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Milgram's Justification Of Obedience To Authority

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Voluminous research has been conducted in the area of obedience, more specifically how obedient individuals will be in obeying an authority figure even if the authority figure is commanding them to inflict harm or pain onto others. Ordinary people, for many years have inflicted pain onto others under the commands of an authority figure such as during the Holocaust. Probably, the most famous psychological piece of research investigating obedience was that of Milgram (1963). Milgram recruited ordinary males from different backgrounds and occupations, he then created a scenario where the participants were required to follow instructions from a perceived authority figure. These instructions insisted the participants to administer electric shocks …show more content…

Nicholson (2011) drew on valuable records from both the participants of the 1963 study and Milgram. The material drew upon by Nicholson suggested that Milgram misrepresented both the extent at which the participants were debriefed, and the risk the experiments posed, also the harm suffered by the participants. On top of those findings, the records implied that Milgram had qualms about the scientific value of the research, thus compromising his primary ethical justification for the study in the …show more content…

Justifying the My Lai disaster and the Holocaust down to the theory of obedience by subordinates simply following orders from an authority figure are far too facile. It’s shallow to think that just because an authority figure orders another person to kill another being, they will do it simply due to obedient tendencies. Individual differences will always be present and therefore obedience will constantly differ from person to person. Furthermore obedience is not a sound entity, disobedience also exists and has been shown in several psychological studies. In conclusion there is certain studies that do generally support the claim that individuals will blindly conform or obey commands from an authority figure, even when this involves inflicting harm on others, but it’s not possible to attribute the rationale of obedience to justify people inflicting harm or pain upon another being

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Among multiple issues including giving misleading information, the most dominate is the lack of consent Milgram received from his subjects to participate in such a test (102). While I do see that this is immoral, there is no way that Milgram could have completed his experiments effectively if he had done it morally. The first issue is if he explains what is actually going to happen during the experiments, that would obviously hurt the integrity of his results. Also, going back to how the experiments help us, if those who participated knew what was going to happen, it wouldn’t have affected them as severely. It was the shock that the experiment gave that brought their life choices into question.

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In “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror”, Crispin Sartwell argues that the average citizen can be convinced to commit atrocious crimes under the right circumstances from the premise that the traits to become a genocidal killer are not that uncommon, using examples from recent history such as the Holocaust in Nazi Germany and the Rwandan Genocide. Sartwell clarifies that although most people delude themselves into thinking that they wouldn’t partake in genocide if they were placed in a similar situation as many have before, it would take a “moral hero” (Sartwell 118) to refuse the opportunity given the circumstances. On the other hand, in “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You”, author Theodore Dalrymple claims that people's response to authority in respect to their obedience is what leads the average man to kill countless others. While both authors address the fact that it doesn’t take a malicious person to engage in genocide, Sartwell focuses more on the qualities that people who commit genocide commonly share, Dalrymple seems more concerned on how people react to authority in

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Ian Parker, author of “Obedience”, provides accurate depictions of the immediate and long-term effects of Dr. Stanley Milgram’s Experiment. In addition, he includes that under complex situations, individuals are easily induced to react through a destructive manner (Parker103). Americans commonly underestimate the influences of a situation; however, Parker thoroughly delineates the consequences behind blind obedience (Parker 104). Herbert C. Kelman and V. Lee Hamilton, authors of “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” construe the atrocity of blind obedience committed by the United States Military. In March of 1968, crimes of obedience occurred due to an elusive order commanded by a higher ranked officer (Kelman&Hamilton 131).

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Switches were clearly labelled with voltage 15-450 volts. The teacher was actually naïve subject but Learner was an actor who didn’t even get a single shock. The purpose of this experiment was to see how far Teacher can go in the critical situation when shocks volts rise and Learner’s pain increased. Screaming and pain of the Learner made Teacher hesitating in proceeding far. To get freedom from this situation, Teacher must disobey to the

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Milgram’s article proves Dawson and Downey’s argument to be true that they were just doing their job. The article by Milgram also provides an explanation for obedience as one harboring their own anger, which makes following orders that hurt someone else almost easy. In A Few Good Men, Dawson is

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Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, shares his results from an experiment he conducted in 1963 regarding the obedience to authority in “The Perils of Obedience.” His experiment illustrates that when placed under peculiar circumstances, ordinary citizens are capable of performing terrible and unexpected actions (Milgram 85). Milgram rationalizes these proceedings by concluding that the average individual will decide to please the experimenter rather than resist his authority to protect the well-being of the learner (Milgram 86). Herbert C. Kelman, a Harvard University Social Ethics professor, and V. Lee Hamilton, a former University of Maryland Sociology chair, share of a U.S. military massacre in “The My Lai Massacre: A Military

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After World War II, several of the Nazi soldiers were questioned about their reasoning behind the corrupt actions they were guilty of---killing hundreds of thousands of men and women, destroying families in the process, and marking their time as a dark part of history. Who on earth would do such a thing? What could their excuse possibly be? Well, to them, they were simply following orders. It’s obvious to believe that the soldiers would find their humanity and resist their commands, but they didn't.

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Jim Casy was the moral voice and religious center of the chapter. Steinbeck uses him as a religious icon and his initials J.C further conclude to the fact that Steinbeck designed him as a figure of Christ. Casy discovers the rules and regulations of the Christian faith severely confining and clearly extraneous to actual situations. As a preacher and a history of many sexual relations with women he converts. Casy originally felt immense guilt for what he had done in his past and he worried the responsibilities he direct to Jesus.

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Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Study, concluded that high percentages of people would cause harm to others if an authority figure persuaded them to do so. The Milgram experiment included an experimenter, teacher, and student. The teacher (participant) would say a word to the student and when the student answered incorrectly the teacher was told to shock them. Although most participants were reluctant to keep increasing the voltage of shocks when they felt the student was in real pain, a surprisingly two-thirds continued following the orders of the experimenter (ABC Primetime, 2007). It appears that all of us are capable of following an authority figures directions even if it causes pain to others or even death.

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Observed during the Holocaust and studied later at Yale University, authority can be used to manipulate people into doing just about anything. In a study of obedience, the Milgram Experiment tested how individuals would respond to being forced to administer high voltage shocks to a person behind a wall. Even when the unseen person would scream and beg for the shocks to end, the experiment overseer would tell the test subject to continue giving shocks. The results of the study showed that people were willing to bypass their morals in attempts to follow orders from an authoritative figure. Unfortunately, many outsiders would assess this situation and fail to realize that the terror does not lie within the people who submitted to the viscous instructions, but within the person who commanded them and watched the ordeal unfold from the

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371 Words | 2 Pages

The Milgram experiment and the society Speaking of one of the most renowned psychological experiment, which even replications on TV are done, is the Milgram experiment, on obedience to authority figures. It involves the measurement of how much participants will to obey the authority, in order to explain the reason why soldiers obeyed to allow the Holocaust, the homicides of millions of Jews, happened. With the participants’ roles as a teacher to punish a learner by incrementing degrees of electric shocks, though they didn’t know it’s staged, 65% of them did it to the last under the horrendous moans and the commands of the experimenters, which surpassed the expectation of 1.2%. Milgram himself elaborated two theories, encompassing theory of

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1622 Words | 7 Pages

Name and describe three experiments that violated ethical guidelines. What guideline did they violate? Milgram: The Milgram experiment was an experiment that tested an individual's willingness the follow the instructions of an authority figure.

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Milgram himself concluded how easily ordinary people ‘can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority". (Milgram 1974) As this report has highlighted the research is not without controversy with many questioning to what extent Milgram’s experiment is true to real life and has been criticized for not highlighting further situational variables in determining obedience to authority. Regardless of this, there is no doubt Milgram highlighted a rather troubling phenomenon.

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810 Words | 4 Pages

The "teachers" continued, at the 180 volts mark the "learner" cried out that he cannot take it any longer. Once reaching 300 volts, the fifty-year-old "learner" yelled about his heart condition and begged to be released. At these points, a decent amount of "teachers" halted the experiment while a large percent continued until the final 450 volt question even though the "learner" had stopped responding. At the 150 volt mark those who were going to stop, did so. If I were in this position I would stop at the first sign of discomfort from the "learner."

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Name : Muhammed Irshad Madonna ID : 250509 Subject : Medical Ethics Due Date : 8/01/2018 Paper : 1-The Milgram Experiment The Stanley Milgram Experiment is a famous study about obedience in psychology which has been carried out by a Psychologist at the Yale University named, Stanley Milgram. He conducted an experiment focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In July 1961 the experiment was started for researching that how long a person can harm another person by obeying an instructor.

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