Jeffrey Barnes: Self-Evident Truths - Southern Utah University

HONESTY AND INTEGRITY
Figure 3.
Seek to Possess Individual Honesty and Integrity
Proper Proper Greater
Disposition Values Happiness
Observations about honesty and greater trusting
personal and others’ recognizes integrity are leads to relationships, strength
experience regarding values in interpersonal relationships.
honesty and integrity to incorporate Opportunities arise from
in a person’s ethic such trusting relationships
and thus, society is benefited.
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Does your personal experience support the rationale of this model? Have your parents,
clergy, or other trusted individuals ever taught you this truth? Is this truth assumption
naïve and simplistic?
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Marcus Arelius said,
“A man ought to be upright, not kept upright (AICPA, 1989).”
A person is honest who refuses to lie, steal, or deceive in any way. Honesty suggests an
active or anxious regard for the standards of one’s profession, calling, or position. An
honest person is free from fraud or deception. A line of philosophical inquiry always
creates a moral dilemma with only two choices. For instance, “Would you lie to save
your job?” What is that all about? Trying to find out what degree of honesty a person
has? Is the breaking down of every statement’s ingredient to hypothetical principles
always the best way to find truth? Moral dilemmas do exist, however, many of these
kinds of questions are often false dilemmas and other ethical decision models, other than
utilitarian or Kantian imperatives, must explain the proper behavior under these
circumstances. Rarely does life present itself with only two such alternative choices.
There are theories of moral behavior that can provide excellent models for understanding
proper human behavior. W.D. Ross’s obligation-based theory is an excellent alternative
to the principle of utility or Kant’s categorical imperative. Ross argues,
There are some basic rules of moral obligation and that they do not derive from
either the principle of utility or Kant’s categorical imperative. Some of Ross’s
basic rules are as follows: “Promises create obligations of fidelity.” “Wrongful
actions create obligations of reparation.” “The generous gifts of friends create
obligations of gratitude.” . . . Ross defends his principles on the grounds of their
faithfulness to the ordinary moral beliefs and judgments. He argues that to
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