last updated 2024-09-21
Reciprocal integrity is the practice of bringing out the best in others by reflecting their integrity back to them, while also relating to others such that they bring out the best in you regardless of their behavior.
Approximately speaking, reciprocal integrity can be characterized as generalized steelmanning (i.e. assuming good intent and interpreting a person’s words and actions in the most charitable way) plus regarding adversarial situations as opportunities for personal growth.
The reason personal integrity is important for group coordination has to do with language. Language is the primary interface through which members of a group exchange information. Language must be reliably meaningful in order to be effective as a coordination mechanism, and the reliability of language depends on the integrity of the people using it.
For example, consider the story of the boy who cried wolf. This story is typically framed as a cautionary tale against compromising one’s own personal integrity by deceiving others. However, imagine a version of the story where the villagers do not know who exactly is crying wolf. Imagine that the only thing the villagers know is that someone is crying wolf even though there’s no actual wolf. In this version, the villagers do not lose trust in the boy. Instead, they lose trust in the word “wolf” itself. In this version of the story, not only is the boy’s lack of integrity compromising his own safety, it’s compromising the reliability of the word “wolf” as a signal and thereby compromising the safety of anyone who might encounter a wolf. Compromising the reliability of language compromises the ability of its users to coordinate.
The practice of reciprocal integrity is thus the maintenance of the reliability of language.