Integrity

Lawrence M. Hinman
Department of Philosophy, University of San Diego
5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110-2492
Voice: 619-260-4787, Fax: 619-260-4227
E-mail: hinman@acusd.edu
Ethics Updates: http://ethics.acusd.edu

Table of Contents
Integrity *
Introduction *
What Is Integrity? *
A Cautionary Tale *
Personal Integrity *
Opening Examples *
The Elements of Integrity *
The Structure of Virtue *
Integrity as a Virtue *
The Threats to Integrity *
Moral Integrity *
Professional Integrity *
Roles and Integrity *
WIC Administrative Integrity *
Supervising Integrity *
Program Integrity *
External Threats *
Internal Threats *
Promoting Integrity *
Selected Bibliography *

Introduction

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Thanks, Doug, for those kind words. For those of you who regularly buy software, especially
Windows software, you know that there is one cardinal rule: never buy version 1.0 of
anything, because almost inevitably it will be slow, full of bugs, and just generally not ready
for prime time. At least wait until version 1.1, if not 2.0.

Well, last night after dinner, I gave my wife version 1.0 of this talk, telling her that I was
scheduled to deliver this talk at 8:30 the next morning. She diligently read it through, looked
up at me and said, "My God, I hope they've had a lot of coffee."

Welcome to Integrity, version 1.1. What can I say? I have been asked to speak this morning
about ethics and integrity. As Douglas has mentioned in his kind introduction, I am a
professional philosopher who specializes in ethics. I think, and write, and talk about these
issues for a living. But I want to avoid giving you an academic lecture, the version 1.0 of this
talk. The scholarly details that I find fascinating may well just put you to sleep. As one of my
colleagues once put it, kindly referring to his own lectures when he could just as easily have
been referring to mine, "Better than Sominex--and not habit forming."

But I also want to avoid giving a sermon, preaching to you about the virtues of integrity. I not
a minister, which is probably as great a matter of relief to organized churches as it is to me.
So no sermon.

So what can I offer you? Douglas has asked that I speak about integrity, and that is what I
will do. I would like to share with you some of the things I have figured out about integrity. In
the end, I hope they will be tings that will shed some light on your own experience of
grappling with issues of integrity in the administration of WIC. Your task--seeking to insure
that the nutritional needs of pregnant women, infants, and children are adequately met in
this country--is a tremendously important one. There may be areas in which integrity is not a
central concern, but given the importance of the goal to which WIC is dedicated, I can see
why you have come together to discuss issues of program integrity. The weightier the
purpose, the more important integrity is. And your purpose--insuring the nutritional health of
present and future generations--is among the weightiest.

What Is Integrity?
A Cautionary Tale
Let me begin with a cautionary tale. In a short story called "The Dark Room," the science
fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon tells us a story about a man named Conway. From time to
time, Conway would attend a cocktail party given by his friend Beck. Inevitably, at each and
every party, someone would be humiliated by finding himself doing something completely
contrary to character. A sweet old lady, known as the author of endearing children's books,
would find herself telling an obscene story to an astonished group. A professional spy,
hitherto undetected, would find himself babbling away about his accomplishments to anyone
who would listen. A faithful wife of many years would discover herself in bed with her
husband's oldest friend. Determined to discover why these strange, humiliating events
occurred with such regularity at Beck's parties, Conway breaks into Beck's house late at
night when Beck is out of town. Much to his surprise, Conway discovers an alien residing in
Beck's house--remember, this is a science fiction story! The alien explains that he feeds on
human humiliation and arranges these parties through Beck to satisfy his appetite for
humiliation. Having finally discovered the explanation of these strange occurrences, Conway
is about to leave. Almost as an afterthought, he pauses and asks the alien why he, Conway,
was never humiliated at any of these parties. As though stating the obvious, the alien
replied that Conway was "immune." There was nothing that Conway would not do, so he

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could not be humiliated. Conway, we realize, could never sell his soul: he has nothing to sell,
nothing to give up. He has no integrity.

Integrity is about what we will not do, about what we will not give up, about what
we stand for at all costs. We, unlike Conway, have integrity. There are things we would
not do in life. And because we are not like Conway, we also have something to fear: the loss
of that integrity. Integrity is very much at the center of who we are, and to lose it is to lose
an essential part of our identity. In this morning's remarks, I would like to look more closely
at this notion of integrity: at personal integrity, especially personal moral integrity, which
lies at the foundation of all integrity; at professional integrity, which lies at the heart of
our roles in business, government, and society at large; and at program integrity, which
lies at the foundation of our common projects. Let's begin by looking at the notion of
personal integrity.

Personal Integrity
Opening Examples
We know integrity when we see it. Consider a couple of examples. Think about someone like
Barry Goldwater, the former senator from Arizona and one-time presidential hopeful.
Personally, I disagree with almost everything that Goldwater has said over the years.
However, I always trusted Barry Goldwater to be Barry Goldwater, to stick by his beliefs, no
matter how unpopular they were at any given moment. Goldwater didn't change his beliefs
in order to gain votes--if anything, he tried to convince others to change their minds so that
they would vote for him. But he always stood for something, and he stood by those things he
believed in. He fought hard for what he believed in, but he also fought fairly. And we admired
him for it, even when we were in fundamental disagreement with him.

Or consider, at the opposite end of the political spectrum, Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
He, too, has been a person on unflinching integrity, ready to stand up for his beliefs despite
decades of overwhelming opposition. And Mandela's commitments touch us all, even when
we are unable to attain his standard of moral excellence. He is committed to overcoming
hatred, to reconciliation, to healing the wounds of the past without pretending that the past
never occurred. And he has a lot to teach us about integrity. He stayed true to his belief in
reconciliation and forgiveness through years of harsh imprisonment. And he remained true
to his beliefs, even when no one expected it of him. I remember when Mandela was
scheduled to be sworn in as the first black head of state in South Africa, he invited his long-
time jailer to attend the inauguration as an honored guest. That's integrity--not only sticking
by your commitments under adversity, but even sticking by them when no one would notice
a lapse.

We also easily recognize the absence of integrity--and examples are all too easy to find. We
simply have to turn on the evening news. Recently, for example, there have been news
reports about Larry Lawrence, a prominent political donor and former American Ambassador
to Switzerland who falsely claimed to have been a war hero. This qualified him to be buried
at Arlington Cemetery, thereby pretending to be someone he was not. This is precisely what
we mean by the absence of integrity: not standing by who you really are, pretending to be
someone else. In this case, it was a particularly sad lapse, because it was so unnecessary.
Here was a man who had accomplished so much, who had so much to be proud of, who
didn't need to lie about who he was. Yet he did, and lost some of his own honor and integrity
in the process.

Time and again, we see this lack of integrity in the political sphere. We see politicians go
where the votes are, changing their views to match what their pollsters tell them the
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majority believes. Seeing a difference between what the majority believes and what they
believe, these politicians don't try to convince the majority to change their views--instead,
they simply alter their own commitments so that they will be more acceptable to the
majority. Nor does one party have a monopoly on the lack of integrity. We have a President
who has many accomplishments and many strengths, but even his staunchest supporters
would be hesitant to count integrity as among those strengths. We have a Speaker of the
House who came to power by uncovering a fraudulent book deal by the reigning Speaker,
but who himself then went on to engage in disturbingly similar practices with no sign of guilt
or remorse. The absence of integrity is all too easy to spot on both sides of the aisle. Indeed,
the political situation reminds me of a remark by Samuel Goldwin, the co-founder of MGM
Studios in Hollywood. "Honesty," he once told a group of actors, "--that's the key. Once you
can fake that, you've got it all." The same, it seems, is being said about integrity in the
political sphere.

The Elements of Integrity

Yet what exactly is integrity? This is the point, I think, when my wife would suggest that you
get another cup of coffee. I'd like to look at the structure of integrity. And let me tell you in
advance, despite what my wife may say, there's a payoff to this: you will understand why
integrity is sometimes so difficult in your profession, and you will also get a sense of how
integrity can be cultivated. But before we can do any of that, we have to have a basic idea
of what integrity is. It seems to have several elements. The origin of the word, its etymology,
gives us a hint. The word "integrity" comes from the Latin, "integer," the word for number or
whole unit. Integrity is, first of all, about being one, about being whole. Integrity is about
having a sense of our own basic commitments, sticking to them, and sticking up for them.

The Structure of Virtue

Virtue as Habit. Integrity is usually thought about as a virtue, and Aristotle--the ancient
Greek philosopher who was the teacher of Alexander the Great--can help us here to
understand what a virtue is and the way in which integrity is a virtue. He points out three
things about virtues that are particularly relevant to our consideration this morning. First,
virtues, Aristotle claims, are habits of character--that is, they are deeply engrained in
our character through long years of training and commitment. You can't have a virtue
sporadically or intermittently, five minutes on and five minutes off. Rather, virtues are
deeply entrenched habits; they are part of who we are.

Virtues as Necessary to Flourishing. The second point Aristotle makes about virtues is
the one that I find most interesting and intriguing. What, we may well ask, is the point of
having virtues at all--whether the virtue be integrity or courage or compassion or
whatever? Virtues, Aristotle writes, are those habits or strengths of character
necessary to human flourishing. Quite simply, we need the virtues to lead a happy and
fulfilled life.

The Negative Conception of Morality. This Aristotelian understanding of the reason for
being moral is very different from what we hear when we are children. Initially, morality is
something that comes from outside--usually from our parents. Moreover, it is almost always
negative--"Don't do this," "Stay away from that," etc. For any of you who are parents, you
have a sense of what it is like to be the enforcer of this kind of morality. I shudder to think,
sometimes, of how many "don't's" I have uttered to our five-year old daughter. For some
people, this is as far as they ever get in thinking about morality. Morality is always external
and negative for them. Their fear is about getting caught, about being punished. In this,
which I will call the negative conception of morality, there is no room for integrity. Negative

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morality is not about wholeness; it is about not getting caught. The motives for being moral
are all thus located outside the self in the threat presented by some external authority
figure--the parent, the boss, the police officer, the inspector, the auditor.

The Positive Conception of Morality. But there is a second conception of morality--which

we can call the positive conception of morality--that sees the whole point of the moral life in
a different way. This is the conception of virtue that Aristotle advances. The whole point of
the virtues, Aristotle tells us, is both positive and internal. We need the virtues in order to
have a happy life. We don't need them because other people force us to have them (even
though they may also do this); we need them for ourselves. The motivation is an internal
and positive one.

Courage as a Virtue. Let me give you an example that is not initially about integrity, but
which we will see is important for our understanding of integrity. Courage is a virtue that we
need for a happy life. Now courage is not about having no fear. Fear is a normal and healthy
emotion to have in the face of genuinely dangerous things, and there are plenty of genuinely
dangerous things out there. Courage is that strength of character we need to persevere in
the face of that which we fear. What we fear may vary from one person to another.
Sometimes our fears are rational, other times they are not. After all, some of us fear a plane
ride more than the taxi ride to the airport. Some of us fear the disapproval of our friends, or
even of those we would like to have as friends. Some of us fear risking the slightest bit of
security for any kind of gain. Some of us fear relationships; others of us fear the absence of
relationships. An old friend of mine, a firefighter, never hesitated to run into a burning
building to save someone, but he cowered at the thought of discussing relationship issues
with his girlfriend. Another friend of mine desperately wants to change jobs, but is afraid of
giving up the security of her present position for the risky opportunites of a new job. It is
easy to see the Aristotelian point in all of this: we need the virtue of courage for ourselves if
we are going to flourish, if we are going to have a full and fulfilled life.. The virtue of courage
is necessary for anyone who has goals that involve overcoming things they fear--in other
words, the virtue of courage is necessary for all of us.

Without courage, we cannot achieve those things we desire most in life. I suspect that each
and every one of you out there knows someone whose life is at a standstill because of
something they fear, because they do not have to courage to face those fears. I see this
sometimes in my students. They are afraid, for example, to trust their own ideas, their own
experience, and as a result they can never write from their soul. Occasionally, I see one of
our students who is afraid to leave the university--he or she hangs around, sometimes year
after year, taking courses, sometimes even getting degrees, never happy, never leaving.

So, too, we see the ways in which virtue can be its own reward: courageous people are
better able to achieve the things in life they value the most, while those who lack courage
will find their way blocked by whatever they fear. It's interesting, when I look back on people
who started undergraduate or graduate school with me, I realize that the difference between
those who "made it" and those who didn't had almost nothing to do with intelligence. Smart
people faltered and got stuck, and sometimes much less gifted people stayed the course
through courage, determination, and integrity.

Virtue as a Mean. There is a third and final point Aristotle makes about the virtues that is
relevant here. A virtue is always a mean between what Aristotle calls excess and
deficiency, between having too much of something and having too little. Again, we
can illustrate this with courage. It is easy to imagine those who have too little courage--they
are the ones we call cowardly. Cowardice is the vice of too little courage. But it is also
possible to have too much. Think of the person who risks his life for no good reason. It is one
thing to rush into a burning building to save a trapped infant; it is quite another to rush into
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the same building because one has forgotten one's copy of Time Magazine. Such a person,
Aristotle says, is foolhardy because he misvalues things: he risks something precious (his
life) for something inconsequential (a copy of a magazine that could easily be replaced). This
reveals a hidden element in courage: the genuinely courageous person has a proper sense
of values, knows what is worth taking a risk for. The foolhardly person lacks this sense of
proper proportion.

Integrity as a Virtue
Like courage, integrity is also a virtue. It, too, is a habit of character, something that exists
over a long period of time. People don't have integrity sporadically, showing lots of integrity
on Thursdays. Indeed, the whole idea of integrity is that it lasts. Integrity is opposed to the
"here today, gone tomorrow" attitude. It is that strength of character that allows us to be
true to ourselves, and in particular true to our most basic commitments. That is what we
admire in someone like Barry Goldwater or Nelson Mandella, even when we don't agree with
him: we know that he stood by his commitments, even when doing so was unpopular, even
when it cost him dearly. We had a clear sense of who he was, and integrity is the virtue of
faithfulness to that identity.

Integrity and Adversity. Integrity is like courage in another respect: we only really notice
its presence under adverse conditions. Both integrity and courage emerge most clearly
when we are "under fire." Much of the time in life, there may be no need for the courageous
person to show courage. Only when dangers and difficulties arise does courage need to
show itself. Some of you may recall the time that an airliner crashed into the freezing
Potomac in Washington, DC. A young man jumped into the river repeatedly, saving the lives
of several crash victims before himself succumbing to the icy waters and drowning. Had he
not been there on that fateful night, his courage might never have been tested. It's worth
noting that we sometimes become suspicious of people--in the movies, such people are
usually played by Bruce Willis or Stephen Segal--who continually find, as if by chance,
opportunities to exhibit their courage. Courage is not an end in itself, but a strength of
character that allows us to attain the ends we desire.

Similarly, integrity is not an end in itself. It is the strength of character that allows us to
remain true to our most basic commitments, our fundamental identity. But integrity differs
from courage in an important respect: whereas courage has to do with how we respond to
that which is dangerous, integrity has to do with how we respond to temptation and to
pressure.

The Threats to Integrity

Temptation and pressure are, I think the twin threats to integrity, and they function in very
different but complementary ways. Temptation is internal, pressure external. Temptation is
often about gain; pressure is usually about loss. Temptation is usually covered up by telling
ourselves that we did nothing wrong; pressure is usually construed as "someone else made
me do it." We guard against these temptation by trying to reduce our desires, while we
guard against pressure by trying to establish a bulkhead between ourselves and those
seeking to exert pressure. Finally, we help others who are threatened by these dangers in
different ways as well.

Threats to Integrity
Source Internal External

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 Motivation Gain Loss
Rationalization Nothing wrong Someone else made me do it
Defense Scrutinizing our own Restrictions on external sources
motives
Support Personal friend-to-friend, Look for ways to remove/reduce the
counseling pressure

Temptation. I'm sure that you don't need a philosopher to tell you what temptation is, but
it's such an interesting topic that I can't resist the temptation to say a few words about it! I
grew up in Chicago during the original Mayor Daley era, so temptation has always been of
great interest to me. In fact, I grew up Irish, Catholic, Democratic, and the son of a
policeman in Chicago--so I know a lot about temptation.

Temptation comes from inside, from our own wants and desires. These vary from person to
person. I'm easily tempted by Cheese Danishes. Ice bream, however, leaves me cold. I am
tempted by almost any computer product, and I always want to buy the latest new gadget.
But temptations needn't be selfish, although in my case they often are. I can, for example,
be tempted by things that may benefit my family. Individuals may be tempted by financial
opportunities that offer possibilities of sending their children to colleges that would
otherwise be beyond their financial reach, or by financial recompense that would allow them
to provide better help for aged and ailing parents. Our temptations may be on behalf of
those we love, as well as for ourselves.

Self-deception is perhaps the greatest aid to giving in to temptation, and self-deception is

the direct enemy of integrity. When we deceive ourselves, we refuse to admit something
important about who we are. For example, we say to ourselves, "Well, there's nothing really
wrong with that," or "That's just a technicality," when referring to our own violations of
guidelines. Integrity involves knowing ourselves and being willing to stand up for our beliefs;
self-deception involves concealing something about ourselves, both to ourselves and to
others.

At one point in his discussion of the virtues, Aristotle gives us some good advice, advice that
is particularly relevant to the discussion of temptation. We all have our characteristic
weaknesses. In aiming for the golden mean between the extremes of excess and deficiency,
always be particularly on guard against the extreme to which you are naturally inclined. Let
me give you an example. Think about eating. When I think about eating, I think about thick
sliced bacon, Belgian waffles, French toast, croissants, cheese Danishes--enough. You get the
point--all the things that you, as professionals concerned about nutrition, try to get people to
avoid.. When I aim for the golden mean of eating well, I don't have to guard myself against
the extreme of anorexia. I do, however, have to guard myself against the other extreme. In
the matter of virtues, we need self-knowledge, knowledge of our own weakenesses. Such
self-knowledge is the antidote to self-deception.

We deal with temptation in a variety of ways, but perhaps the most important is to
acknowledge what our desires really are and to acknowledge that there are limits on those
desires. We live in an age that does not encourage this; indeed, many of us have been
brought up hearing the recurring myth that there are no limits on our possibilities. Yet the
simple fact of the matter is that there are.

Pressure. Sometimes we give up our integrity because of external pressure. Threats,

blackmail, economic sanctions, political repercussions--these are but a few of the ways in
which pressure can be brought to bear on individuals to give up their integrity.

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We can help people with pressure in different ways than we can help them with temptation.
In many instances, colleagues and friends can work together to reduce the severity of the
external pressure simply by applying a concerted counter-pressure. We can also search for
ways of shoring up the most vulnerable spots, for pressure seeks out the weakest point on
which to exert the most force. Friends and colleagues can help to reinforce those weak
points, making people more resistant to pressure.

The Combination of Temptation and Pressure. I mentioned earlier that I grew up in

Chicago, Irish, Catholic, and Democratic. My father was a policeman then, assigned to liquor
licenses. In Chicago, that was always a political job. Furthermore, he had a bad heart attack
when I was in 5th grade, and spent several months in the hospital. Given his heart condition,
he would not have been able to do the regular street work of a patrolman were he to leave
the license unit. Looking back on this, I have often wondered about the combination of
temptation and pressure he experienced, and I have asked myself whether that was a
barrier between him and his family. He was a proud man, not a person who would easily ask
for help from others or easily admit compromises he had made. Yet, especially when he
became sick, he was a man whose ability to support his family was precarious at best. When
integrity begins to crack, it is often for the most human and understandable of reasons.

This points, I think, to one of the principal reasons for struggling to retain one's integrity,
even in difficult circumstances. Often, when our integrity is compromised, it occurs privately.
This is certainly true about bribes, favors, etc. When we acquiesce in this, we create a part
of ourselves that we do not want the public to see--not simply a private part, but in many
instances a part that we are ashamed of. We hide that part of ourselves, even sometimes
from those who are closest to us. When we lose integrity, our relations with others are often
disrupted--indeed, even our relationship with ourselves is knocked askew. Aristotle once said
that virtue is its own reward, and the converse is often true as well: vice is its own
punishment. It is important to realize that, when we lose our integrity, we have lost an
important part of ourselves and often placed a roadblock in the path of our relations with the
people who matter most to us.

The Importance of Courage to Integrity. Earlier, I brought up the notion of courage as a

way of illustrating what we mean by a virtue. But in discussing courage, I had something
else in mind in addition to just providing an example of what we mean by a virtue, for
courage plays a crucial role in maintaining integrity. Aristotle tells us at one point that we
cannot have any single virtue in full measure without having the other virtues as well. He is,
I think, right at least in this case: we cannot have integrity without courage. Integrity
involves standing up for what we believe in--and that takes courage. This is particularly true
of the fact that integrity is most important when it is most threatened, and it is courage that
gives us the strength to push back those threats.

Moral Integrity
Finally, it is important to note here that integrity has a moral core to it. Does the Unabomber
have integrity? He has certainly remained steadfast in his commitments, and has backed up
his words with actions. Yet two things count against the Unabomber's claim to integrity. We
have already mentioned the first: he lacked courage. Sending anonymous bombs through
the mail to unsuspecting recipients is the act of a coward. He wanted his manifesto
published, but anonymously--yet integrity involves standing publicly behind one's words.

There is a second reason why I would say that the Unabomber lacks integrity. There is a
range of core values which reasonable human beings can accept, and there may be many
values that I personally don't hold but which I think it is reasonable for people to hold. Recall
the example of Barry Goldwater. I don't accept his values, but I think they are reasonable
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values for good human beings to hold. Yet clearly the Unabomber's values, at least when
taken as a whole, are not reasonable. To see technology as massively evil, to see his own
one-man cowardly crusade as justified, these are not reasonable beliefs.

Genuine integrity has a moral center without which it does not count as real integrity. There
may be variation within that center, and reasonable individuals may differ about what is
most important among those core values, but there is a limit to what those values can be.

Professional Integrity
Personal integrity involves standing up for one's most fundamental beliefs and
commitments, even in the face of adversity. Professional integrity requires all the strengths
of personal integrity, but its focus is not determined by our personal beliefs and
commitments. Instead, professional integrity focuses on the commitments and goals
contained in the professional role we occupy.

This type of integrity is essential to public service even more than in the private sphere, and
my guess is that everyone in this room labors under the weight of these additional
expectations. There are many programs that are run for the common good, and in theory we
would wish that all of them would be run with integrity, but the truth of the matter is, we can
all imagine some programs in which integrity is not crucial--like issueing hunting licenses in
an impartial way. But in the case of providing nutritional care for the future generation,
theirs and our futures are at stake. It's quite a responsibility, and one whose weightiness
places high demands for integrity.

Roles and Integrity

Different roles impose different kinds of responsibilities on us. Roles do not even have to be
professional. A couple of nights ago, for example, my five and a half year daughter lost her
second tooth--which she gleefully put in the Tooth Fairy box so that she would wake up the
next morning with a dollar bill under the box--inflation, once again: what can I say?-- and the
tooth gone. Well, as I was falling asleep a couple of nights ago, just before I nodded off, I
remembered--the tooth, the buck. One of my responsibilities as a parent, part of my job
description, as it were, is to make sure the tooth disappears and the dollar is there in the
morning. It's part of the job description.

So, too, in various professions, certain things are part of the job description. If you are a law
enforcement officer, for example, there are particular goals--such as upholding the peace,
preventing harm to innocent citizens, and the like--that are central to your purpose as a law
enforcement officer. This is an important way in which professional integrity differs from
personal integrity. In personal integrity, we are free--within certain limits--to choose our own
basic commitments. This is not true in regard to professional integrity. These commitments
are not matters of personal choice--they come with the job description. We can choose
whether to accept the position, but once we accept the role, we also accept the basic
commitments of that role.

We can see how the purposes of different professions determine the basic commitments and
values that are central to that profession. Physicians, for example, have a commitment to
health and healing that is basic to their role. Military officers have a very different set of
commitments to defense of the nation that define their role. Teachers have yet a third set of
commitments which are defined by the educational mission that constitutes their role.

9
We can also see what happens when people in those roles are perceived as no longer being
dedicated to the goals of their respective professions, when integrity seems to be eroded.
When physicians, for example, are seen as more dedicated to making money than healing
the sick, the public views them with increasing distrust. When the military is perceived as
concerned more about self-aggrandizement than its military code of honor, then it too is
viewed with increasing distrust and skepticism by the public. When teachers are seen are
more concerned about their own job security than about educating children, parents view
their children's teachers with increasing skepticism and wariness. This phenomenon reveals
another way in which professional integrity differs from personal integrity. If I do something
that violates my integrity and eventually this becomes public, I suffer the negative
consequences in relative isolation. However, if I violate my professional integrity and it is
made public, everyone in my profession is likely to suffer as a result. Thus you, as
administrators, carry an extra burden of integrity--when you are being judged, you are often
been seen as a representative of your entire profession. A heavy burden indeed.

WIC Administrative Integrity

Program administrators obviously have their own commitments, dependent on both their
general identity as administrators and the specific goals of their program. As administrators,
your goals include insuring that the programs under your control run efficiently and
effectively. These are goals shared by almost any administrator, irrespective of the specific
purpose of the program being administered. As WIC administrators, you are specifically
committed to the goal of insuring the nutritional well-being for mothers and infants who are
at risk.

Supervising Integrity
Administrators must have integrity themselves, but usually that is the easy part.
Presumably, you would not have been chosen for that position if there were not already
strong evidence of your integrity. But my suspicion is that, given a basic disposition toward
integrity, there are at least three areas that are troublesome here. The first of these has to
be with "drawing the line" and what philosophers call "the slippery slope." The second
relates to how we deal with others whose integrity is being violated. The third and final area
is perhaps the most difficult and pertains to the possible conflict between efficiency and
effectiveness in program administration. Let's look at each of these in turn.

The "Slippery Slope." The slippery slope is well-named: we can all visualize a slope that
begins ever so gently but, because it is so slippery, as soon as we take the first innocent
step, we end up sliding down the hillside to the bottom--usually a depth that is far from
innocent. Seemingly innocent tokens of appreciation from potential vendors, for example,
threaten to send us careening down that slope.

Agencies, including your own, have well-articulated policies to prevent people from sliding
down these slopes. Reasonable people differ on exactly where to draw the line on these
issues, about how far down that slope one can go without losing control, but all agree that
the line must be drawn somewhere.

Dealing with Others Whose Integrity Is at Risk. One of the most difficult tasks that
administrators face is dealing with others whose integrity is at risk or has been
compromised. Two types of cases are particularly difficult.

First, there are times when we have to deal with situations involving friends, people we are
about, people whose affection and good will we value--who are nonetheless people who

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have compromised their integrity. In such situations, we often feel torn in a very human way.
We see the pain and suffering that disciplinary action will cause to someone we are about,
whereas we may minimize (or perhaps not see at all) the harm to others that their misdeeds
caused. Imagine, for example, discovering that someone you supervise, who is also a good
friend, has been receiving kickbacks for accepting nutritional products of a lower quality
than specified. It is easy to see the extensive pain you friend might experience if discovered.
It is harder to see the smaller but more pervasive and numerous pains suffered by those
who received substandard food. In such situations, many administrators experience a
conflict between impartiality and loyalty.

Second, there are cases in which we observe misdeeds that do not directly involve us--and
we must make a decision about whether to step forward and blow the whistle, as it were.
This is a situation that has a clear analogue in the university setting where I work. There are
many students who do not cheat but who observe other students cheating. Most honor
codes require them to report such violations, but they rarely do. The incident is not thrust
upon them; they can simply walk by it without getting involved.

The third area in which integrity gets challenged occurs whenever there is a conflict
between efficiency and effectiveness. Think of your nutritional programs. Is the cheapest
way of delivering nutrition always the most effective? Do more effective ways of delivering
nutrition sometimes cost more than the most efficient ways? This is, I suspect, a challenge
to integrity that each of you as an administrator grapples with on a regular basis. I know at
my own institution, we are constantly enjoined to "do more with less." Personally, I would
rather do more with more. Less usually just gets you less. And I suspect that you as
administrators face this same battle: you are asked to be effective, and you are asked to be
efficient, but sometimes one is bought at the price of the other. When it is, the integrity of
the program--our final topic for today--is put at risk.

Program Integrity
Finally, let me very briefly turn to the notion of program integrity, for this is where the
notions of personal integrity and professional integrity come together in a single, well-
defined context.

WIC is about insuring that as many women, infants, and children as possible have adequate
nutrition. We all know the importance of this goal, for the nutritional foundation laid down
early in life establishes the foundation for later physical and mental growth. The WIC
provides the goals that you are committed to realizing: promoting the nutritional health of
pregnant women, infants, and young children in the most efficient and effective ways
possible.

Violations of program integrity occur when something is done that runs counter to the goals
of the program. Threats to program integrity can come from two different directions:
external and internal.

External Threats
The main focus of your convention here is on the external threats. It is easy to see the ways
in which fraud, waste, and inefficiency threaten program integrity from the outside, for all of
these things impede the realization of the program's goals. Program integrity begins with
good standards, standards that will insure that the goals of the program will be
accomplished, and my impression is that WIC has done an admirable job in specifying these
standards, both for itself and for its vendors.
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But specifying standards is not enough to insure program integrity--these standards must
also be enforced. Overcharging, trafficking, unauthorized substitutions--these are the types
of things that must be constantly monitored to insure that the program's standards are in
fact lived up to. Indeed, this is why your conference here is of such value: the integrity of a
program such as WIC cannot be maintained if it is unable to enforce its very commendable
standards.

Internal Threats
It is worth noting that not all threats to program integrity come from the outside. There are
several ways in which program integrity can be threatened from within. Let me mention two
here.

First, programs can have conflicting internal mandates. I already alluded to one possibility in
this area: the potential conflict between cost-cutting and effectiveness. Your job as
administrators is to reconcile these potentially conflicting goals, but it is important to realize
that the possibility of conflict is always there and that such conflicts can in some
circumstances undermine program integrity.

Second, sometimes programs lose their way, lose a clearly defined sense of their own
purpose. They take on goals far beyond their original scope, sometimes neglecting their
original purposes. These additional goals might be quite commendable--it's not a matter of
trying to achieve something that it bad in itself. It's just that they might not be the goals
appropriate to that program. If, for example, WIC suddenly embarked on a campaign to
encourage greater safety in the operation of American tractors, that goal would be
admirable in itself but hardly in keeping with WIC's overall mandate. Programs lose their
integrity through such over-expansion.

Promoting Integrity
Let me conclude with a few words about how we can promote integrity. These are all things
that you know, I am sure, but they bear repeating because if you're like me, you t Personal
integrity is the foundation of all the other kinds of integrity. If we do not have the kind of
strength that comes with personal integrity, we simply cannot implement either professional
integrity or program integrity.

Act with Integrity. We cannot expect others to show integrity if we do not do the same. We
teach most powerfully through example, and the best way to teach integrity is to show it.
We teach integrity to employees and those we supervise by treating them with integrity, and
by letting them see that our interactions with others are also governed by integrity.

Reward Integrity in Others. When you see others acting with integrity, acknowledge it
and reinforce it. Integrity is something to be valued, and it is important to show others that
you do in fact value their integrity, especially when it is displayed under difficult
circumstances.

Act Early. When you see warning signs that someone is heading toward trouble, talk to
them right away. Don't wait until something bad has happened.

Help before You Condemn. When you see someone in trouble, whenever possible look for
ways to remedy the situation.

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Selected Bibliography
Lynn McFall, "Integrity," Ethics, Vol. 98, No. 1 (October, 1987); reprinted in Ethics and
Personality, edited by John Deigh. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992, pp. 79-94. The
reference to the Theodore Sturgeon short story comes form McFall.

Steven Carter, Integrity. New York: Basic Books, 1996. The example from Sam Goldwyn
comes from Carter.

Mark S. Halfon, Integrity. A Philosophical Inquiry. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.

John Bebe, Integrity in Depth. College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1992.

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