Have you ever been told to do something by someone of authority that you felt uneasy about or felt wrong for listening to the boss rather than doing what you felt was the right thing? Authority is a person or organization that most people take orders from or obey because they feel they need to or because they feel the pressure of a sense of fear from that authority. Obedience is when a person adheres to the orders of authority. A common problem with authority is having to feel the need to obey. In some cases, blindly obeying the orders of a person of authority may not always be the right thing to do.
Stanley Milgram is a Yale psychologist. In 1963, Milgram wrote “The Perils of Obedience”, which explains the experiments he conducted on volunteers
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Fromm’s essay Disobedience as a “Psychological and Moral Problem,” explains the difference between certain obediences and disobediences. Erich Fromm identifies disobedience as the beginning of humanity and obedience as the end of humanity. However, there are different types of obedience. There is heteronomous obedience which he defines as being submission, or not being yourself because you are adhering to someone else's authority. There is also autonomous obedience, which is defined as affirmation. Autonomous obedience is adhering to your own personal morals and thoughts, you are obeying yourself. We choose the ones we wish to live by. We obey what we want to obey. You cannot disobey everything but instead just obey the right …show more content…
In his article, “Think for yourself: The dangers of blind obedience,” Hess discusses why companies tend to threaten or scare their employees to do something morally wrong because it is for the protection or prosperity of the company. Hess claims a good example of an organization that does not try to force or threaten compliance with their rules is the United States Marine Corps. One of the Marine Corps unofficial mottos is, “Improvise, Adapt, Overcome”. This means that even though the organization has hundreds of rules for the soldiers to follow, they still leave it up to the actual soldiers to determine how to properly handle a situation, the rules do not apply if the soldier finds it necessary to disobey. Hess states that employees who follow rules at the wrong time or hide behind an authority figure do so because of three reasons. The three reasons are because the employee does not know what to do in that situation, the employee is afraid of the consequences they might face, and to protect the company they are employed
In "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that the majority of people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to appease the requests of an authority figure. The study was set up as a "blind experiment" to capture if and when a person will stop inflicting pain on another as they are explicitly commanded to continue. The participants of this experiment included two willing individuals: a teacher and a learner. The teacher is the real subject and the learner is merely an actor.
The motion picture A Few Good Men challenges the question of why Marines obey their superiors’ orders without hesitation. The film illustrates a story about two Marines, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey charged for the murder of Private First Class William T. Santiago. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, who is known to be lackadaisical and originally considers offering a plea bargain in order to curtail Dawson’s and Downey’s sentence, finds himself fighting for the freedom of the Marines; their argument: they simply followed the orders given for a “Code Red”. The question of why people follow any order given has attracted much speculation from the world of psychology. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, conducted an experiment in which randomly selected students were asked to deliver “shocks” to an unknown subject when he or she answered a question wrong. In his article, “The Perils of Obedience”, Milgram concludes anyone will follow an order with the proviso that it is given by an authoritative figure. Two more psychologists that have been attracted to the question of obedience are Herbert C. Kelman, a professor at Harvard University, and V. Lee Hamilton, a professor at the University of Maryland. In their piece, Kelman and Hamilton discuss the possibilities of why the soldiers of Charlie Company slaughtered innocent old men, women, and children. The Marines from the film obeyed the ordered “Code Red” because of how they were trained, the circumstances that were presented in Guantanamo Bay, and they were simply performing their job.
Upon analyzing his experiment, Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, concludes that people will drive to great lengths to obey orders given by a higher authority. The experiment, which included ordinary people delivering “shocks” to an unknown subject, has raised many questions in the psychological world. Diana Baumrind, a psychologist at the University of California and one of Milgram’s colleagues, attacks Milgram’s ethics after he completes his experiment in her review. She deems Milgram as being unethical towards the subjects he uses for testing and claims that his experiment is irrelevant to obedience. In contrast, Ian Parker, a writer for New Yorker and Human Sciences, asserts Milgram’s experiments hold validity in the psychological world. While Baumrind focuses on Milgram’s ethics, Parker concentrates more on the reactions, both immediate and long-term, to his experiments.
In Lauren Slater’s book Opening Skinner’s Box, the second chapter “Obscura” discusses Stanley Milgram, one of the most influential social psychologists. Milgram created an experiment which would show just how far one would go when obeying instructions from an authoritative figure, even if it meant harming another person while doing so. The purpose of this experiment was to find justifications for what the Nazi’s did during the Holocaust. However, the experiment showed much more than the sociological reasoning behind the acts of genocide. It showed just how much we humans are capable of.
Obedience is when you do something you have been asked or ordered to do by someone in authority. As little kids we are taught to follow the rules of authority, weather it is a positive or negative effect. Stanley Milgram, the author of “The perils of Obedience” writes his experiment about how people follow the direction of an authority figure, and how it could be a threat. On the other hand Diana Baumrind article “Review of Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience,” is about how Milgram’s experiment was inhumane and how it is not valid. While both authors address how people obey an authority figure, Milgram focuses more on how his experiment was successful while Baumrind seems more concerned more with how Milgram’s experiment was flawed and
Stanley Milgram’s experiments on obedience are the focus of Theodore Dalrymple and Ian Parker. Theodore Dalrymple is a British physician that composed his views of the Milgram experiment with “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” in the New Statesman in July 1999 (254). He distinguishes between blind obedience and blind disobedience stating that an extreme of either is not good, and that a healthy balance between the two is needed. On the other hand, Ian Parker is a British writer who wrote “Obedience” for an issue of Granta in the fall of 2000. He discusses the location of the experiment as a major factor and how the experiment progresses to prevent more outcomes. Dalrymple uses real-life events to convey his argument while Parker exemplifies logic from professors to state his point.
...g factors such as fear of consequences for not obeying, human nature’s willingness to conform, perceived stature of authority and geographical locations. I also believe that due to most individual’s upbringings they will trust and obey anyone in an authoritative position even at the expense of their own moral judgment. I strongly believe that Stanley Milgram’s experiments were a turning point for the field of social psychology and they remind us that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process”. Despite these findings it is important to point out it is human nature to be empathetic, kind and good to our fellow human beings. The shock experiments reveal not blind obedience but rather contradictory ethical inclinations that lie deep inside human beings.
More specifically, the movie A Few Good Men depicts the results of blindly obeying orders. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, also explores obedience to authority in his essay “ The Perils of Obedience”. On the other hand, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, focused on disobedience to authority in his essay “ Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Milgram wrote about how people were shockingly obedient to authority when they thought they were harming someone else while Fromm dissected both: why people are so prone to obey and how disobedience from authoritative figures can bring beneficial changes for society. Obeying commands, even when they go against our morals, is human nature; Disobeying commands, however, is challenging to do no matter what the situation is.
Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority for example; the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience reflecting how this can be destructive in experiences of real life. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid hence useless.
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
Obedience is a social influence where a person acts in a certain way while following an order of an authority
To obey someone wouldn't that mean to comply with their every command? It's common sense to obey authority at all costs. Most people are raised being taught how to obey the law and respect authority but if it was that easy there wouldn't be place such as prison. Being aware of the situation or attentive to society and what's going on could give you a better perspective for your behavior. Milgram claims, it’s possible that we are controlled by society. But at least we have perception and are aware (pg.598). Contributing factors such as the situation, authority, and behavior are all elements that produce either a good or bad outcome at the end of the day.
Authority cannot exist without obedience. Society is built on this small, but important concept. Without authority and its required obedience, there would only be anarchy and chaos. But how much is too much, or too little? There is a fine line between following blindly and irrational refusal to obey those in a meaningful position of authority. Obedience to authority is a real and powerful force that should be understood and respected in order to handle each situation in the best possible manner.
Of personal responsibility. There is three differences between Obedience and Conformity. The first one is that in Obedience an order or an instruction is given whereas no instructions or order is given in conformity. The second one is that in obedience there will be a difference of status e.g : a doctor and a nurse whereas in conformity the group followed will have the same equal status. And the last one is that in obedience it is about status and power whereas in conformity it is a need of being loved or accepted.
Obedience is defined as a compliance with an order, request, law, or submission to another 's authority. The problem with obedience is that we, as civilians, are blinded by authorities power and lose our right to free will. Obedience to authority leaves our minds to be corrupted by power, resulting in us taking on roles, participating in conformity, and performing thoughtless acts.