Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations urged men to “waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be...be one.”1 Students of ethics may be drawn to such a prescription, one that urges for action over reflection. After all, the various competing ethical theories – each with compelling principles yet hard-to-accept faults – do not provide all of the answers, or at least accepted answers, to the hard questions: What is “the good”? How are actions deemed “moral” or “immoral”? What is the best moral system? Disagreement amongst philosophers of ethics and faults in ethical theories is no reason to stop asking the hard questions or stop philosophizing. Nevertheless, there is great value in the action that Marcus Aurelius makes reference to. Integrity, or the virtue of practicing what one preaches, is a valuable character trait; ethics goes beyond reflection and must be translated into action. The character trait “integrity” must be more thoroughly defined before it can be argued as valuable and worth displaying. The word integrity evolved from the Latin word integer, meaning complete or whole.2 Integrity, then, is an inner “wholeness” derived from qualities such as consistency of action with one’s values, beliefs, and principles. Integrity involves…show more content… Similar logic can apply to ethical systems. If my ethical system, based on my knowledge and reflection, is one that rejects stealing, then stealing from a grocery store would be contrary to my best knowledge and interest. To act in opposition to one’s own wisdom is accepting the assumption that morality is somehow different to one’s own self interest, and that avoiding morality will make one’s life better. Otherwise, it is a sign of incompetence or inability of reason to guide one’s life. Two philosophers, John Bigelow and Robert Pargetter, claimed that strength of will is the core of
