The Three Pillars of Integrity
When deciding whether to fully trust someone, it is synonymous with that person being of integrity. These are the three pillars I apply. Of course trust itself is very basic. We can trust people with the smallest of tasks even if they lack any of these three characteristics! For example, a hedge fund can trust a trader to work, regardless of if that trader is ethical and regardless if that trader has “those” opinions. Another example is a fast food chain that doesn’t care whether the worker is intelligent, ethnical, nor philosophical.
The idea of integrity is something else completely. It’s very existence is something to love. With integrity, one can be vulnerable and with vulnerability, we can progress faster.
- Intelligence
- Ethics
- Philosophy
Intelligence
Intelligence is extremely hard to measure. IQ tests are not useful to measure the intelligence we want. Why? For one, the average IQ is fixed at 100. Therefore, IQ only gives us a score relative to the population. Intelligence is exceptional, not just standard deviations. There’s also quite a big difference between specialized (neurosurgeon, nuclear physicist) versus someone who strives to be intelligent at thinking itself. An intelligent person is one who is a master of interpretation. I honestly believe that intelligence is an ability to interpret what was communicated. I wish I could say that intelligence can be measured by how someone communicates back, but the reality is that it results in measure the skill to “dumb it down.” Really the one way to spot intelligence is by the lack of bias. Someone who continues or doubles down on their “jumping to conclusions” is not intelligent.
Ethics
This is pretty clear. You should ask someone why insider trading is morally wrong. It’s a thought exercise. Maybe that’s a bit hard. We’re looking for consistency in their world view. Another go to is you let your autistic friend stay at your place for 8 months, but by month 6 you don’t like their presence (for whatever reason). They are incapable of leaving the house by themselves. If you try to remove them yourself, you may get injured in the process. Should you just tolerate it for 2 more months?
If you answered yes to this question, here’s another one. What should we do about homeless people? I think we should build multi-level 24-hour community centres and homeless shelters regardless of if the homeless person does drugs. The homeless shelter will need to be built in a city, and it’s going to be built in someone’s neighbourhood near the grocery store. Do you agree that it’s okay if the homeless shelter is built next to the grocery store you shop at? I think a Costco would be fair to be honest.
Philosophy
The last one is the ability, desire, and belief to seek truth. Philosophy is the love of wisdom. It’s hard to gauge this, but if I was tasked with gauging if someone meets this criteria, I would ask someone in private what a strong opinion they hold about morality that someone may disagree with or that the law disagrees with. Some answers are cop-outs, so you may need to probe some more. An easy ones to confront is “every human is equal” because chances are they don’t actually practice what they preach. For the more social just people, the go to one is questioning their belief on weather their wealthier parents should receive less benefits from the government.
On the topic of the death penalty
A cop out answer is “I [don’t] believe in the death penalty” because “killing is wrong.” I myself don’t believe in the death penalty because any possibility of an innocent person dying is too much just for the sake of “less baggage.” It is not the state’s duty to partake in retribution. That is of a personal matter between the victim and the wrongdoer.