8. Integrity is about who you are
Integrity is not just about why an SP acts in a certain way, but also about who the SP is. Questions about a person’s integrity cast doubt not only on their intentions but also on the source of those intentions, the person’s character. That is why expressing such doubts is a serious accusation, and praising someone’s integrity is a strong form of appreciation. The fact that integrity is applied in this way in practice shows its value. Since integrity comes from inside, it cannot be imposed on SPs.
A person’s integrity is not the same as integrity of behavior. This becomes clear from the difference between how SPs respond to doubts about the integrity of their behavior and character. In the latter case SPs usually respond with greater indignation, horror, and bewilderment, because they feel more hurt, offended, and damaged. Doubting someone’s integrity may be the most serious conceivable offense. As an alderman said when he had to step down because of immoral behavior, “It touched me most of all that there were people that openly doubted my integrity.”50 Former US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice did not appreciate former vice president Dick Cheney accusing her in his memoires of naivety in her efforts to forge a nuclear weapons agreement with North Korea. “I don’t appreciate the attack on my integrity that that implies,”51 said Rice. British prime minister Tony Blair also felt injured when the BBC, the biggest broadcasting corporation in the UK, accused the government of exaggerating the urgency of a war against Iraq. In his view there could be no more serious charge than an attack on his integrity.52
Doubting people’s integrity hits hard because it concerns the people themselves, what they are made of, who they are, rather than what they do, calling into question both the soundness of their intentions and the source of their motives, their character. Instead calling an action is hypocritical or opportunistic, the person is a hypocrite or opportunist; instead of saying they lie, they are called liars. It is not a question of something that happens once, or even several times, but of who a person is in the long term, if not their entire lives. Doubting someone’s integrity is more fundamental and therefore harsher than doubting the integrity of their behavior.
In the same way praising a person’s integrity is a higher form of appreciation than praising their actions. When it was announced that former president of South Africa Nelson Mandela had died, he was praised for his integrity and important merits; as Cuban President Raul Castro said, Mandela was an example of integrity in fighting to reduce poverty worldwide.53 Former president of South Africa, Frederik Willem de Klerk, went further still, stating not only that Mandela had made a great contribution to reconciliation, human rights, and equality, but also that he “was a man of great integrity”.54 Mandela was able to act with integrity because of who he was as a person.
The fact that people are offended when someone casts doubt on their integrity shows the value attached to it. Similarly the value of integrity is shown in the fact that people see it as a compliment when they are branded by others as having integrity.The fact that others use a lack of personal integrity to portray someone negatively shows the value attributed to this quality, as does the fact that ascribing personal integrity to people is used to portray them positively and even honor them. Personal integrity is evidently something people consider important for themselves and others. This is confirmed in many studies. For instance, research shows that in the UK politicians consider integrity the most important factor for political leadership. Another study shows the importance citizens attach to the integrity of SPs.55 The New York Times even stated that integrity is the most important virtue in politics.56 The fact that all kinds of profiles and job descriptions as well as codes of conduct for SPs call for integrity shows how essential it is.
Integrity is more than ethics. Philosopher Bernard Williams defines integrity as standing for something.57 People who act ethically and have ethical arguments for doing so do not necessarily have integrity. If this were all integrity meant, according to Williams, then it would be limited to impartial and impersonal arguments, and as a result ethics would be an imposition, alienating those on whom it was imposed. Integrity is about the person behind the ethics. It is not