Is it easy to be a good person? How much of being good is up to us? Very often there are power forces all around us that try to shape who we are, what we say, and what we do. Social influence understood the ways in which individuals change their behavior to meet the demands of a social environment - whether it's a team, family, political party, peer group, or platoon. Such influence takes many forms and can be seen in conformity, socialization, peer pressure, obedience, leadership, persuasion, and even sales and marketing. Typically social influence results from a specific action, command, or request, but people also alter their attitudes and behaviors in response to what they perceive others might do or think. 

Consciously or unconsciously, we all conform to social norms - group behavior is contagious. When these social influences attempt to lead us to compromise what we know to be good, beautiful, and true, how can remain virtuous?  Integrity is a character virtue that means wholeness or unity between deed and belief, choosing to live in accordance with one's principles. "Integrity," said CS Lewis, "is doing the right thing, even when no one is looking." People with integrity  act virtuously regardless of the circumstance or consequences. This should suggest that integrity often requires moral courage. Indeed, integrity is the critical connection between ethics and moral action. Think about the integrity of a ship's hull,  which allows it to do unimpeded that thing for which it was made. Were it to loss integrity, it could no longer meet its purpose and it would flounder and sink. Moral integrity - the consistent coupling of action with right belief - allows human beings to pursue unimpaired the purposes for which they were created or to meet the requirements of their profession.

To that endeavor we say, “Fair winds and following seas. And don't give up the ship! ”

At the successful completion of this week, you will be able to:

1. Explain how rationalization and socialization can undermine and corrupt organizations (B, C)
2. Analyze and apply different concepts of integrity & Explain how consistency of character can sometimes lead to errors in moral perception. (B, C)
3. Describe how 1-2 can negatively impact moral decision making in a military context (A, B, C, D)
4. Explain social-scientific literature regarding contingent social factors that shape moral awareness (eg, Milgram, Asch, etc.) (B, C, D)

READ THIS

READINGS:

• David Luban, "Integrity: Its Causes & Cures"
  
  
• Vikas Anand, et al, "Business As Usual: The Acceptance and Perpetuation of Corruption in Organizations

WATCH THIS (Optional)

Complete these steps before you come to class

1. Consider the following prompts (you may want to write responses to these in your journal or talk about them with a shipmate)
   1. What is integrity? Is it merely consistency of behavior with any kind of belief or does it require consistency of behavior with right belief--with beliefs that are morally correct? 
      1. Would we say that a racist who behaves in racist ways consistent with is racist beliefs has integrity? 
         1. What is at stake in saying yes or no to this?
2. If social influence is a real thing, how much responsibility do we have as individuals for what we think and how we tend to behave?
3. Can we always know what we really believe? There is a Dutch saying that there are two kinds of beliefs: what we say we believe and what we really believe deep down. It is this second, gut-level kind of belief that influences our actions in high-stress situations. 
   1. This has much to say about moral formation. At the end of this class our racist friend mentioned above might be able to properly answer an exam question about, say, the importance of respecting the human dignity of all people. But if this concept represents a change in the belief structure in which he grew up, how easy will it be for him to suddenly simply respect the dignity of everybody around him? What other changes--then merely knowing right thing to believe--are necessary before he can act on that knowledge with real integrity?