Integrity Is Not What It’s Cracked Up to Be: An amoralist decides a moral question

or Promise Keeping: An Amoral Moment 

I am in a situation where it would be highly advantageous for me to break a promise to a someone. But doing so would put that person at a great disadvantage. Furthermore I care very much about that person, who is a dear friend. 

As it happens I am very conscienceous (if I may coin a term). Breaking a promise is flat-out wrong, at least if it was not coerced, which this one was not (at least by commonsense standards; one could always get casuistic, but I won’t), and so I am highly inhibited to do it. Yes, I do also have a strong motivation to break the promise; but that is canceled out by my strong motivation not to let down someone I care about. So that just leaves the wrongness of the act to decide the question. 

However I am an amoralist, so wrongness does not really exist for me. Therefore I am stymied. 

Further introspection, however, reveals further considerations. I now realize that my moral motivation is a concern not so much to keep a promise as to maintain my integrity. I want to be a good person. 

But that’s not the end of the story either, or perhaps not even the real story. After all, how could a genuine amoralist have integrity? Isn’t integrity all about being strongly morally principled? So really what I care about is to maintain the self-image of integrity. I want to think of myself as good, and that is what matters to me: not being good, but being able to think of myself as good. 

Well, hell, that’s just egotism, isn’t it? Nothing wrong with egotism, of course, since nothing is wrong or bad. But this self-image also has to do with morality, and hence it too is based on illusion. There’s no such thing as being a good person, so this egotism is very flimsy indeed; it’s like taking pride in being Napoleon when you’re just an inmate in the asylum. 

However, there are of course nonmoral reasons for not breaking promises as a rule.[1] So maybe that could be the tie-breaker in a case like mine where the nonmoral reasons for keeping and breaking a particular promise cancel out. 

But this could be one of those cases where the general rule is itself better broken (since, after all, it is not an inviolable law). Perhaps a closer look at my opposing reasons or motivations for keeping or breaking this promise would show one to be significantly stronger than the other after all. Just because they motivate in opposite directions does not automatically mean they “cancel out.” That judgment was too swift. So which consideration moves me more on reflection: my friend’s personal advantage, or mine? That is the question. 

Or is it? Maybe I not only care about my friend but have in (“the back of my”) mind some personal advantage to me from helping my friend. So my personal interest could be on both sides of the question. Therefore my caring about my friend could be the tie-breaker by lending additional weight to keeping the promise. 

However, maybe the only advantage to me from keeping the promise would be to retain the respect of my friend. But if that respect were for being a good person, then, as an amoralist, I may not value it very highly or may even want to dismiss it. 

But what if that deluded respect motivates my friend to shower me with material appreciation that is to my advantage? say, my friend praises me highly to others, who open various doors to me, whatever. 

Yes, that could definitely be a consideration. It happens not to be in the present case, however. My friend’s respect will do nothing for me. So it’s back to deciding between breaking the promise for my sake or keeping the promise for my friend’s sake. 

But, again, we can go to a deeper level in the analysis of the particular case. It is not necessarily just a matter of self versus other, egoism versus altruism. What exactly is at stake? If the personal advantage for my friend were a vacation in Paris my friend had always dreamed of, but the personal advantage for me were getting major surgery to relieve a critical condition, then wouldn’t my personal advantage trump my friend’s without the preference or decision or breaking the promise being in any way problematic, even to a moralist? 

In the present case it is not so clear-cut a difference as that. What is at stake on both sides is weighty. So it could indeed be a case of caring for self versus caring for other. 

Even so, is it obvious that this presents a stalemate? Might even a moralist grant that in the case of a tie, one may, or even ought to give priority to oneself? What if you’ve been sacrificing all your life for another person and now is your last chance to get some pleasure in life. Even though you promised your mother you would never send her to a nursing home, and then an offer comes for you to move out of town for a fluke opportunity, is it so obvious that you are not permitted, and are perhaps even obligated by a principle of self respect, to break that promise? 

But even accepting such a principle, one must keep in mind that a particular decision is not something abstract but rather an act by a particular individual (or group), in this case, the one who made the promise. The decider is therefore hardly impartial. Does that not cast doubt on the invocation of any principle of prudence on one’s own behalf? 

Of course from the nonmoral perspective, there can be neither permission nor obligation to break (or keep) a promise, nor even to be impartial. This means that it is simply up to the promise maker to decide. So once again we are back to the question: keep the promise for my friend’s sake or break it for my own? 

The answer will be … what I end up doing. But note that this does not mean that this whole exposition has been pointless (or that its “point” is simply to dismiss, as worthless, reflecting on decisions before you make them). On the contrary: What I end up doing will now have been informed and influenced by the exposition/reflection preceding my action.[2] That makes all the difference. That is how what I call desirism is supposed to function. I offer it as a preferred (by me) alternative to moralism (after years of reflection on it).

Postscriptum. Yet another consideration with motivational implications for an amoralist is that perfect amoralism may be a will o- the-wisp, and so at most or at least in most cases an amoralist would not be entirely bereft of moralist responses but instead be an aspiring amoralist. This is certainly the case for me. It follows that a further factor in deciding what to do (and hence being motivated to do it and hence doing it, all other things equal), even for an amoralist, will be the moral emotions that remain. Thus, in the case of promise keeping, the promiser would, first of all, want to be cognizant of the moral response of the promisee, who is likely to be an ordinary moralist. If I broke my promise, my friend might well harbor resentment. This could come back to bite me in some way or other, even though it is, on my view, based on falsehood. But the more direct way moralism could impinge on my options is by burdening me with guilt feelings for breaking my promise, or with resentment of my own if I were to keep my promise to my own significant detriment. Reject such feelings as I might, I could still have them and be affected by them, which could in turn influence other future feelings and actions of mine, even to the detriment of the promisee.[3] Such considerations too, therefore, would be suitable for the desirist to reflect on when deciding what to do.[4]


 

[1] There are amoral analogues for many moral ideals, including integrity itself, which could be amply replaced by reliability. Moreover, many nonmoral phenomena that have moral connotations, such as honesty and impartiality, can simply remain themselves without the moral patina.

[2] This last and crucial point was suggested to me by chatGPT! I took it for granted and neglected to realize it needed to be stated for the reader’s full understanding. Otherwise the essay is entirely my own.

[3] The general issue of how to deal with unreconstructed moral responses is the topic of my most recent book, Ethical Health: Managing Our Moral Impulses (Routledge, 2025).

[4] I think I picked up this sort of consideration from the thought of William Irwin. 

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