BellaOnline Forums Religion and Spirituality Philosophy Random Ruminations

Virtually every decision we make and every action we take is (or should be!) the result of a conscious or unconscious ethical determinant: who we associate with; where we work; whether we have children or not; what we eat; how we worship or not; how we accumulate/consume material items; how we treat other sentient beings...-the list is infinite. Ponder about that please.

Now that you have hopefully pondered about that, I who since high school, in addition to being referred to as LanceB. the exceedingly moral yet avenging fictitious protagonist that I created in a not so short story in the 8th grade, had been called the workingman's Eric Hoffer (oh, how I loved his book, "The True Believer"), have always been interested in ethics from both a theoretical and a day-to-day/second-by-second perspective.

Thus, in both a deductive and inductive manner (including a priori-wise at times), I thought with your help that an ongoing/continuous thread devoted entirely to ethics could be thought provoking, insightful, questioning, illuminating, entertaining and, even, fun.

Hence, the birth of Random Ruminations.

The first rumination is: Under what circumstances can actions based on one's integrity be immoral?

The next rumination is closely aligned to the first which was: Under what circumstances can actions based on one's integrity be immoral?

Let's postulate that there are three kinds of integrity:

1. Moral Integrity
2. Amoral Integrity (with amoral defined as being neither moral nor immoral)
3. Immoral Integrity

Can you think of an example that would illustrate each of those three types of integrity?

Unrelated to the above, do you have a favorite philosopher, and if so, why did you choose that person?

Why this choice for an Avatar?

Published to critical acclaim in 1951, "The True Believers: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements" was written by the American "working class" moral philosopher and expert in social psychology, Eric Hoffer.

This seminal social psychological and ethics-oriented philosophy book discusses and analyzes the motivational factors that drive individuals to become fanatical participants in mass movements, be they political like Fascism, National Socialism or Communism, or religious like Christian Fundamentalism or Muslim Fundamentalism.

Hoffer believed that these mass movements, regardless if they were of a radical or reactionary nature, characteristically attracted the same kind of (personality types) adherents/followers who behaviorally acted similarly despite possessing different stated goals and values.

Consequently, he postulated that fanatics (hence, "true believers") and the mass movements that they become fervently involved in are interchangeable.


So, what ethical factors/considerations/forces do you think that the avatar which originally appeared on the cover of "The True Believers" symbolically represents?

A trilogy of insightful and thought inducing quotes from Hoffer's "The True Believers."

"Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil. Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil."

"Self-contempt, however vague, sharpens our eyes for the imperfections of others. We usually strive to reveal in others the blemishes we hide in ourselves."

"A rising mass movement attracts and holds a following not by its doctrine and promises but by the refuge it offers from anxieties, barrenness, and meaninglessness of an individual existence. It cures the poignantly frustrated not by conferring on them an absolute truth or by remedying the difficulties and abuses which made their lives miserable, but by freeing them from their ineffectual selves — and it does this by enfolding and absorbing them into a closely knit and exultant corporate whole."

Historically, what and why are some of the so-called "devils" that mass movements have fanatically risen against?

Hi LanceB.

Since you have been my better half, conscience-wise, from the 8th grade onward, I thought that it would only be fair and just for me to end my self-determined exile from the forums and to begin to answer some of the ethical questions that you have posed.

So, here goes my attempt to answer your first Random Rumination: Under what circumstances can actions based on one's integrity be immoral?

Well, first one must propose a working definition of integrity.
So, this one is proposing that integrity is when an individual's thoughts and actions are in congruence with their beliefs/values.

How then could someone who is in the vernacular being "true to themself" be conducting themself in an immoral manner?

Unfortunately quite easily as integrity, while it should be, is not necessarily synonymous with morality.

Since you seem to be fond of trilogies, I shall offer three extreme (as philosopher's are want to do) examples of what may be (make that should be!) termed as immoral (in these instances, regardless of one's cultural background).

I. Does anybody who is reading this believe that a person who participated in the "final solution" in any manner because that was part of their value system was behaving in anything less than an immoral manner?

II. The same question can be asked about anyone who participated in the lynching of an African-American due to that individual's race even though it was inherently part of the perpetrator's belief system.

III. Moreover, the same question can be asked about the individuals who were responsible for the "Boston Marathon Bombings." From what has been ascertained, they were merely following their convictions.

If I can be of assistance to you in the future, I am sure you will ask as your ultimate guidance to me was always "do the right thing" (as opposed to "act with integrity").

My preferred definition of moral integrity would be doing the right thing whether or not you are being observed.

Speaking for LanceB. as the ever-vigilant, persistent and conscientious alter ego that he is and who has been communicating into the deep recesses of my consciousness for decades, his definition is dogmatically absolutist: Moral integrity is doing the right thing regardless of the consequences to oneself.


Lance would like to know:

What is your definition of moral integrity?

What is your definition of doing the right thing?

A TRILOGY OF QUOTES ABOUT INTEGRITY/ETHICS TO RUMINATE OVER

"There is no moral precept that does not have something inconvenient about it."
Denis Diderot


"The essence of immorality is the tendency to make an exception of myself."
Jane Addams


"Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe -- the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me."
Immanuel Kant

As is the nature of alter egos, their sole focus is to ethically guide the person that they are attached to in a most serious and morally purposeful manner. Or at least that is the personna in which LanceB. was created to function as. However, while the humorous(?) tone of the following quotes are not what straight-as-an-arrow LanceB. would have chosen, he would have approved of them anyways as their messages are "right" on.

A TRILOGY OF QUOTES ABOUT INTEGRITY/ETHICS TO RUMINATE OVER

“There are two types of people in this world, good and bad. The good sleep better, but the bad seem to enjoy the waking hours much more.”
― Woody Allen

“Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and a body ain’t got no business doing wrong when he ain’t ignorant and knows better.”
― Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

“Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle.”
― Darby Conley

From the top of my head to the bottom of my conscience thanks to my alter ego's influence...

THE MOST MEMORABLE MOVIES THAT HAVE AN INTEGRITY THEME

1. Judgement at Nuremberg

2. Twelve Angry Men

3. To Kill a Mockingbird

4. 1984

5. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

6. The Crucible (the play was so much better but...)

7. Town Without Pity

8. Paths of Glory

9. The Shootist

10. Meet John Doe

11. Spartacus

12. The Manchurian Candidate

13. Chariots of Fire

14. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington

15. The Defiant Ones

16. Elmer Gantry

17. Of Mice and Men

What movies affected you the most, integrity-wise?

From this alter ego's moral perspective, perhaps the ultimate integrity quote in U.S. history occurred in 1954 during the televised Army-McCarthy hearings. Joseph McCarthy was a senator from Wisconsin who for political gain had been conducting a "witch hunt" against communists. One of the "witches" that he was attacking was the U.S. Army which he unjustifiably accused of being infiltrated by communists.

During the hearings, the Army's chief counsel Joseph Welch having become morally disgusted with McCarthy's reckless, unconscionable and irresponsible accusations and antics during the congressional proceedings which were constantly being interrupted by McCarthy's histrionic cries of "point of order", sternly admonished him with the following words which echoed well beyond that "crucial decade": "Senator, you won't need anything in the record when I finish telling you this. Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness. .... Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

Point of order, indeed!