Integrity is defined as the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

Morale principles are defined as the principles of right and wrong that are accepted by an individual or a social group.  The practice of honesty lies in a refusal to lie, steal, or deceive in any way.

Put it together, What does it mean?

Determining if someones behaviour is honest can be a relatively objective measure.   In most cases, an act of lying, stealing or deceiving  are agreed by consensus.

That is, a randomly selected group would most likely easily achieve consensus and agree that a lie, theft or deceit occurred.

However, that is  not necessarily the case relative to identification of the perpretrator of said action, which is why we have our court/trial system, to enable the fair judgement of guilt.

For moral behaviour it is a very objective judgement, that can be individual or group specific,  as to what constitutes moral behaviour. This makes determination of whether an action was moral very difficult.

How can I be sure to act with integrity?

While honesty can be determined with little debate, this is not the case when it comes to qualifying what constitutes moral behaviour. This can create a dilemma when you want to act with integrity.

The question arises, what does it mean to be moral?   I recently participated in a discussion with that question at it’s center.  Basically, “I want to do this action, but is it ethical?”

Unfortunately the determination of ethicality contained a large subjective component around the moral correctness, not the truthfulness.

In these cases, my own approach is to apply my personal philosophy for the way to live your life.  The action is okay and ethical as long as it gives me pleasure while not detracting from the pleasure of others.