University of South Carolina Scholar Commons Theses and Dissertations Spring 2019 Integrity and Its Relationship to Morality Hyun Jeong Kang Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/etd Part of the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Kang, H. J.(2019). Integrity and Its Relationship to Morality. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/ etd/5156 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you by Scholar Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Scholar Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INTEGRITY AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO MORALITY by Hyun Jeong Kang Bachelor of Arts Chonnam National University, 2002 Master of Arts Chonnam National University, 2005 Master of Arts University of Missouri-Columbia, 2010 Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences University of South Carolina 2019 Accepted by: Christopher O. Tollefsen, Major Professor Konstantin Pollok, Committee Member Jennifer Frey, Committee Member Thomas P. Crocker, Committee Member Cheryl L. Addy, Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School © Copyright by Hyun Jeong Kang, 2019 All Rights Reserved. ii ABSTRACT Some scholars take it for granted that one’s possession of integrity has nothing to do with one’s moral quality whereas others believe that they are no doubt intertwined. Hume, for instance, holds that a person who ambitiously tries to gain a great achievement can still be a person of integrity even if he is dishonest with others. Plato’s concept of integrity can be formulated in the way that a person with morally vicious commitments has disunity in his soul and fails to possess integrity. In order to decide which side is right, I suggest that we examine the most promising current views on integrity and see whether the most appropriate one can offer an answer to the relationship between integrity and morality. The integrated-self view turns out to be the most appropriate one out of five promising theories. According to the integrated-self view, integrity is a unification of one’s inner desires or volitions in the way that one does not fail to make up one’s mind. According to my version of the view, however, the integration of oneself would not be complete if one does not take considerations of how others think of his actions or decisions. Especially when you try to decide on an action that you think that others would disagree with, you would ask iii yourself ‘Are you okay with the way that other people see you with this new decision?’ Such decision-making is a certain compromise between the way that you reflect upon how other people would think of yourself and the way that you reflect upon yourself with the decision. My argument suggests that if a person possesses integrity, it usually means that he does not have the morally vicious commitments or principles that other people would obnoxiously disagree with. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract............................................................................................................................. iii Introduction .......................................................................................................................1 Chapter 1: The Need for a New Approach to the Moralized View of Integrity ......5 1. The Nature of the Debate on the Moralized View of Integrity ........................6 2. Why is There No Easy Way Out from the Question? .....................................17 3. What are the Unmoralized Views of Integrity? ...............................................23 4. Hume’s Account of Integrity ...............................................................................27 5. Aristotle’s Account of Integrity ..........................................................................46 6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................58 Chapter 2: The Moralized View of Integrity ...............................................................60 1. What are the Moralized Views of Integrity? .....................................................61 2. Plato’s Account of Integrity .................................................................................62 3. Kant’s Account of Integrity .................................................................................70 4. Lack of Motivational Thoughts Problem ...........................................................77 5. Integrity and Virtue ..............................................................................................87 6. Conclusion .............................................................................................................95 Chapter 3: Accounts of What It is to Possess Integrity ..............................................96 v 1. Five Competing Views ...................................................................................... 100 2. Why Certain Views are not the Answers ....................................................... 104 3. Objections against the Integrated-self View ...................................................140 4. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................154 Chapter 4: Three Versions of the Integrated-self View ...........................................155 1. Frankfurt’s Version of the Integrated-self View .............................................157 2. Korsgaard’s Version of the Integrated-self View ...........................................168 3. Unification of Your View and Other People’s View of Yourself .................181 4. Conclusion ...........................................................................................................204 Chapter 5: General Conclusion – An Answer to the ‘Moral Nature’ Question ...205 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................229 vi INTRODUCTION What is it to possess integrity? What is the correct way of explaining the relationship between integrity and morality? In fact, could a person committing to a vicious principle still be regarded as a person of integrity? For some scholars it is quite obvious that integrity is not restricted to any particular commitments. Rawls, for instance, thinks that the virtues of integrity “allo[w] for most any content.” On the other hand, people often seem to associate integrity with a person’s intact soul or character when they give a compliment or criticize someone’s personality. Handling this issue is tricky since morality’s relevance to integrity has to do with how we define integrity and how we define integrity has to do with morality’s relevance to integrity. One good way to resolve the issue is that we look at each promising theory of integrity and see how well the view faces some challenges and how well it respects the relevance of the question in hand. If we can find good evidence that one theory is far better than the others, then we can examine the theory carefully in order to find an answer from the theory. 1 The integrated-self view seems to be the most appropriate one out of the most promising theories. According to the integrated-self view, a person must integrate various parts of himself into one in order to possess integrity. The view holds that integrity is a unification of one’s inner desires or volitions in the way that one does not fail to make up one’s mind. According to my version of the view, however, the integration of oneself would be complete only when one takes considerations of how others think of his actions or decisions. Whenever you make a decision for your action, you would necessarily engage with the decision between the self that you see as yourself and the self that other people see as yourself. When you make a decision for an action, there is always a suggested self that is brought up by others in your mind. Especially when you try to decide on an action that you think that others would disagree with, you would ask yourself ‘Are you okay with the way that other people see you with this new decision?’ Such decision-making is a certain compromise in the sense that you are deciding between the way that you reflect upon how other people would think of yourself with the decision and the way that you reflect upon yourself with the decision. My argument suggests a certain relationship between integrity and morality. The first does not guarantee the second. Even if a person possesses integrity it does not mean that he also possesses morally good characteristics or a 2 moral unification. Still, if a person possesses integrity, it usually means that he does not have the morally vicious commitments or principles that other people would obnoxiously disagree with. As a matter of fact, it would be highly unlikely that a morally vicious person has unified himself in the way that other people can also see. Thus, we can say that integrity implies morality in general and that they go hand in hand in most cases. The view that I propose reveals a certain fact about the social nature of persons. Recent research suggests that even as young as 15-month-old infants have the correct projections of how another person would behave based on their understanding of the person’s belief. My view brings together the discussion of integrity with such social nature of persons. The tight relationship between