Your Best Self: The Catalyst of Integrity by Tara Smith

[@johnwayne6646]

Tara Smith is a joy :)

[@science212]

Tara Smith is a good philosopher.

[@2Oldcoots]

Thank You so very much Ms. Smith for enriching my understanding of Objectivism, and integrity more specifically.

[@Solus793]

Tara is a brilliant person, very sharp.

[@RogerFusselman]

I like how integrity here is a virtue about maximizing your happiness rather than about catching hypocrites or making sacrifices.

[@zardozcys2912]

Thank you for embarrassing me. Said without any malice at all. Tara is a phenomenal woman.

[@hillaryromero1761]

Tara is amazing! I loved hearing her speak live in Austin at Ocon 2021.

[@RollingTree2]

Thank you ARI and Tara Smith ...reallly great topic and explanation! Among other very helpful light casting explanations, this clarified for me that self interest requires principles, which require consistency, which require integrity ...and conversly that atruism requires inconsistency, and is therefore unprincipled, and therefore unavoidably integrity bankrupt. An often appropriate, but relatively rare statement that does nothing but contribute to my confidence in a speaker's integrity, is "I don't know".

[@science212]

Hank Rearden is like Bruce Wayne. Rational, atheist and rich.

[@fitwithartin]

What was the handout and what book is being mentioned there?

[@sid06]

Unfortunately, the talk teases some topics that would be a great exercise on how to implement integrity in real life, but it does not deliver, like the case of work hours reporting. An hour in an 8-hour continuous stint is incomparably less productive than an hour in 1 - 1.5 hour batches interlaced with mind shifts, body movement, and thoughtful energy intake (mind you can only do a few of these batches in a day). This is well-researched human physiology. Now, will you decide that one hour represents the average performance unit of your team, given otherwise it is a nonsensical value unit, or do you evade this fact? Or is it a value hierarchy where some other fact that I am missing takes prime?

[@RogerFusselman]

It's very unclear from your example regarding the hour how that relates to integrity. A productive eight hours does not mean you never relax for a couple minutes, or never take a break. Necessary breaks are probably factored into what an employer counts as an hour's worth of work, right? Nobody takes "eight hours of work a day" as meaning you can't use the restroom or stand up from your desk and stretch. To answer such questions, hold in mind the context of the definition, so that you can more clearly integrate the concretes with the principles. Now if you believe productive work gives meaning to your life but you strive to avoid it at every conceivable turn, then that would be a clearer example of a violation of integrity. Most likely what you're doing here is attributing to morality a must-do here and there that is actually morally optional. A 10-minute break may enhance productivity but a 45-minute down-the-KZbin-rabbit-hole experience may not -- though I gotta say, I don't officially know that cul-de-sac to be detrimental.

[@ianeldred841]

There can be no perfect symmetry between one's values and one's actions. Whatever ethical model suggests that this is possible is deeply erroneous. 'Rational principles' do not exist in some sort of unassailable enclave, they are always infiltrated and influenced by one's subjective impulses. When Rand says that values must exhort us to 'living' what she fails to address is that 'life' is deeply contextual and one's identity and empirical profile (race, ethnicity, socio-occupational status) cannot be ablated from a project of reason. It takes more than reason for people to frame their own identities and their relationships with other individuals in their communities.

[@nrght]

I think a reading of the fountainhead would bring you to question these ideas.