Six Fundamental Pillars of Character

Six Fundamental Pillars of Character
Today, the notion of what factors comprise a good character for humans is undergoing some profoundly significant challenges as the nation’s top leadership struggles to respond to the ongoing Covid-19 global pandemic in an honest and forthright fashion. Moreover, the demographic composition of the United States and many other Western nations has experienced significant changes in recent years, introducing a number of cross-cultural factors that are used to define good character. Against this backdrop, it is important for individuals to apply their critical thinking skills to develop their own conceptualization of character. To this end, the purpose of this paper is to provide a list of six fundamental pillars of character: integrity, dependability, responsible, patriotic, open-minded and considerate of others. The critical analysis the follows below examines how these pillars of character can be used to assess the extent to which people satisfy these characteristics and how deficits in any of them can have an adverse effect on ethical living. Finally, a summary of the research and key findings concerning the selected six pillars of character are presented in the paper’s conclusion.
Integrity
This pillar was selected because it can serve as a reflection of people’s innermost thoughts and personal values. Some people may describe others as having or not having integrity, though, without really understanding what the word means. For the purposes of this paper, a good personal definition of integrity is “doing what is right even when no one is watching.” This pillar can be especially challenging when mere humans are presented with the opportunity to enrich themselves unjustly without being found out, but it provides a valuable gauge of how they will likely respond to other temptations in the future.
This pillar is important to me personally because humans are frequently confronted with ethical dilemmas that demand immediate responses, and people with integrity tend to respond in ways that avoid or mitigate such dilemmas while people without integrity may simply exacerbate the problem even further by making suboptimal ethical decisions. In sum, the fundamental pillar of integrity means that individuals generally abide by a personal set of ethical values that conforms to the Golden Rule.
This pillar is important to any community of individuals, but especially those that involve personal interactions with others such as classmates who are trusted and relied upon to pursue their academic careers honestly in order to avoid gaining an undue advantage. Likewise, people with integrity are an essential part of professional communities of practice where ethical behaviors are assumed as part of the norm rather than being the exception to the rule. At the risk of painting with an overly broad brush, it is reasonable to suggest that some occupations such as used car dealers, politicians, and even some fields of legal practice are widely regarded as having more than their fair share of practitioners that lack integrity while others such as health care professionals and the clergy are viewed as having an abundance of these individuals.
Dependability
Nothing in this world ever gets done unless someone shows up to do it, making this pillar of character an especially important one. In some contexts, such as a failure to telephone someone at a specific time to discuss a television episode, dependability may not be considered an overly important pillar of character. In many settings such as law enforcement or emergency medical first responders, however, dependability can represent a life and death issue. Therefore, dependability can be regarded as an essential component of individuals’ character since it provides some indication of just how seriously they regard their commitments to others.
This pillar of character is important to me personally because dependability is at the crux of what makes the business world operate efficiently. In addition, the pillar of character also means that people can count on individuals to follow through with their promised obligations to others. In each case, though, dependability reflects a personal commitment to “keep one’s word” when nothing else is of real value, an attribute that forms an important part of anyone’s character.
The pillar of character is important for both academic and professional settings where people are relied upon to “deliver the goods” when and where they are required. In academic settings, dependability means professors show up on time, prepared to teach their classes. In other professional settings, dependability likewise means that health care practitioners or police officers are on their jobs when they are supposed to be working. From this perspective, there are no “non-essential workers” and everyone is expected and supposed to be dependable.
Responsible
This pillar of character was selected because it means that people are “able to respond” to demands by others in a timely fashion. Being responsible means different things at different times and in different places, but responsible parents provide their children with enough to eat, a safe place to live, a loving home, clothes on their backs and a decent education, just to name a few responsibilities. Similarly, people who are responsible make the individual sacrifices that are required, usually without making a big deal about it to others since they possess this trait inherently.
It is possible to conceptualize responsibility exists along a continuum ranging from virtually nothing at birth except performing basic involuntary bodily functions to a wide array of complicated and frequently expensive, long-term obligations later in life. Therefore, being responsible represents an important pillar of character to me personally because it is a useful indicator concerning how much value others place on their own worth and the value they attribute to how their lives affect others. Moreover, this pillar is universal in nature and extends to every walk of life.
The pillar of being responsible is an important part of my municipal community because responsible parents take care of their children. Indeed, if parents fail to respond to the needs of their children what good are they to their families and the larger communities in which they live, work, educate and recreate? Likewise, taxpayers that are unable or unwilling to respond to the government’s annual demands for money that is, in part, to support their local communities are a drag on society rather than being a contributing member. In sum, at some point, everyone stops being an asset to their community and becomes a liability if they are not responsible.
Patriotic
This pillar of character was selected because it is an indication of how positively individuals feel about their country as well as its values and traditions. On the one hand, citizens of countries that are not patriotic are most likely dissatisfied for any number of reasons, some of which, such as racism or poverty, may be beyond their control. On the other hand, though, no nation is perfect but everyone owes a duty to respect and honor the place where they are born and raised.
This pillar is important to me personally because I have several members of many generations of family have served their country in the armed forces. Furthermore, some members of my family have made the ultimate sacrifice for their nation over the past century. It would therefore be dishonorable and disrespectful to fail to recognize and pay homage to their sacrifices, and the sacrifices of tens of thousands of other citizens, by simply refusing to pledge allegiance and stand up to salute the flag.
Despite the entreaties against the rising tide of nationalism that is taking place in many countries around the world, this pillar of character was selected since it reflects individuals love, devotion and respect for their homeland and their fellow citizens. Patriots will defend their neighbors while they defend themselves and their families. In addition, patriots will step up to defend their communities and country from internal and external threats.
Open-Minded
This pillar was selected because keeping an open mind about important issues is an essential to a free and democratic society. One of the harsh realities of the human condition is the tendency to form views and opinions that may not be based on empirical observations and scientific fact but rather nebulous factors such as “hunches,” “intuition” and “a gut feeling.” When these misguided views and opinions become rock-hard over time, it is difficult to break through these barriers with the facts, making this pillar an especially salient aspect of character today.
This pillar of character is important to me personally because I have encountered many people during my life that have strong views about controversial issues that are not founded in reality but are rather the result of their cherry-picking that types of “evidence” that supports their views while discounting or completely disregarding anything that conflicts with their long-held views. Being open minded therefore contributes to other aspects of character as well since it means that people are amenable to change when they are wrong.
This pillar is important to my municipal community because it suffers from a number of social ills that defy easy solutions unless and until all stakeholders come to grips with the facts. In far too many cases, social problems such as poverty are considered weaknesses of character and a lack of a work ethic. When people approach these problems with a closed mind, they fail to take into account the other social and institutional factors that serve to keep some demographic groups in society perpetually disadvantaged no matter how hard they try to overcome their circumstances.
Considerate of Others
This pillar was selected because it has been said, with some degree of truth, that it is possible to discern others’ character by watching how they treat people such as wait staff who are not always in a position to defend themselves. While it is possible that some people may have good reason to be inconsiderate of others such as when they are “flipped off” at a traffic light for some unknown reason, considerate individuals will likely ask themselves what they could have done to precipitate this type of response rather than returning the gesture in kind.
This pillar of character is important to me personally because, like most people, I want, expect and believe I deserve to be treated with consideration by others just as I owe them this duty as well. When people are considerate, they take how their actions affect others into account instead of acting out impulsively, suggesting that they have matured in both thought and actions. In addition, this pillar is also important since it involves avoiding harming others, either intentionally or unintentionally.
This pillar is important to my municipal community because inconsiderate people that drink or text while driving represent a threat to life and limb, just as those who refuse to wear a mask when requested to do so demonstrate a flagrant disregard for the welfare of others and their families. In other words, considerate people help make a strong community stronger and vice versa.
Conclusion
While it may be difficult to precisely define character, it is possible to distinguish some of its constituent pillars. The research showed that pillars of character such as integrity, dependability, responsible, patriotism, remaining open-minded and being considerate of others represent just some of the attributes that combine to an individual’s character. The research also showed that these pillars are important for a number of reasons to both individuals and the communities in which they live. Finally, it is reasonable to conclude that a number of other pillars could justifiably be used for this analysis, but the six examined above provide a useful framework to evaluate character.