Driving, gathering, and clumping people into one another, mixing, smushing their dough together in the bowl of "shared values and obligations," extracts their individualism until the essence of a free society is thought to be reached. But in the process, it is almost impossible not to think that the free being itself is corroded, even through the thick skin that covers it: uncertainty of freedom's boundaries.
Knowing the extent of freedom is the first step to understanding the idea of a free community, consisting of free beings and making up a proper society, which, without commitment, would sink into chaos and cease to be complete. The definition of freedom is so derivative it almost relays its own message and independent existence. Thinking, like Locke, that it is "a state of nature" under only nature's governance neglects the idea of order, let alone morality disguised as laws and rules.
Having deterministic rules to maintain social and economic prospects and thus a mutual sense of well-being for "as many people's good as possible," according to Mill, prevents the harm done to others, aligning with the sole purpose of utilitarianism. Still, how can one be sure of doing acts that somehow do not harm people, "universalized perfect duties," and logical, robust reasoning, free of as many faults as possible, when one is still not sure of themselves? There must be a guide, similar to the concept of maxims and clarified imperatives and aims, to swiftly offer consolidation and self-control.
Though saying self-anything bears the risk of variability leading to skepticism, the common binding concept appearing as a universal guide remains prominent: moral constraint. Morality, an ethical discussion topic on its own, can be either an individual or a societal set of standards, depending on your stance. However, defining morality as societal just returns us back to corrosive, invasive laws: governing people and losing all orderly manners once corrupted, which unfortunately is more common than presumed. Familial obligations, empathy, sympathy, and other responsibilities with respect to the outer world would not be sufficient to redress this.
To clarify: on one hand, laws and other obligations would be dependent and thus short-lived and corrupt. On the other hand, familial responsibilities can be willfully bent to fit a certain idea, to shape lies that end up shaping lives. Nobody wants to be the bad guy. And in every individual story, no one is. Every story must support and build arguments in favor of its protagonist. And when the protagonist has the writer's pen, self-deceit is the ink.
Moreover, having moral standards and principles, free of anything other than integrity and the maintenance of inner peace, is the most viable alternative—simply because it is the naked truth. If there is anything to say about human nature regarding this topic, it is that we cannot help but lie and lead ourselves into deception to convince ourselves that we are anything but bad, wrong, morally unfitting, and not the victim. Even when the outer world is surpassed, respect is relieved as a communal burden, and the individual is abstract, there is no guarantee that the lying will come to an end. For it is a reflex, no different than the hand pulling away after touching something hot.
Integrity, in this scenario, is the glove: the respect one needs to have for oneself, respect toward their own principles and moral standards. These standards, these boundaries, are crucially satisfying for an individual. Without them, no matter how hard and long one chews on a made-up truth and deceitful scenarios they have created for themselves, they are bound to starve. And if there is anything that a person is more afraid of than being the bad guy in their own story, it is starvation.