puzzle, perseverance empowers nurses to keep pushing forward and find the answers that lead to the best care outcomes.

9. Curiosity

Curiosity is like having a hunger for knowledge that never goes away. Imagine you’re exploring a new place, and every corner seems to hide something interesting – you want to know what’s around the next bend.

In nursing, curiosity means having a strong desire to learn and discover.

Picture Anna, a nurse, who’s always asking questions like “Why?” and “How?” She’s not content with just knowing the basics; she wants to dive deeper and understand the “whys” behind patient conditions and treatments.

Anna’s curiosity drives her to stay updated with the latest research and innovative methods. Just like an explorer seeking new horizons, curious nurses seek new ways to provide better care for their patients.

10. Open-Mindedness

Open-mindedness is like having a door in your mind that’s always ready to welcome new ideas. Imagine you’re reading a book, and suddenly you come across a different way of thinking – instead of dismissing it, you consider it with interest.

In nursing, open-mindedness means being willing to listen to various viewpoints and explore different approaches.

For instance, think of Rachel, a nurse, who’s used to a specific way of treating wounds. But when a colleague suggests a new method, Rachel doesn’t shut the idea down.

Instead, she’s open to trying it out and seeing if it might work better for her patients. Just like being curious about new stories, open-minded nurses are curious about new ways to improve patient care.

11. Skepticism

Skepticism is like being a curious investigator who asks questions to make sure things are true. Imagine you hear about a magical potion that promises to make you fly – you might be skeptical and ask, “Is that really possible?”

In nursing, skepticism means not accepting things blindly but investigating to find the truth.

Picture Sarah, a nurse, who reads about a new treatment for pain relief. Instead of immediately believing it, she looks for evidence and checks if other experts agree.

Sarah’s skepticism helps her make sure that the treatments she uses are safe and effective for her patients.

Just like asking questions about that magical potion, nurses use skepticism to make informed decisions based on facts.

12. Reflective Thinking

Reflective thinking is like looking back at your day and thinking about what went well and what you could improve. Imagine you finished playing a game and you think about how you did – that’s reflective thinking!

In nursing, it’s when nurses take a moment to think about their actions, decisions, and interactions with patients.

For example, let’s say Jessica, a nurse, had a challenging day where she had to juggle multiple tasks. At the end of her shift, she takes a few minutes to reflect.

She thinks about what she did right, like comforting a worried patient, and what she could do better, like managing her time more efficiently.

This reflection helps Jessica learn from her experiences and become an even better nurse.

Just like looking in a mirror to see yourself, reflective thinking helps nurses see their actions and grow from them.

13. Logical Reasoning

Logical reasoning is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle to see the bigger picture. It’s about thinking step by step to reach a smart conclusion.

Imagine you have a math problem to solve. You start with the information you know and use logical steps to find the answer.

Similarly, nurses use logical reasoning to understand their patients’ situations

Let’s say Emily, a nurse, has a patient with a high fever and a sore throat. She gathers information about the symptoms, asks questions, and puts all the clues together.

By using logical steps, Emily figures out that the patient might have a throat infection and can recommend the right treatment.

Just like solving a puzzle, logical reasoning helps nurses connect the dots and make decisions that make sense for their patient’s health.

14. Evidence-Based Decision Making

Evidence-based decision-making is like being a detective who gathers clues before solving a mystery.

For instance, imagine Alex, a nurse, who wants to find the best way to help patients with diabetes manage their blood sugar levels.

Instead of guessing, he reads research studies and talks to experts in the field. Alex uses the facts he collects to choose treatments that are proven to work.

Just like a detective uses evidence to solve a case, Alex uses evidence to make informed decisions that lead to better patient outcomes.

15. Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is like being a detective on a mission. Think of it like when you have to figure out how to fix a broken toy.

For instance, Linda, a nurse, faces a challenge when a patient’s pain medication isn’t working well. Instead of giving up, she gathers information, talks to the patient, and works with the medical team to find a better solution.

Linda’s problem-solving skills help her piece together the right treatment plan, just like solving a tricky puzzle.

• What is Critical Thinking in Nursing? (Explained W/ Examples)
• What is the “5 Whys” Technique?
• What Are Socratic Questions?
• Clinical Reasoning In Nursing (Explained W/ Example)
• 8 Stages Of The Clinical Reasoning Cycle

Critical thinking is a powerful tool that nurses use every day. These 15 attitudes are like a treasure map that guides nurses through the world of healthcare.

From being independent thinkers to having the courage to challenge norms, these attitudes help nurses provide the best care possible.

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Critical thinking definition

Critical thinking, as described by Oxford Languages, is the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement.

Active and skillful approach, evaluation, assessment, synthesis, and/or evaluation of information obtained from, or made by, observation, knowledge, reflection, acumen or conversation, as a guide to belief and action, requires the critical thinking process, which is why it's often used in education and academics.

Some even may view it as a backbone of modern thought.

However, it's a skill, and skills must be trained and encouraged to be used at its full potential.

People turn up to various approaches in improving their critical thinking, like:

• Developing technical and problem-solving skills
• Engaging in more active listening
• Actively questioning their assumptions and beliefs
• Seeking out more diversity of thought
• Opening up their curiosity in an intellectual way etc.

Is critical thinking useful in writing?

Critical thinking can help in planning your paper and making it more concise, but it's not obvious at first. We carefully pinpointed some the questions you should ask yourself when boosting critical thinking in writing:

• What information should be included?
• Which information resources should the author look to?
• What degree of technical knowledge should the report assume its audience has?
• What is the most effective way to show information?
• How should the report be organized?
• How should it be designed?
• What tone and level of language difficulty should the document have?

Usage of critical thinking comes down not only to the outline of your paper, it also begs the question: How can we use critical thinking solving problems in our writing's topic?

Let's say, you have a Powerpoint on how critical thinking can reduce poverty in the United States. You'll primarily have to define critical thinking for the viewers, as well as use a lot of critical thinking questions and synonyms to get them to be familiar with your methods and start the thinking process behind it.

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