Personal Integrity

To have integrity is to have good character, a character that is integrated– whole, complete, and sound. Havard, following the Greek philosopher Aristotle, says that states of character or character traits arise out of activities. Activities are identified by the internal goals or goods at which they aim. For example, there is an activity of giving money to those who need it. The good in question is giving money to those in need. Generosity is the mean between excess and deficiency in giving money. If one gives money well, then one is practicing generosity. If one practices this enough and does it for the right reason, in the right way, with the right amount, and so on, then one will develop the virtue of generosity. One will have a generous character.

Your business life will include multiple activities (e.g., planning, organizing, monitoring, leading, etc.) each with their own goods or goals. Success at your business will require accomplishing those goals or realizing those ends in the way appropriate to that activity. Doing so will require the development of skills specific to the activities (e.g., being a good planner or being organized). These skills, like virtues, are also human traits. But these skills are not ethical virtues. The difference is that a business skill makes someone a good business person but not necessarily a good person as such. An ethical virtue makes someone a good person as such. So, these skills are like ethical virtues in that both are acquired through practice and both give the person with them the power to perform excellently in a relevant way. Business skills are unlike an ethical virtue in that they do not make a person good as a person. For example, a person who is dishonest and solely out for his own advantage whatever the cost can still be a good planner and organizer.

This essay assignment will give you the opportunity to reflect on the activities of your daily business life (or the daily life of someone that you admire), to identify the skills and virtues (character traits) essential to success in those activities, impediments to success in those activities, and how you can help to cultivate skills and virtues in yourself and others. In short, in this assignment you will reflect on the relation of business to ethics as the study of good human character.

First, work through this handout of questions. Business Practices and Traits Interview Questions (Beabout).pdf . You may either ask these questions of yourself or ask them of someone experienced in a field in which you are interested. If you are student and do not know someone with whom you could talk about these questions, then reflect on the activities that you engage in as a student. This handout is designed to get you thinking about the main activities of your business practice (or the business practice you wish to pursue) and the traits involved. Do not turn in your answers to these questions.

Second, review Havard Part V ch 2.pp. 164-167. Perform Havard’s examination of conscience activity (p.167) at the end of successive work days and identify some of the obstacles to virtuous living. Your goal here is to identify obstacles to your own growth in excellence and then think about the virtues that may help you to overcome those obstacles.

Third, write a 700-1000 word essay in which you do all the following.

• Identify the main business activities that you reflected on and some essential skills (that are not virtues) and virtues needed for excellence in those activities.
• Evaluate
  1. the relationships you see between the skills of those activities of business and the virtues (such as but not necessarily limited to those virtues discussed in your readings such as magnanimity, humility, prudence, courage, self-control, and justice) and
  2. in what way, if any, the ethical virtues are essential to excellence in the business activities you have identified.
• Determine
  1. one way that you could help to cultivate a business skill or virtue in a co-worker or employee and
  2. one way you could cultivate an ethical virtue in yourself. Pick a virtue that you think would help you to overcome an obstacle you noted during the examination of conscience exercise (e.g., patience helps to overcome anger).

This essay, like all of your essays for this course, should follow the introduction, body, conclusion format.