7. Integrity is about why you do what you do
Integrity is about SPs doing the right thing, but it is also about good intentions. Intentions are relevant because they form the basis on which SPs’ behavior can be assessed as worthy of reward or blame. Intentions are good or bad depending on the extent to which SPs aim to do their jobs as well as possible. Other interests and intentions are admissible as long as they do not impede the SP’s work and associated interests.
The strength of integrity is that it is action-oriented. It is a matter of following the rules, public morality, and ethics. As stated by Junius, pen name for a writer, probably a civil servant, who accused the British cabinet of abuse of power many times in the newspapers, “The integrity of men is to be measured by their conduct, not by their professions.”40 SPs tend to be pulled up on their actions, rather than their words, but when it comes to integrity it is not just a matter of doing the right thing. Integrity is also about the reasons, motives, and attitudes behind actions. As British prime minister Winston Churchill said on the importance of attitude, “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference.”41
How does attitude, intention, come into it if behavior remains unchanged? Intentions are relevant because this is how a person’s behavior is attributed to them, enabling us to assess the extent to which they should be praised or censured. Good intentions often constitute extenuating circumstances when rules are broken. For example, it is careless to declare false costs by accident, but it is cheating if it is done knowingly. For that reason a senator admitted to having been careless when it emerged that he had broken the rules for expenses claims in an attempt to counter accusations about his behavior. When it emerged that Australian minister Kim Hames had submitted false claims he countered by stating that he had not claimed for many things he was entitled to claim for.42 On the other hand acting on the wrong motives will not readily be seen as praiseworthy. According to the philosopher Lynne McFall doing right for the wrong reasons is not acting with integrity.43 In such cases behavior and motives are not unified, consistent, or reconcilable.
Whether intentions are right or wrong depends on a person’s position. People who focus on doing the job as well as possible have pure intentions. People who focus on interests other than those served by their positions have impure intentions. Impure intentions lack integrity by definition, because they are not consistent with the demands of the position. Berlusconi, for example, has often been criticized for having impure motives, using his position as president for his own gain, for instance becoming president to escape prosecution for tax fraud, and expanding his power over the media by exercising his influence as president on the public TV channels alongside his own commercial stations.44
So in determining and evaluating SPs’ behavior, their intentions are important. From the perspective of integrity, SPs’ intentions should be pure and honest. Are SPs primarily focused on doing what is expected of them in their positions? Are they fulfilling their role and serving the people? Italian Niccolò Machiavelli, longtime secretary of the Second Chancery of the Florentine Republic, attached considerable importance to honesty and purity. In his view citizens expected their leaders to exercise their roles as well as possible and not to use their power for the wrong purposes.45
However, that does not mean that there is no space for other interests or ulterior motives. Integrity does not imply complete moral purity, after all.46 This would be one-dimensional and would not do justice to other interests. SPs do not need to sacrifice themselves completely; they can take their own interests into account. What matters is that other interests do not impede them