Weighing in on Intellectual Discipline and Integrity

Is there any reason to think that us regular folk have a lot of intellectual discipline and integrity?  …enough to avoid the effects of confirmation bias and the rest?            Integrity is reliability to the cause, adherence to a code.  Intellectual discipline is the focus and self-control in the pursuit of knowledge.  Implied in a way, I understand how we could think that there is a morality associated to either of these virtues but is there?  Are we beginning to discuss moral and ethical issues with the actions coming from the knowledge we have attained?            My cause may be much different than yours.  Among my peers my integrity may be unquestionable.   What I come to know may be in direct conflict with your understanding, yet my intellectual discipline may be the envy of all in my circle.  Can we test for these things as in what Todd has suggested as some IDI score?   Who would set the moral meter and frame the question? …and for sure someone/group would be left out of consideration.              If I can attach myself to your cause and it means my financial future is more secure, well, the small shift in moral posture may not be seen as a shift at all.  Since there is so much to know, and so many counter-arguments (legitimate or otherwise) to what some would want us to know or not believe, it would be just as easy to understand the knowledge that comes easiest to justify my position.           Thankfully, there is the freedom of speech, thought, and belief in this country.  To what extent and/or for how long we will have them is another debate, but, we can debate differences, probably never come to common agreement, but we do have these freedoms if we chose to use them.           To answer the question on whether us regular folk have enough integrity and intellectual discipline… well, yes,  just enough to be in good stead with our own circle.  And, for the most common of us out there that’s as much as we care to strive for… just to be satisfied and happy in our own circle.   We just don’t care to look too long or too deeply at things that make us uncomfortable.