>Let's take one case where integrity outweighs honesty. Again, it is not
>hard to come up with many examples.
>
>It is 1938 and you live in Berlin. In your basement are your Jewish
>neighbors. The Gestapo rings your doorbell and asks you to speak honestly
>about their whereabouts.
>
>You and I both know the right thing to do is be dishonest. In so being,
>to be a person of integrity.
Burgy,
Two comments and a question.
First, anyone who subscribes to a deontological ethics (Kantian,
respect for persons, or natural law) would normally be very hesitant to say
that "the right thing to do is to be dishonest." Dishonesty is never a
viable option for the deontologist. They might say it is in fact the
Gestapo who are putting the Jewish neighbors in jeopardy, and lying to
protect them simply compounds the moral failure. Your answer suggests that
you are, instead, a consequentialist (in this case, a utilitarian). Your
response to the deontologist here may be something like, "Nonsense! If I
tell the Gestapo where my neighbors are, I am just as responsible for
sending them to their deaths as are those German agents." If that's what
you would say, then you are pointing to the ultimate consequence of your
action: it would be bad for your Jewish neighbors. Thus, dishonesty would
be the best policy. But a deontologist is morally indifferent to
consequences, arguing that those cannot be controlled. What counts is the
moral quality of the specific action itself, and lying is always immoral.
(Unless, I suppose, you didn't regard the Gestapo at the door as rational
moral agents, in which case lying to them is neither moral nor immoral).
The upshot is that only those who adhere to some form of ethical
consequentialism would find your final paragraph above to be the obvious
conclusion.
Second, even for the consequentialist, it is not a matter of
devaluing the virtue of honesty in favor of some other virtue, even in the
Gestapo example you offered. In this case, honesty is, pragmatically, less
effective in securing the end result you desire -- saving the lives of your
neighbors -- than is relying on the virtue of, say, compassion. But that
doesn't mean honesty is of lesser importance, just that it wasn't the best
modus operandi in this particular case, given the specific consequence you
wish to achieve.
Finally, a question. I haven't read Stephen Carter's book, but I'm
puzzled that "integrity" would be regarded as a virtue. In fact, I'm not
sure I know what kind of thing "integrity" is. I would have thought
integrity was a capacity for integrating and balancing the many virtues we
may acquire, and not equivalent to a virtue itself. Or is it the same thing
as "consistency in moral behavior"? Can you briefly describe the way
Carter defines "integrity"? And can you say why you offered it in the first
place as a superior replacement for "honesty"?
Tom Pearson
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
Thomas D. Pearson
Department of History & Philosophy
The University of Texas-Pan American
Edinburg, Texas
e-mail: pearson@panam1.panam.edu