Personal Integrity and the Sense of Duty:
The Psychological Importance of Moral Action*
§1. Introduction
You are walking down a crowded sidewalk, when you stop at the newspaper
stand. The woman in front of you is trying to buy a newspaper while, a the same time,
loudly and obnoxiously chatting away on her cell phone, carrying on what seems to be a
very important conversation about hair salons. As she absentmindedly pays for her
paper, and heads down the street, you notice a thick bank envelope fall out of her
handbag. Even though you have found this woman slightly annoying, and are finally
next in line to get your paper, without much hesitation you rush to pick up the envelope
and return it to her.
We have all experienced situations similar to this, where we find ourselves drawn
by a sense of duty to do the right thing- even in cases like this where there would be no
obvious negative repercussions to keeping your place in line and letting the woman walk
away, or even to picking up the money and keeping it for yourself, so that you might
finally be able to catch up on your credit cards. Despite the personal advantages that may
be had by not doing the right thing, the pull of morality often succeeds in getting a person
to do the right thing. Yet, even as she does the morally right action, the thoughtful agent
may stop and wonder why. Why does morality pull her in this way, leading her to treat
morality, and its requirements, as more important than her personal interests?
I think it is important that moral theorists address these questions, especially those
who hold their moral requirements to be strict, overriding ones. If people are required to
act morally, and, indeed, often find themselves pulled by the sense of duty, there really
should be some explanation that ties together the importance of acting morally with one’s
own psychological drives. However, the most popular contemporary moral theories,