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Intellectual honesty is seeking truth regardless of whether the truth agrees with one's own personal feelings and/or beliefs or not. This means not lying to oneself or to others on what is clearly self-evident. Closely related to what one calls "old-fashioned values" such as propriety, integrity and sincerity, this is force-multiplied for those in public office. Good leaders should (1) never be shy about admitting they are wrong (2) approach problems rationally and (3) see change as an opportunity.
Harvard ethicist Louis M. Guenin describes the "kernel" of intellectual honesty to be "a virtuous disposition to eschew deception when given an incentive for deception". Equate this description with the penchant of our political leaders to give differing statements at different forums, sometimes as personal expediency, and sometimes political expediency as blatantly claimed by a respected legal counsel. PanamaGate is no ordinary case it involves the prime public office holder. A good lawyer can conceivably get his client free on a legal technicality, but lawyers having any conscience have a public duty to the State to ensure that when it concerns the PM only the truth is presented as facts.
Moral obligation is a duty which one is not legally bound to fulfill but which one owes and should perform. Holders of public office have moral responsibility to perform one's duty, legally bound or not. Morality is the principle of what behavior or action is right and wrong, which makes it acceptable and/or not. German ethicist, Immanuel Kant, found the power of moral principles to be at the very core of ethics.
When intellectual honesty and moral obligation become alien in a...