Integrity from Kings and Carters views - Essay Example

The Letter from Birmingham Jail written by Martin Luther King Jr. appears to be the very fabric of Stephen Carter’s three steps to integrity articulated in the book Integrity. Of course, this does not imply that Carter mainly uses King as his guiding principle in formulating his definition of integrity; probably King is one of the many people with genuine integrity that Carter viewed in order for him to establish the three steps to integrity. It is uncertain, nevertheless, if King would agree to Carter’s three steps, particularly the third step.

There are problems inherent in Carter’s “saying openly.” King would generally view or interpret Carter’s integrity based largely from his own life and belief system. Reading King’s Letter from Birmingham Jail, the three steps of integrity expounded by Carter appear to be in harmony with King’s thoughts, actions, and expressions. Of the three categories of integrity, King’s integrity through his letter is justified as articulated in Carter’s third step: “saying openly that you are acting on your understanding of right from wrong” (Carter 7).

Carter admits that the third step is the most difficult part of attaining integrity or an integral life. He argues that the present-day American individual will do everything merely for the sake of social acceptance. Conversely, Carter’s integrity requires a person to say openly on the reason for his or her action, even at the expense of personal interest. This is what King did; he expresses openly to a group of people -- namely, the religious clergymen -- about the reason for his action (i.e., peaceable assembly). . it deeply before he -- together with his brothers and sisters who are black Americans like himself -- went to the streets in expressing his sentiments concerning the prevalence of racism in the country.

By and large, King would view or interpret Carter’s definition of integrity based from his contemplative, active, and writing life. In Carter’s view, on the other hand, King’s thoughts, actions, and sayings fit well to his integrity paradigm. In the first step to integrity, Carter explains that an integral life requires the person’s “discerning what is right and what is wrong” (7). To discern or think about what is good and what is not is a prerequisite for an integral life. With respect to the first step outlined by Carter, King is a contemplative person.

He contemplates on the things or ideas that are relevant to his life as a person in general and as an African American in particular. In his letter, it is apparent that King has made several thinking concerning the existence of racism characterized in segregation. He has cited many and varied experiences, all of them are ugly, of the black community within the white-dominated society. For one thing, King mentions about the signboards and other displays in the grocery stores that contain an anti-black message.

The most touching of the numerous examples presented in the letter is when an African American child asks his father why “white people treat colored people so mean” (King). King has discerned deeply and even philosophically before he takes his action to the streets. In the second step to integrity, Carter states that a person with integrity has to act based from what he or she has discerned, even at “personal cost” (7). From King’s letter alone, Carter would say that this man is a man of