The UWI will be introducing a new co-curricular course – Ethics and Integrity: Building Moral Competencies – scheduled to begin in Semester 2, 2015. The latest research findings have shown that traditional methods in delivering programmes and courses in ethics have proven to be essentially ineffective in infusing ethics in the culture. The problem is that such training only reaches the “head” (cognitive) but not the heart (affective).
When asked what is the most admirable trait or moral competency they would like to see in people, most people identify “integrity” as the leading characteristic. Integrity is easy to recognise but difficult to define. Persons of integrity are consistently honest and trustworthy, maintain privacy and confidentiality, perform high quality work regardless of pay incentives, follow through on commitments, decline to participate in gossip or spreading rumors, give credit where it is due, and so on.
Recently, there has been a growing field in Positive Organisational Scholarship which advocates a philosophy of promoting what is good or positive (for example, mental well-being) rather than focusing on what is harmful or negative (for example, mental illness). In a positive sense, integrity can be defined as a state of being complete or whole, in short, a state of fulfilment or happiness resulting in improved quality of life and performance.
In a recent Harvard Business School Research Paper (2014) entitled Putting Integrity into Finance: A Purely Positive Approach, Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen argue that the almost universal assignment of false causes of the actions that result in damaging effects actually obscures the real source of those actions, which is out-of-integrity behaviour attributed to a veil of invisibility that hides the actual source of this behavior: a moral disorder of self-deception or delusion.
This co-curricular course addresses this “veil of invisibility” in promoting integrity by developing moral competencies (ethical principles and moral virtues). When we fail to abide and be guided by ethical principles and moral virtues, the quality of performance goes down and the cost of doing business goes up. A commitment to doing what is ethically right (that is, the very definition of personal and professional integrity) demands continuous reflection in building moral competencies. The course prepares you for your journey in life by helping you recognise that nature and experience provide the “raw material” to “complete or perfect yourself”. We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live (Socrates in Plato’s Republic).
While we recognise that we are imperfect beings capable of doing the most horrendous or atrocious of human acts when placed in situations that can encourage out-of-integrity behaviour, the course provides a “psychological mirror” that encourages self-reflection in gaining knowledge of our moral strengths (and how we can build on them) and recognising our moral weaknesses (in other words, growth in humility) which are necessary for human maturity and personality development.
According to the Greek philosopher, Socrates, who advanced the first view on personal integrity (to thy own-self be true): “The greatest way to live with honour in this world is to be what we pretend to be.” Ethics and Integrity: Co-curricular or Core-curricular? The time is always right to do what is right (Martin Luther King, Jr).
The co-curricular course on Ethics and Integrity will be facilitated by Surendra Arjoon, PhD, Professor of Business and Professional Ethics, Department of Management Studies. Professor Arjoon is one of the leading international scholars in Business and Professional Ethics and is currently serving as Editor on “Work, Virtue and Happiness” for the Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management, Springer. |
