ethics and integrity essay

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Integrity is an indispensable moral virtue that includes acting with honesty, fairness, and decency.

Integrity, said author C.S. Lewis, “is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking.”  Integrity is a foundational moral virtue, and the bedrock upon which good character is built.

Acting with integrity means understanding, accepting, and choosing to live in accordance with one’s principles, which will include honesty, fairness, and decency. A person of integrity will consistently demonstrate good character by being free of corruption and hypocrisy.

Integrity is revealed when people act virtuously regardless of circumstance or consequences. This often requires moral courage. Indeed, integrity is the critical connection between ethics and moral action.

Related Terms

Corruption is the dishonest conduct for personal gain by people in power.

Ethics refers to both moral principles and to the study of people’s moral obligations in society.

Virtue Ethics

Virtue Ethics is a normative philosophical approach that urges people to live a moral life by cultivating virtuous habits.

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How to Write a Personal Ethics Statement—And Why Every Professional Should

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What is a Personal Ethics Statement?

Personal ethics are your guidelines for forming relationships, overcoming challenges, and decision- making. A personal ethics statement is a one-page essay that gives a picture of your core values and what potential supervisors, colleagues, or clients can expect from working with you. It can be useful when you’re applying for school , just starting out in your career, looking for a new job, trying to expand your client base, or advancing your career.  

In this article we will discuss personal ethics—which should not be mistaken for professional ethics. Personal ethics relate to the values you hold in personal relationships and daily life, an whereas professional ethics relate to how you conduct yourself in business settings, deals, and professional relationships.  

An important part of your personal ethics statement is identifying your personal beliefs and personal values. Some code of ethics examples include integrity, selflessness, honesty, loyalty, equality, fairness, empathy, respect, and self-respect. This article is a complete resource for forming your personal ethics and transforming them into a compelling personal ethics statement.

Professional Impacts of Personal Ethics

There are many occasions your personal ethics will play a role in your behavior in professional settings. No matter your line of work, it’s important that you maintain unshakable personal ethics in your professional relationships and how you interact in the workplace.

Business Ethics

Business ethics are the practices and policies put into place to ensure people and resources are treated ethically in business dealings. While you’re making decisions in business to benefit a company, you must consider the impact of those decisions on others. Developing your personal code of conduct will help support you in upholding your company policies in the workplace, which will help you maintain personal integrity, as well as avoid potential business scandals . Learn about how to be an ethical leader in a business setting.

With a career in information technology, part of your job involves having access to private or confidential information. Your moral compass plays a significant role in keeping this type of information safe, especially since cyber-attacks—which happen every 39 seconds on average—are so prevalent in modern society. Having a career in IT immerses you in the world of cyber security , where ethical behavior and policy adherence are essential.

Healthcare Ethics

In the healthcare field, you’re responsible for human lives, so it’s no wonder that strong professional competence and integrity are important in how you carry yourself at work. There are plenty of complex issues, regulations, and compliance policies that you’ll encounter in a hospital or care facility, which demands that you seek the guidance of your personal ethics.

Teaching Ethics

Strong moral values are a necessary component of being a teacher. When your job is to sculpt young minds, you have must take responsibility for setting a strong example for them. Part of this is keeping students safe, part of this is treating all students equally and without discrimination. Part of this is creating healthy boundaries between your students and your personal life . If you build a personal ethics statement, you have a north star to look towards in this professional setting as you encounter ethical dilemmas. If you’re planning to become a teacher, you should also consider writing a teaching philosophy statement.

How Do I Write a Personal Ethics Statement?

There are five essential steps to writing—and perfecting—your personal ethics statement: 

1. Know your audience. 

The first step to writing an effective personal ethics statement is knowing and understanding the audience you’re writing for. This one-page piece of writing is supposed to influence the reader, so keeping the motivations and sentiments of your audience in mind while writing is important to completing your goal. Once you know your audience, whether it be an admissions counselor or a potential employer, then you can choose words and reference practices and policies that resonate with them and meet any guidelines in place.  

2. Choose your goals. 

There are two important types of goals to think about when building your personal ethics statement: your short-term and long-term goals. For example, your short-term goal may be getting into college, while your long-term goal is becoming a software engineer. Once you identify these, then you can phrase your personal ethics in terms of how they relate to your desired career path. To build off the previous example, if you aspire to be a software engineer, you can talk about personal ethics that relate to cyber security or the hard work required to get to your desired goal. 

3. Determine your influences. 

What influences the decisions you make? This is an essential step in determining your code of ethics because every choice you make is influenced by internal and external factors. One factor that affects everyone is personal traits. Your personality plays a crucial role in the decisions you make and how you carry yourself with others. Another factor is the people in your life who have helped in shaping who you are today. A third example is momentous events. Everyone experiences wonderful, pivotal moments in their life, as well as tragic and traumatic moments. All these factors play a role in your personal ethics, and they should be included in your personal ethics statement. 

4. Identify your beliefs and practices. 

This step is about writing down examples of how you move through the world and the core beliefs you live by. Compelling stories elicit emotional reactions from your audience and prove that you put your personal ethics into daily practice. Examples are essential to creating a strong personal ethics statement. 

5. Name your “why.”  

Why did you choose the ethical principles that you did? Confidently answering this question and providing details is essential to the authenticity of the statement. Decide why your personal ethics are important to you, how your life experiences brought you to those ethics, and how you’ll continue to keep them at the center of your decisions going forward. This step is important to making sure your audience walks away with a clear understanding of what ethical standards are important to you and why. 

What Should I Include in a Personal Ethics Statement?

Your personal ethics statement should consist of an introduction, a body, and a conclusion.  

Start your personal ethics statement with a one- to two-paragraph introduction. Use the introduction to talk about the life experiences that helped form your ethical background. Maybe you had a major injury in your childhood that resulted in lifelong ability differences, and this made you an advocate for accessibility. Find a personal story that will engage your reader and provide a foundation for your statement.

In the body of your personal ethics statement—about two or three paragraphs—you should list each of the ethical principles that are central in your life. This is your opportunity to make sure the reader knows your core beliefs. If you have a personal mantra, include it here. In this section, true life examples are your friend.

What Should I not Include in a Personal Ethics Statement?

Since a personal ethics statement is a deeply personal piece of writing, it’s important to be honest and authentic. The last thing you want to do is include fake life experiences just to make a point. This also isn’t an opportunity to profess all your life’s mistakes. You are human and your personal ethics statement should reflect that, but in a positive and inspiring light.  

How to Conclude

Every personal ethics statement should have a strong conclusion. Sum it all up in a final paragraph where you explain how your core values make you a great person to have in a professional organization or an excellent candidate for an academic program.

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Academic Performance — The Importance of Integrity in Science

The Importance of Ethics and Integrity in Academic Work

• Categories: Academic Performance Integrity

About this sample

Words: 1139 |

Published: Aug 23, 2018

Words: 1139 | Page: 1 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Introduction, definition of terms, ethics and integrity in academic setting.

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Capstone Form and Style

Evidence-based arguments: writing with integrity, writing with integrity: paraphrasing and giving credit.

As we describe in other pages on paraphrasing, successful paraphrasing is the writer’s own explanation or interpretation of another person's ideas or synthesis of other ideas. The goal is to provide a scholarly discussion of other writer’s ideas, provide the original author with credit, and to summarize, synthesize, or expand on the point in an original work.

Ensuring integrity in writing can be a challenge. The standard in American Academic English is to paraphrase and provide a citation to credit the source. This is not the writing expectation in all styles and cultures, so we understand that students sometimes have questions about this. Writing with integrity means the author is writing using his or her own words and being sure to not inadvertently mislead the reader about whether an idea was the writer’s own. Writing with integrity is about rephrasing ideas in the author’s own words and understanding, while also providing credit to the original source.

The example below can be used to understand how to incorporate evidence from previous researchers and authors, providing proper credit to the source. Again, the goal is to write and cite, creating original material and ensuring integrity (avoiding any potential plagiarism concerns).

Example of Uncredited Source

Consider this partial paragraph:

In this example, Organization A is going through a variety of changes in leadership, but this is the norm for organizations in general. Organizations go through change all the time. However, the nature, scope, and intensity of organizational change vary considerably.

Here is the paragraph again, with the second and third sentences bolded and marked in red type:

The red marking is a match from TurnItIn (TII) because those sentences are word-for-word from the original source. TII has matched this text.

Here is a screenshot of a Google Books search where this text can be found online:

In the screenshot, the words highlighted in yellow are the search phrases, and the red box indicates the sentences that appear in the example paragraph. This text was taken directly out of a book on organizational change. This is problematic because it appears in the example paragraph above to be the writer’s own idea when it is not—it came from this book. This misrepresentation, intentional or not, is an academic integrity issue.

Revising a Paragraph With an Uncredited Source

What if the writer adds a citation.

Note the added parenthetical citation, (Nadler & Tushman, 1994), at the end of the third sentence.

In this example, Organization A is going through a variety of changes in leadership, but these types of changes are the norm for organizations in general. Organizations go through change all the time. However, the nature, scope, and intensity of organizational change vary considerably (Nadler & Tushman, 1994).

This change is incorrect because it is still using the original authors’ words. Though a source is provided, the text should be paraphrased, not word-for-word. This citation does not make the reader aware that the words in the preceding two sentences are the original author’s.

What if the writer adds a citation and quotation marks?

In this revision, the writer has added quotation marks around the words borrowed directly from the original author.

In this example, Organization A is going through a variety of changes in leadership, but these types of changes are the norm for organizations in general. “Organizations go through change all the time. However, the nature, scope, and intensity of organizational change vary considerably” (Nadler & Tushman, 1994, p. 279).

Yes, this would be correct APA formatting to use quotations, if a passage is word-for-word, and provide a citation including the page number. However, at the graduate level of writing and academics, writers should generally avoid quoting and opt for paraphrasing. Writers should avoid quoting other authors because this does not demonstrate scholarship. Walden editors suggest that Walden writers reserve quotations for a few specific instances like definitions, if the author’s original phrasing is the subject of the analysis, or if the idea simply cannot be conveyed accurately by paraphrasing.

So, what is the best course of action?

Paraphrasing the idea from the original source and including a citation is the best course of action.

In this example, Organization A is going through a variety of changes in leadership, but these types of changes are the norm for organizations in general. Although the size of the change and the impact on the organization may fluctuate, organizations are constantly changing (Nadler & Tushman, 1994).

This example includes a paraphrase of the passage that was marked as unoriginal. Here is a reminder of the passage:

Organizations go through change all the time. However, the nature, scope, and intensity of organizational change vary considerably

In the paraphrase above, the same idea is provided and the authors are given credit, but this is done using original writing, not what ends up being plagiarism, and not a quotation (as that does not demonstrate understanding and application).

Writing With Integrity in Doctoral Capstone Studies

For doctoral capstone students, it is also important to adequately cite your sources in your final capstone study. Learn more about writing with integrity in the doctoral capstone specifically on the Form and Style website.

• Previous Page: Citing Sources Properly
• Next Page: Types of Sources to Cite in the Doctoral Capstone
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How to Develop a Strong Work Ethic

• Tutti Taygerly

Hiring managers want to see your motivation, can-do attitude, and dedication.

In our early career years, it can be challenging to figure out what behaviors are and are not acceptable in different professional environments. Employers are now expecting more of entry-level workers and they want to see that you have good work ethic. So what is work ethic?

• Work ethic refers to a set of moral principles, values, and attitudes around how to act at work. It often surrounds what behaviors are commonly acceptable and appropriate (or not).
• Qualities like reliability, productivity, ownership and team support all demonstrate professional integrity, or a strong commitment to ethical behavior at work. In contrast, low-quality work, tardiness, or lack of attention to details demonstrates bad work ethic.
• If you’re new to the workplace, a good way to start is by observing. Pay attention to how your coworkers behave in meetings to gain a better understanding of their “etiquette,” as well as the communication styles of different people and teams. Another essential part of building good work ethic is adopting a “do it like you own it” attitude. You can do this by being proactive in small, but powerful, ways.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

Have you ever wondered about how to behave appropriately at work? Throughout your career, and especially in the early years, it’s challenging to figure out what behaviors and attitudes are and are not acceptable in different professional environments. The more you traverse companies and industries, the clearer your understanding will become. When you’re just starting out, though, it can be hard to pin down these behaviors.

• Tutti Taygerly is a leadership and executive coach with 20+ years of design experience across large companies, design agencies and startups.

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Central to any academic writing project is crediting (or citing) someone else' words or ideas. The following sites will help you understand academic writing expectations.

Academic integrity is truthful and responsible representation of yourself and your work by taking credit only for your own ideas and creations and giving credit to the work and ideas of other people. It involves providing attribution (citations and acknowledgments) whenever you include the intellectual property of others—and even your own if it is from a previous project or assignment. Academic integrity also means generating and using accurate data.

Responsible and ethical use of information is foundational to a successful teaching, learning, and research community. Not only does it promote an environment of trust and respect, it also facilitates intellectual conversations and inquiry. Citing your sources shows your expertise and assists others in their research by enabling them to find the original material. It is unfair and wrong to claim or imply that someone else’s work is your own.

Failure to uphold the values of academic integrity at the GSD can result in serious consequences, ranging from re-doing an assignment to expulsion from the program with a sanction on the student’s permanent record and transcript. Outside of academia, such infractions can result in lawsuits and damage to the perpetrator’s reputation and the reputation of their firm/organization. For more details see the Academic Integrity Policy at the GSD. 

The GSD’s Academic Integrity Tutorial can help build proficiency in recognizing and practicing ways to avoid plagiarism.

• Avoiding Plagiarism (Purdue OWL) This site has a useful summary with tips on how to avoid accidental plagiarism and a list of what does (and does not) need to be cited. It also includes suggestions of best practices for research and writing.
• How Not to Plagiarize (University of Toronto) Concise explanation and useful Q&A with examples of citing and integrating sources.

This fast-evolving technology is changing academia in ways we are still trying to understand, and both the GSD and Harvard more broadly are working to develop policies and procedures based on careful thought and exploration. At the moment, whether and how AI may be used in student work is left mostly to the discretion of individual instructors. There are some emerging guidelines, however, based on overarching values.

Since policies are changing rapidly, we recommend checking the links below often for new developments, and this page will continue to update as we learn more.

• Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) from HUIT Harvard's Information Technology team has put together this webpage explaining AI and curating resources about initial guidelines, recommendations for prompts, and recommendations of tools with a section specifically on image-based tools.
• Generative AI in Teaching and Learning at the GSD The GSD's evolving policies, information, and guidance for the use of generative AI in teaching and learning at the GSD are detailed here. The policies section includes questions to keep in mind about privacy and copyright, and the section on tools lists AI tools supported at the GSD.
• AI Code of Conduct by MetaLAB A Harvard-affiliated collaborative comprised of faculty and students sets out recommendations for guidelines for the use of AI in courses. The policies set out here are not necessarily adopted by the GSD, but they serve as a good framework for your own thinking about academic integrity and the ethical use of AI.
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Academic Ethics and Academic Integrity

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Acknowledgments

It should be noted that some of the material for this entry is drawn from a keynote address by the author entitled “The Role of Research Integrity and Publication Ethics and University Education for the Twenty-First Century” presented at the European Network for Academic Integrity Conference held at MRUniversity held in Vilnius, Lithuania, June 19, 2019.

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Deborah Poff

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Correspondence to Deborah Poff .

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Deborah C Poff

Alex C. Michalos

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Leading with Integrity, Ottawa, ON, Canada

Deborah C. Poff CM, PhD

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Poff, D. (2020). Academic Ethics and Academic Integrity. In: Poff, D., Michalos, A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Business and Professional Ethics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_405-1

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23514-1_405-1

Received : 26 March 2020

Accepted : 03 April 2020

Published : 22 June 2020

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Integrity Essay for Students and Children

500+ words on integrity essay.

There is a famous saying which perfectly describes integrity. “Honesty is telling the truth to other people, integrity is telling the truth to myself.” The word ‘integrity’ itself has a Latin origin. It is derived from the word ‘integer’ and means to feel whole, i.e. a complete person. So it refers to the sense of completeness and togetherness one enjoys when they live their lives honestly and morally. So a person that has integrity will act and behave as per set values and believes they hold dear. Let us explore this concept more in this integrity essay.

Academic Integrity

Academic integrity refers to the ethical policies and moral code employed in the academic world by all members – the students and the teachers. So as we saw previously in this integrity essay, it involves being honest and doing the right thing even if you get no recognition for doing so. It involves being honest and correct when no one is watching.

Academic integrity is important to lay down a good foundation for the student, so he can follow the same principles for the rest of his life. Integrity leads to trust-building among colleagues and friends. It is also the sign of a good future leader. It is a good habit to develop early in your life, it will hold you in good stead as you progress in your life.

So basic things like doing your own homework, writing your own papers, not plagiarizing your essays or dissertations, not cheating on home tests, never cheating on any assignments, and generally doing your work ethically and honestly are the all essential. They are the building blocks of academic integrity.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Professional Integrity

Next, we shall explore professional integrity in this integrity essay. As we know, integrity is one of the essential value an employer always seeks in his employees. So professional integrity is when a person adopts his values and integrity to his chosen profession and job.

Sound moral and ethical beliefs and basic honesty are highly valued characteristics in an employee. Such an employee behaves morally with his co-workers, his superiors and all other stakeholders of the organization.  Acting with integrity and honesty is an actual advantage in the workplace. It builds trust and people are drawn towards such honest and dependable behavior. Integrity in a workplace also promotes a positive environment which encourages higher productivity.

Not only students and professionals, but integrity is also a value that everyone should strive for. Integrity is a trait that goes a long way in making people a better version of themselves, better human beings in general. And a person with true integrity does things because it is the right thing to do, and never for any praise or recognition. True integrity is never practiced for recognition or praise but to fulfill personal values.

FAQ’s on Integrity

Q: State some of the traits of a person with integrity

Ans: A person with true integrity exhibits certain traits such as,

• they take responsibility for all their actions
• always help others in need
• often put the needs of others above themselves
• respect everyone that deserves their respect
• are usually humble and exhibit humility
• generally very reliable in nature
• they are kind by nature

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What is Ethics?

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Ethics is based on well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues.

Some years ago, sociologist Raymond Baumhart asked business people, "What does ethics mean to you?" Among their replies were the following:

"Ethics has to do with what my feelings tell me is right or wrong." "Ethics has to do with my religious beliefs." "Being ethical is doing what the law requires." "Ethics consists of the standards of behavior our society accepts." "I don't know what the word means."

These replies might be typical of our own. The meaning of "ethics" is hard to pin down, and the views many people have about ethics are shaky.

Like Baumhart's first respondent, many people tend to equate ethics with their feelings. But being ethical is clearly not a matter of following one's feelings. A person following his or her feelings may recoil from doing what is right. In fact, feelings frequently deviate from what is ethical.

Nor should one identify ethics with religion. Most religions, of course, advocate high ethical standards. Yet if ethics were confined to religion, then ethics would apply only to religious people. But ethics applies as much to the behavior of the atheist as to that of the devout religious person. Religion can set high ethical standards and can provide intense motivations for ethical behavior. Ethics, however, cannot be confined to religion nor is it the same as religion.

Being ethical is also not the same as following the law. The law often incorporates ethical standards to which most citizens subscribe. But laws, like feelings, can deviate from what is ethical. Our own pre-Civil War slavery laws and the old apartheid laws of present-day South Africa are grotesquely obvious examples of laws that deviate from what is ethical.

Finally, being ethical is not the same as doing "whatever society accepts." In any society, most people accept standards that are, in fact, ethical. But standards of behavior in society can deviate from what is ethical. An entire society can become ethically corrupt. Nazi Germany is a good example of a morally corrupt society.

Moreover, if being ethical were doing "whatever society accepts," then to find out what is ethical, one would have to find out what society accepts. To decide what I should think about abortion, for example, I would have to take a survey of American society and then conform my beliefs to whatever society accepts. But no one ever tries to decide an ethical issue by doing a survey. Further, the lack of social consensus on many issues makes it impossible to equate ethics with whatever society accepts. Some people accept abortion but many others do not. If being ethical were doing whatever society accepts, one would have to find an agreement on issues which does not, in fact, exist.

What, then, is ethics? Ethics is two things. First, ethics refers to well-founded standards of right and wrong that prescribe what humans ought to do, usually in terms of rights, obligations, benefits to society, fairness, or specific virtues. Ethics, for example, refers to those standards that impose the reasonable obligations to refrain from rape, stealing, murder, assault, slander, and fraud. Ethical standards also include those that enjoin virtues of honesty, compassion, and loyalty. And, ethical standards include standards relating to rights, such as the right to life, the right to freedom from injury, and the right to privacy. Such standards are adequate standards of ethics because they are supported by consistent and well-founded reasons.

Secondly, ethics refers to the study and development of one's ethical standards. As mentioned above, feelings, laws, and social norms can deviate from what is ethical. So it is necessary to constantly examine one's standards to ensure that they are reasonable and well-founded. Ethics also means, then, the continuous effort of studying our own moral beliefs and our moral conduct, and striving to ensure that we, and the institutions we help to shape, live up to standards that are reasonable and solidly-based.

This article appeared originally in  Issues in Ethics  IIE V1 N1 (Fall 1987). Revised in 2010.

Validity, Ethics and Integrity Essay

Dealing with qualitative research demands the researcher to have a clear focus on the main techniques and requirements this research method has towards the studies carried out with its help. The “big three” among these requirements consist of research validity, ethical considerations, and integrity. The importance of these concepts becomes even more prominent if the topic of the proposed research, i. e. recidivism among juvenile delinquents and the effect of programs intended to reduce its rates, comes into play. In this paper, these three basics of qualitative research, i. e. validity, ethical considerations, and integrity will be considered in the context of their practical use in juvenile recidivism research.

The first point to be always present in qualitative research is validity. According to Shank (2006), this concept “deals with the notion that what you say you have observed is, in fact, what really happened” (p. 111). Drawing from this definition, validity becomes critically important to qualitative research as the tool used by scholars to inquire about the true reasons for certain events. In the research, validity is also vitally significant, and it will be ensured by the purely scholarly approach to the study and by the supervision of the research process and results reporting by both peer scholars and outside observers and assessors, whose main task will be to monitor the objectivity and the very validity of results actually obtain and results made public.

Needless to say, ethical considerations are also significant for the procedure of the qualitative research, especially the one involving interviewing as one of the tools, or the only one, of gathering basic research data. According to Patton (2002), interviews are powerful intervention instruments that sometimes reveal certain data that an interviewee might not even know of him/herself before the procedure (p. 405). In the research dealing with juvenile delinquency, recidivism in it, and the effectiveness of the programs designed to reduce it, ethical considerations are especially important in such interviews. To ensure the ethics of the interviews, this research will make sure that all the questions used are ethical in the wide sense of the concept and do not lead to obtaining any unnecessary or potentially conflict-related data.

Finally, research integrity is also important in qualitative studies, as it is necessary to ground the reported research results and conclusions. As Schram (2006) argues, there are three major concerns the researcher has to face regarding integrity; they are possible effects of the researcher’s presence on the results obtained, potential selective experience, and engaged subjectivity of results (p. 133). To ensure the integrity of the juvenile recidivism study, the researcher will maximally limit his/her influence upon the setting of the interviews and respondents’ answers to the questions set. Furthermore, the researcher will try to address all the data obtained without selectivity biases, and finally treat all the data obtained as equally important for the research outcomes (Trochim W. M. K., & Donnelly, 2006, p. 187).

Thus, validity, ethical consideration, and integrity are critical for the qualitative research, and in the study of juvenile recidivism the researcher will try to follows the above principles to ensure presence of all these three elements. The major concerns related to this will include the need to ensure objectivity of the research and its completeness in respect of data obtaining and analysis. Finally, the researcher‘s awareness of the importance of validity, ethical consideration, and integrity will provide additional grounds for keeping to these essentials of qualitative study in the planned juvenile recidivism research.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research & evaluation methods . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Schram, T. H. (2006). Conceptualizing and proposing qualitative research . Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Shank, G. D. (2006). Qualitative research: A personal skills approach . Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Merrill Prentice Hall.

Trochim W. M. K., & Donnelly, J. (2006). The research methods knowledge base . Mason, OH: Thomson Learning.

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How to Write an Ethics Paper: Guide & Ethical Essay Examples

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An ethics essay is a type of academic writing that explores ethical issues and dilemmas. Students should evaluates them in terms of moral principles and values. The purpose of an ethics essay is to examine the moral implications of a particular issue, and provide a reasoned argument in support of an ethical perspective.

Writing an essay about ethics is a tough task for most students. The process involves creating an outline to guide your arguments about a topic and planning your ideas to convince the reader of your feelings about a difficult issue. If you still need assistance putting together your thoughts in composing a good paper, you have come to the right place. We have provided a series of steps and tips to show how you can achieve success in writing. This guide will tell you how to write an ethics paper using ethical essay examples to understand every step it takes to be proficient. In case you don’t have time for writing, get in touch with our professional essay writers for hire . Our experts work hard to supply students with excellent essays.

What Is an Ethics Essay?

An ethics essay uses moral theories to build arguments on an issue. You describe a controversial problem and examine it to determine how it affects individuals or society. Ethics papers analyze arguments on both sides of a possible dilemma, focusing on right and wrong. The analysis gained can be used to solve real-life cases. Before embarking on writing an ethical essay, keep in mind that most individuals follow moral principles. From a social context perspective, these rules define how a human behaves or acts towards another. Therefore, your theme essay on ethics needs to demonstrate how a person feels about these moral principles. More specifically, your task is to show how significant that issue is and discuss if you value or discredit it.

Purpose of an Essay on Ethics

The primary purpose of an ethics essay is to initiate an argument on a moral issue using reasoning and critical evidence. Instead of providing general information about a problem, you present solid arguments about how you view the moral concern and how it affects you or society. When writing an ethical paper, you demonstrate philosophical competence, using appropriate moral perspectives and principles.

Things to Write an Essay About Ethics On

Before you start to write ethics essays, consider a topic you can easily address. In most cases, an ethical issues essay analyzes right and wrong. This includes discussing ethics and morals and how they contribute to the right behaviors. You can also talk about work ethic, code of conduct, and how employees promote or disregard the need for change. However, you can explore other areas by asking yourself what ethics mean to you. Think about how a recent game you watched with friends started a controversial argument. Or maybe a newspaper that highlighted a story you felt was misunderstood or blown out of proportion. This way, you can come up with an excellent topic that resonates with your personal ethics and beliefs.

Ethics Paper Outline

Sometimes, you will be asked to submit an outline before writing an ethics paper. Creating an outline for an ethics paper is an essential step in creating a good essay. You can use it to arrange your points and supporting evidence before writing. It also helps organize your thoughts, enabling you to fill any gaps in your ideas. The outline for an essay should contain short and numbered sentences to cover the format and outline. Each section is structured to enable you to plan your work and include all sources in writing an ethics paper. An ethics essay outline is as follows:

• Background information
• Thesis statement
• Restate thesis statement
• Summarize key points
• Final thoughts on the topic

Using this outline will improve clarity and focus throughout your writing process.

Ethical Essay Structure

Ethics essays are similar to other essays based on their format, outline, and structure. An ethical essay should have a well-defined introduction, body, and conclusion section as its structure. When planning your ideas, make sure that the introduction and conclusion are around 20 percent of the paper, leaving the rest to the body. We will take a detailed look at what each part entails and give examples that are going to help you understand them better.  Refer to our essay structure examples to find a fitting way of organizing your writing.

Ethics Paper Introduction

An ethics essay introduction gives a synopsis of your main argument. One step on how to write an introduction for an ethics paper is telling about the topic and describing its background information. This paragraph should be brief and straight to the point. It informs readers what your position is on that issue. Start with an essay hook to generate interest from your audience. It can be a question you will address or a misunderstanding that leads up to your main argument. You can also add more perspectives to be discussed; this will inform readers on what to expect in the paper.

Ethics Essay Introduction Example

You can find many ethics essay introduction examples on the internet. In this guide, we have written an excellent extract to demonstrate how it should be structured. As you read, examine how it begins with a hook and then provides background information on an issue. 

Imagine living in a world where people only lie, and honesty is becoming a scarce commodity. Indeed, modern society is facing this reality as truth and deception can no longer be separated. Technology has facilitated a quick transmission of voluminous information, whereas it's hard separating facts from opinions.

In this example, the first sentence of the introduction makes a claim or uses a question to hook the reader.

Ethics Essay Thesis Statement

An ethics paper must contain a thesis statement in the first paragraph. Learning how to write a thesis statement for an ethics paper is necessary as readers often look at it to gauge whether the essay is worth their time.

When you deviate away from the thesis, your whole paper loses meaning. In ethics essays, your thesis statement is a roadmap in writing, stressing your position on the problem and giving reasons for taking that stance. It should focus on a specific element of the issue being discussed. When writing a thesis statement, ensure that you can easily make arguments for or against its stance.

Ethical Paper Thesis Example

Look at this example of an ethics paper thesis statement and examine how well it has been written to state a position and provide reasons for doing so:

The moral implications of dishonesty are far-reaching as they undermine trust, integrity, and other foundations of society, damaging personal and professional relationships. 

The above thesis statement example is clear and concise, indicating that this paper will highlight the effects of dishonesty in society. Moreover, it focuses on aspects of personal and professional relationships.

Ethics Essay Body

The body section is the heart of an ethics paper as it presents the author's main points. In an ethical essay, each body paragraph has several elements that should explain your main idea. These include:

• A topic sentence that is precise and reiterates your stance on the issue.
• Evidence supporting it.
• Examples that illustrate your argument.
• A thorough analysis showing how the evidence and examples relate to that issue.
• A transition sentence that connects one paragraph to another with the help of essay transitions .

When you write an ethics essay, adding relevant examples strengthens your main point and makes it easy for others to understand and comprehend your argument. 

Body Paragraph for Ethics Paper Example

A good body paragraph must have a well-defined topic sentence that makes a claim and includes evidence and examples to support it. Look at part of an example of ethics essay body paragraph below and see how its idea has been developed:

Honesty is an essential component of professional integrity. In many fields, trust and credibility are crucial for professionals to build relationships and success. For example, a doctor who is dishonest about a potential side effect of a medication is not only acting unethically but also putting the health and well-being of their patients at risk. Similarly, a dishonest businessman could achieve short-term benefits but will lose their client’s trust.

Ethics Essay Conclusion

A concluding paragraph shares the summary and overview of the author's main arguments. Many students need clarification on what should be included in the essay conclusion and how best to get a reader's attention. When writing an ethics paper conclusion, consider the following:

• Restate the thesis statement to emphasize your position.
• Summarize its main points and evidence.
• Final thoughts on the issue and any other considerations.

You can also reflect on the topic or acknowledge any possible challenges or questions that have not been answered. A closing statement should present a call to action on the problem based on your position.

Sample Ethics Paper Conclusion

The conclusion paragraph restates the thesis statement and summarizes the arguments presented in that paper. The sample conclusion for an ethical essay example below demonstrates how you should write a concluding statement.  

In conclusion, the implications of dishonesty and the importance of honesty in our lives cannot be overstated. Honesty builds solid relationships, effective communication, and better decision-making. This essay has explored how dishonesty impacts people and that we should value honesty. We hope this essay will help readers assess their behavior and work towards being more honest in their lives.

In the above extract, the writer gives final thoughts on the topic, urging readers to adopt honest behavior.

How to Write an Ethics Paper?

As you learn how to write an ethics essay, it is not advised to immediately choose a topic and begin writing. When you follow this method, you will get stuck or fail to present concrete ideas. A good writer understands the importance of planning. As a fact, you should organize your work and ensure it captures key elements that shed more light on your arguments. Hence, following the essay structure and creating an outline to guide your writing process is the best approach. In the following segment, we have highlighted step-by-step techniques on how to write a good ethics paper.

1. Pick a Topic

Before writing ethical papers, brainstorm to find ideal topics that can be easily debated. For starters, make a list, then select a title that presents a moral issue that may be explained and addressed from opposing sides. Make sure you choose one that interests you. Here are a few ideas to help you search for topics:

• Review current trends affecting people.
• Think about your personal experiences.
• Study different moral theories and principles.
• Examine classical moral dilemmas.

Once you find a suitable topic and are ready, start to write your ethics essay, conduct preliminary research, and ascertain that there are enough sources to support it.

2. Conduct In-Depth Research

Once you choose a topic for your essay, the next step is gathering sufficient information about it. Conducting in-depth research entails looking through scholarly journals to find credible material. Ensure you note down all sources you found helpful to assist you on how to write your ethics paper. Use the following steps to help you conduct your research:

• Clearly state and define a problem you want to discuss.
• This will guide your research process.
• Develop keywords that match the topic.
• Begin searching from a wide perspective. This will allow you to collect more information, then narrow it down by using the identified words above.

3. Develop an Ethics Essay Outline

An outline will ease up your writing process when developing an ethic essay. As you develop a paper on ethics, jot down factual ideas that will build your paragraphs for each section. Include the following steps in your process:

• Review the topic and information gathered to write a thesis statement.
• Identify the main arguments you want to discuss and include their evidence.
• Group them into sections, each presenting a new idea that supports the thesis.
• Write an outline.
• Review and refine it.

Examples can also be included to support your main arguments. The structure should be sequential, coherent, and with a good flow from beginning to end. When you follow all steps, you can create an engaging and organized outline that will help you write a good essay.

4. Write an Ethics Essay

Once you have selected a topic, conducted research, and outlined your main points, you can begin writing an essay . Ensure you adhere to the ethics paper format you have chosen. Start an ethics paper with an overview of your topic to capture the readers' attention. Build upon your paper by avoiding ambiguous arguments and using the outline to help you write your essay on ethics. Finish the introduction paragraph with a thesis statement that explains your main position.  Expand on your thesis statement in all essay paragraphs. Each paragraph should start with a topic sentence and provide evidence plus an example to solidify your argument, strengthen the main point, and let readers see the reasoning behind your stance. Finally, conclude the essay by restating your thesis statement and summarizing all key ideas. Your conclusion should engage the reader, posing questions or urging them to reflect on the issue and how it will impact them.

5. Proofread Your Ethics Essay

Proofreading your essay is the last step as you countercheck any grammatical or structural errors in your essay. When writing your ethic paper, typical mistakes you could encounter include the following:

• Spelling errors: e.g., there, they’re, their.
• Homophone words: such as new vs. knew.
• Inconsistencies: like mixing British and American words, e.g., color vs. color.
• Formatting issues: e.g., double spacing, different font types.

While proofreading your ethical issue essay, read it aloud to detect lexical errors or ambiguous phrases that distort its meaning. Verify your information and ensure it is relevant and up-to-date. You can ask your fellow student to read the essay and give feedback on its structure and quality.

Ethics Essay Examples

Writing an essay is challenging without the right steps. There are so many ethics paper examples on the internet, however, we have provided a list of free ethics essay examples below that are well-structured and have a solid argument to help you write your paper. Click on them and see how each writing step has been integrated. Ethics essay example 1

Ethics essay example 2

Ethics essay example 3

Ethics essay example 4

College ethics essay example 5

Ethics Essay Writing Tips

When writing papers on ethics, here are several tips to help you complete an excellent essay:

• Choose a narrow topic and avoid broad subjects, as it is easy to cover the topic in detail.
• Ensure you have background information. A good understanding of a topic can make it easy to apply all necessary moral theories and principles in writing your paper.
• State your position clearly. It is important to be sure about your stance as it will allow you to draft your arguments accordingly.
• When writing ethics essays, be mindful of your audience. Provide arguments that they can understand.
• Integrate solid examples into your essay. Morality can be hard to understand; therefore, using them will help a reader grasp these concepts.

Bottom Line on Writing an Ethics Paper

Creating this essay is a common exercise in academics that allows students to build critical skills. When you begin writing, state your stance on an issue and provide arguments to support your position. This guide gives information on how to write an ethics essay as well as examples of ethics papers. Remember to follow these points in your writing:

• Create an outline highlighting your main points.
• Write an effective introduction and provide background information on an issue.
• Include a thesis statement.
• Develop concrete arguments and their counterarguments, and use examples.
• Sum up all your key points in your conclusion and restate your thesis statement.

Contact our academic writing platform and have your challenge solved. Here, you can order essays and papers on any topic and enjoy top quality. 

Daniel Howard is an Essay Writing guru. He helps students create essays that will strike a chord with the readers.

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Ethics and Morality

The problem with integrity, is behaving consistently the same thing as behaving well.

Posted April 8, 2024 | Reviewed by Davia Sills

• Integrity can be a double-edged sword.
• Integrity can lead to inflexibility and lead to cognitive biases.
• Data helps mitigate bias and overcome the limitations of our inflexibility.
• Focus on small acts of integrity; build trust and credibility through everyday honesty and reliability.

Integrity is considered a virtue related to honesty and consistency . When someone displays integrity, they signal that they can be counted on to do what they say they will do. We are comfortable depending on their behavior because they are masters at following through.

When we see others behaving with integrity, we admire them. What’s more, we trust them, especially if they are a leader . Not only does integrity build feelings of connection with leaders, but it also enhances perceptions of morally righteous behavior.

At this point, you should ask yourself: Is behaving consistently really the same as behaving morally?

It can sure feel that way. Integrity in others can help reduce our own cognitive effort ; no need to think critically about their behavior because they are consistent.

But just because someone behaves consistently does not mean that they have your best interests at heart—or even that you can trust them. And behavior that is situationally appropriate in one context may be way out of line in another. Imagine a coach who consistently benches players for poor performance. Now imagine them coaching a Little League team. Sometimes integrity needs to be tempered with compassion.

Showing integrity ourselves has benefits as well; there is no need to continuously reevaluate circumstances to decide the right course of action because we always make the same choice. Integrity also solidifies our identity -based opinions, which, in turn, can help us build affiliation and community. For example, consistent opposition to prison spending signals our membership in the liberal tribe, just as opposition to gun control signals membership in the conservative tribe.

If we want to make better decisions, we should consider new information as it is presented and reevaluate our stance rather than sticking to our ideas no matter what. However, when we value integrity as part of our identity , we are less likely to do this. As a result, our integrity can actually lead to cognitive rigidity and impaired judgment and decision-making ! This positive attribute can inadvertently lead us to some seriously suboptimal decision-making.

Additionally, integrity can amplify our cognitive biases (these will show up a lot in this blog). It can trick us into only seeking out information that aligns with our existing beliefs ( confirmation bias ) or prompt us to interpret events in ways that reinforce our integrity-driven narrative ( self-serving bias ). It can also trigger the halo effect , which blinds us to the flaws and shortcomings of those we perceive as having a great deal of integrity because we believe integrity is important and see it in ourselves. A common example of the halo effect is the assumption that a physically attractive person is also kind, but anyone who has seen the movie Mean Girls knows this isn’t the case; the same goes for integrity.

So, it’s not just integrity in others that we need to be cautious about.

How do we make sure that our own integrity isn’t keeping us from making good choices? First, we need to recognize the need for a bit of nuance that balances consistency with adaptability. Integrity doesn’t have to be all or nothing; we can still have integrity and remain steadfast in our morality but learn to evolve in response to new insights.

One way to do this is by demonstrating integrity in smaller matters. Prioritize reliability and honesty in your everyday actions to cultivate credibility and trust. When it comes to larger choices, ground your decisions in data. The data may not always tell us what we want to hear, but they help mitigate the impact of our cognitive biases and ultimately lead to better decisions. As John Meynard Keynes supposedly said, “When the facts change, I change my mind.”

Integrity is truly a virtue if it does not lead to rigidity. It is about committing to your principles and tempering them with a bit of self-awareness and humility. We want people to ask questions and adapt because those traits are just as essential to decision-making as our core values and morals. We also want you to know that, unlike the clique in Mean Girls , you can always sit with us (even if it’s not totally clear what you stand for).

Tara Ceranic Salinas, Ph.D. , is a professor of business ethics and department chair of management at the Knauss School of Business at the University of San Diego. Ed Love, Ph.D. , is a professor of marketing and department chair at Western Washington University

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Integrity Essay

500+ words integrity essay.

Integrity is one of the key pillars of social well-being, and prosperity of individuals, as well as society as a whole. Honesty forms the indispensable foundation of integrity and is a prerequisite for the full realisation of trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. Upholding the values of integrity is the duty of each individual. As per the dictionary, integrity means moral values and principles, uprightness and honesty, incorruptibility and soundness, and consistency between one’s actions and principles, methods and measures. This Integrity essay will help students to know the meaning of integrity, its importance in individual life, and examples of people who live their life with integrity. Students can also go through the list of CBSE Essays to practise writing essays on different topics. Doing so will help them to participate in various essay writing competitions conducted at the school level.

What is Integrity?

The word integrity has evolved from the Latin word integer which means “complete” or “whole”. This suggests that for achieving integrity, something has to be whole and undivided. It refers to the concept of living by one’s values and principles. The current conceptualization of integrity is the combination of consistency in words and actions with adherence to morality and values in the actions. Living with integrity means being true and authentic to our code of beliefs or worldview.

Individual Integrity

At the individual level, integrity is all about the character of the individual. These characteristics of an individual include transparency, compassion, honesty and ethics. Integrity in these principles is vital to effective leadership. Individuals should preserve their own integrity as a leader by recognising what’s most important to them and abiding by the principles they represent. They must challenge themselves to lead in a way that reflects their responsibility to the position they occupy. The six fundamental character traits that help in building individual integrity are connecting with others, facing the truth, getting results, embracing the negative, focusing on growth, and willingness to learn new things. Finally, integrity also means understanding that true greatness comes from serving something greater than yourself.

Integrity in Business

At the corporate level, integrity refers to a willingness to stick to certain policies, ethics, and leadership philosophy. Organisations with high integrity are characterised as organisations that are collaborative, constructive, innovative, transparent, and with high employee morale. They build great teams and create value. Studies have shown that corporations with a culture of integrity tend to have higher-quality of earnings. They tend to be good places to work, competitive in markets, and provide higher, more predictable returns.

Examples of Integrity

There are various examples of integrity in real life. Let’s take the life story of our great leader Mahatma Gandhi who lived his life with integrity. He followed the path of truth and non-violence throughout his life. He called off the Non-Cooperation movement to maintain integrity with his principle of non-violence. He did not compromise with integrity even though many people were against his decision to cancel the Non- Cooperation movement at the national level. He opted to follow the path of truth and integrity even in the most testing times.

Integrity helps a person to be honest, loyal and committed to his work. One of the real-life examples is Mr. Ashok Khemka. He was an IAS officer of the 1991 batch. He was in the Haryana Cadre and was transferred fifty-one times in his 24 years of Civil Service career. He was awarded for his effort in exposing corruption at the highest level. He got S. R. Jindal Prize in 2011 for ‘his crusade against corruption’.

Living with integrity doesn’t guarantee success or fame. But people are certainly far more likely to feel passionate about their work. They can tackle challenges with energy and fortitude. They can easily inculcate integrity in their nature if their actions are in line with their values and beliefs, and their efforts are directed toward something they truly believe in.

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Integrity and Ethics essay

Integrity has often been confused with Morality and moral philosophers have more often than not discussed about the various tenets of Morality than that of Integrity. Integrity is often used as a synonym for completeness without any impurity affecting it. For example, even a database has integrity if it not corrupted with any errors and bugs. With relation to humans, integrity is often referred to as a characteristic that a person possesses. This can be further broken down to categories such as professional, personal or artistic integrity that we so often hear in our day-to-day lives.

As a result, Integrity is seen as a concept that is fundamentally different from the concept of morality. But is it so? What does it take for a person to have integrity? Does he have to moral to have integrity or can an immoral person possess the virtue too? I would like to analyze how moral philosophers Christine Korsgaard, Bernard Williams, Susan Wolf would answer the above questions keeping in line their views on the concept of Morality. The utilitarianism and the Kant models of moral theory have barely touched upon the concept of integrity.

In fact, both the theories concentrate more upon what are moral actions and what are not, effectively undermining the importance of integrity in the picture. Bernard Williams, for the first time, pointed out the missing links in the theory that are important to explain the significance of integrity along with Morality. According to Williams, both the theories have put forward tenets of morality that would make the existence of integrity in humans impossible. For example, the utilitarianism theory defines a moral person as the one who always places the larger good more important than his personal goals.

It does not leave room for personal desires and goals that a person would possess. According to Williams, this makes the person neglect his duties towards his interests and desires and therefore, would not be a moral person since the “moral act” performed was done out of force and not will. This is an attack on integrity and hence rejects it. William considers Integrity as one’s personal beliefs which remain constant irrespective of the situation they are in. Integrity in a man would stand the tests of time and any other examination they need to go through.

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Williams gives much importance to personal desires and aspirations which calls Projects and also bases integrity on top of it. A person is said to have integrity if he is able to do justice to the beliefs he holds true in his heart. According to Williams, “…yet, unless such things exist, there will not be enough substance or conviction in a man’s life to compel his allegiance to life itself. Life has to have substance if anything has to have sense, including adherence to the impartial system; but if it has substance, it cannot grant supreme importance to the impartial system, and that the system’s hold on it would be, at the limit, insecure.

” Williams specifically points at the utilitarian view of the impartial system which does not permit saving one’s loved ones life over another person and this effectively nullifies any beliefs that the individual holds. William believes an individual’s allegiance to life is through Projects and once they are snatched away, his will to live may vanish too. He believes morality depends on the individual and his circumstances and integrity is no different.

An immoral person may still have integrity but no one can be moral without have integrity. Continuing on similar lines, philosopher Christine Korsgaard questions the very origin of the emergence of morality. According to Korsgaard, morality has been fed to us implicitly and has unavoidable effect on humans. Morality defines what is right and what is wrong for us and thus Korsgaard believes, it becomes very important that the origin of why a particular act is moral and the opposite is immoral is known to the one acting on it.

As Korsgaard says, “We all know in a general way how and why we were taught to follow moral rules, and that it would be impossible for us to get on together if we didn’t do something along these lines. We are social animals, so probably the whole thing has a biological basis. So, what’s missing here that makes us seek a philosophical “foundation”? …. Concepts like knowledge, beauty, and meaning, as well as virtue and justice, all have normative dimension, for they tell us what to think, what to like,…..

And it is the force of this normative claims – the right of these concepts to give laws to us – that we need to understand. ” Korsgaard, seeks an answer to the “foundation” of the normative claims that the Moral laws places on us as she believes there are many situations when an individual questions them and also has a strong urge to go against it. A typical example that Korsgaard gives is that of saving Jews by having them hide in your house with the danger of you being killed in the act.

According to the morality laws spelled out for us, it is a moral act and the right thing to do. In fact, giving up on the Jews in the face of danger is immoral. The person involved who is risking his life for he believes is the right thing to do may suddenly asks why is it so? Why is it important to save the ones who started the Nazis in the first place? In such cases, if the individual has adequate knowledge above the normative dimension of the moral law that is acting on him, he would be able to take the correct step.

In short, we can interpret this as a case where there will be less conflict between his integrity and morality than be the case when he has to choose between his loved ones death and saving Jews (who he believes started the wrong thing first) and saving his family and exposing the Jews. The integrity of the individual is in question when he would be found inconsistent with the promise to protect his family. Knowing the reason why he has to sacrifice his family would fill the gap that Morality laws offers us today.

Korsgaard also emphasizes on the importance to be one’s own self when one is being Moral. As Korsgaard says, “If moral claims are ever worth dying for, then violating them must be in a similar way, worse than death. And this means that, they must issue in a deep way from the sense of who we are. ” In other words, integrity and morality seems to go hand-in-hand and one without the other is always not worth dying for. Susan Wolf comes about questioning the very concept of morality and do we really need morality and its harbingers?

According to Wolf, morality and its followers are good people but won’t the world be a boring place if each one of us is a “Moral saint”! Susan Wolf considers common sense and bit of immorality is what makes the planet earth a place worth living in. According to Susan, a moral saint is defined as the one who would always sacrifice his own interests and desires for the betterment of the society or for someone else’s happiness. Doing such an act would definitely require lot of self-control but she also feels blessed that none of her friends and family members acts that way.

However, she also recognizes the reason behind our wishing not to be moral saints in the following lines, “…some of the reason for the disaffection we feel for the model of moral sainthood is our reluctance to criticize ourselves and reluctance to committing ourselves in giving up the activities and interests that we heartily enjoy. ” Susan believes instead of having Mother Theresa as our role model, we would more often find Jane Austen inspiring us. She does not deny that Mother Theresa as a moral saint but definitely believes that a person need not be moral in all aspects to make him/her a moral person.

In fact, we can readily interpret from this that Susan might believe a person may be moral in some aspect and immoral in some other and that would not necessarily make him an immoral person and hence, can conclude that an immoral person can have integrity. Susan believes that the moral theories of today curb many opportunities to be more moral by imposing rules on personal desires and aspirations. More often than not, Susan Wolf’s view on moral saints can be a base for the belief that integrity is not restricted to only moral saints but to anyone who can stand the test of his/her desires.

All the three philosophers seem to have stumbled upon an important facet of a human being that of individuality, and the individual’s personal goals that so often sacrificed in the name of morality. As mentioned in the beginning, Integrity is defined as something pure and whole. For me, a person has integrity when he fulfills his responsibility with perfection the very first time. I believe, a person has integrity if he behaves the same way with his friend and lover when they both commit the same mistake. For me, a person is gifted with the virtue of integrity if he fights for his beliefs even if that means he may have to face death.

Integrity, for me, is when you sacrifice your life fully knowing the reason why you are doing it and the reason being it is not for others but for your own sake. For example, I would never risk my life saving others first if my own family life is at risk. Integrity would not be if I abandon my family and save strangers for the sake of morality rules imposed on me. Integrity would be if I save my family for I have promised to be with them in thick and thin. What use are the moral laws if I cannot have inner peace? My guilt conscious would always remind me of the integrity I should have maintained intact.