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...…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…