Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Integrity And Politics, Damian Cox

Damian Cox

Extract:

Integrity is the virtue par excellence of the professional politician. It is the virtue a politician is apt to hold most precious; a virtue they are likely to defend above all others. To cast doubt upon the courage, foresight, knowledge, wisdom, compassion or good-sense of a contemporary politician is one thing, to cast doubt upon their integrity is quite another. Indeed, it seems that no professional politician working in a contemporary liberal democracy can afford to allow a credible slur on their integrity to go unanswered.

The concept of integrity is obviously central to our conception of a properly …