Example presented by Stephen L. Carter about telling everything we know in the essay “The Insufficiency of Honesty”, seems really interesting to me. Carter’s definition of integrity consists of: discerning what is right and what is wrong; acting on what you have discerned, even at personal cost; and saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right and wrong. (1) Among all, acting on detected right thing and forgoing the consequences seems like the true test of integrity.
In her example, she tells that a man unfaithful to his wife all his life; confessing her at her deathbed is not considered to be an honest person. He had already lost his integrity when he decides to hide the matter. Here he is worried about the consequences but at the end of his wife’s life he had nothing to be worried as she was about to die. Judging from the cover he is telling truth but the blind spot of truth has always been there, his entire life. I do agree with Carter that he was just trying to ease his burden by telling truth at the moment when there was no risk. If he would have wanted to keep his integrity to himself, he would have told the truth thirty-five years ago, not worrying about the consequences because there are consequences for everything.
I agree with you on "true test of integrity." Not many people are able to tell a truth when there might be a risk of little consequences or serious consequences. This is something that everyone will deal with at some point in their life and the ending result will be what their integrity is.
ReplyDeleteWhat I do not agree with is "there are consequences for everything." Though that is true for some things, what about positive outcomes of actions like telling the truth or helping people out from your heart.