Is Integrity an Absolute or Relative Value?

When I applied to MUWCI, I had to write 10 short essays. One of the essay questions was “Is integrity an absolute or relative value?” I answered that integrity is absolute. This is what I thought I believed. At the same time, I believed that nothing takes place if it is not observed. I didn't realise until today morning that these two beliefs are irreconcilable.

Let me explain what I mean by my second point. If you take a look at history, you can see that unless someone is present to record an event, it is not part of history; looking back over things, then, this event never took place. Similarly, if I cheated on a test and therefore I got maximum grades on it, as far as anyone knows, I didn't cheat on it. If these two examples can be accepted, then this third example is analogous: if I murdered someone and no-one got to find out about it or my hand in it, then it never happened.

Obviously, this “if you didn't know about it, it didn't happen” approach considers integrity to be a completely relative value. In fact, it almost disregards integrity altogether and living your life in this way would become an act of running away from rules – not only juridical rules but also moral ones – and bending them to suit you. I feel like we do this a lot, and we justify it by arguing that if the people your actions would affect don't find out about your actions, then it doesn't matter. This is the same justification that a criminal uses to get away with murder.

I believe integrity is definitely an absolute value, and I think most of us do believe this. In many situations, not telling the truth about having done something wrong amounts to lying. I think I still have to resolve this in my deeds, even though it is clear in my mind.