7.4 Value profile: integrity  (Page 5/7)

Exercise iii: is there such a thing as unity of character and unity of virtue?

Codes of ethics in engineering enjoin engineers to associate only with individuals of “good character.”

• Why is this important? For example, if one associated with individuals of bad character, would this corrupt one’s own character?
• Take a field from the following list: engineering, business, government, science, agriculture. What would be the attributes or traits that would designate one as having a good character within this field? What kind of things would one do? What kind of person would one be? Do you know of anyone in your field that you would consider a good character? A bad character?
• Imagine an engineer who exhibits the characteristics that you have used to define an engineer of good character. Now imagine that, even though married with children, this individual had an extramarital affair. Would this additional fact diminish your estimation of this individual as one of good character?
• The view that one must have all the virtues to be good is a position called the “unity of the virtues” and it has been attributed to Aristotle. Is this necessarily true? In order to be a good business person, must one also be virtuous in one’s family life? Did President Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinski diminish his performance and integrity as president?

Exercise iv: saints of selfhood, persons for all seasons, and dirty hands

• Robert Bolt’s play, A Man For All Seasons, portrays Thomas More as a “saint of selfhood.” More and several other characters express different modes of selfhood through how they respond to a single, vital political issue of their time.
• Henry VIII took Catherine of Spain as his first wife. To do so he had to receive a special dispensation from the Pope because she was previously married; this previous marriage and the Catholic Church prohibition of remarriage thus created the necessity of receiving special permission from the Catholic hierarchy.
• But after several years of marriage to Henry, Catherine had failed to give birth to a son; Henry became obsessed with the fact that there was still no heir to the throne of England. In the meantime, Henry had fallen in love with Lady Anne Boleyn and wanted to marry her. He felt that Catherine’s barrenness was punishment from God for the illegitimacy of the marriage. He was also confident that Anne, who was younger, could bear him a son. Now Henry went to the Pope asking him to “dispense with his dispensation,” declare the marriage to Catherine null and void, and give consent to the new marriage to Anne Boleyn. The Pope refused.
• Henry went on with this second marriage in defiance of the Pope. Eventually this led the Church of England to separate itself from the Church of Rome. But Henry’s more immediate problem was dealing with opposition to the marriage arising from English citizens faithful to the Catholic Church and Rome. Henry felt that this opposition represented illegitimate interference in the political affairs of England on the part of outsiders. To ferret them out, Henry demanded that all citizens take an oath of loyalty which affirmed the illegality of Henry’s marriage to Catherine, the legitimacy of the marriage to Anne Boleyn, and the acceptance the children she bore Henry as the legitimate heirs to the throne of England.
• A series of larger political and religious issues “telescoped” themselves into this familial problem. (1) What is the relation between the Catholic Church and the State of England? (2) How could Henry’s successor be determined and legitimized? (3) How could Henry’s succession be planned out so as to avoid civil conflict and civil war? (4) How could conscientious citizens of England reconcile their political obligations with their religious faith? All of this entailed that Henry’s oath required all of those taking it to choose between Church and State. If one had integrated religious beliefs into one’s self-system, then this choice translated into the alternatives of self-affirmation and self-denial.