One way military obedience carried too far could cause people to perform immoral acts is military personnel are taught to immediately obey without question.
CH2GEN1How can military personnel who are taught to immediately obey without question, perform immoral acts:: Within our society we are taught from a young age right from wrong; we establish moral codes and learn the importance of compliance with the laws associated with it. For those within the Military, the moral codes and laws associated with military life are held to a higher standard of obedience. Military personnel once deployed need to be able to take and carry out orders given by their superiors quickly and efficiently, because of this disobedience is not tolerated. Military personnel
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Within the military the importance of comradery is instilled into recruits, having a strong bond is important especially when it comes to trusting others with your life. Teamwork and trust is an essential part of survival for Military personnel whether on the battlefield or during covert missions. These strong bonds facilitate an even stronger sense of loyalty between Military personnel. While having strong loyalty is necessary between Military comrades, it can also give way to the possible excusing of immoral acts. Military personnel may feel that it is their duty to protect their comrades, even if it means not reporting immoral acts. This was said to be the cause when the Japanese Army was tasked with reporting the number of crimes committed by officers subordinates “Takezawa Uichi, proposed that a notable decrease in crimes from 1912 (1,246) to 1928 (724) may be misleading, being the result of officers trying to protect their own reputations or that of their unit by concealing crimes committed by subordinates” (Matsumura 93). Because Military personnel may prioritize the loyalty …show more content…
The way women are treated and whether or not they should be required to register for drafts, have been just a few of the popular topics of discussion. One of the more controversial issues that have been in the spotlight as of late is the covering up of rapes that happen within the Military. Within the Military there is a chain of command that is to be maintained in order for the entire unit to remain constant routine and order. However this also gives rise to protecting Military personnel who have committed a rape or sexual assault against a female or female bodied officer. This has been a systemic issue within the Military to the point where female officers report being intimidated and bullied by fellow comrades for speaking up and reporting the assault. Even when the reports are actually filed and not blocked, the chain of command protects along with other Military personnel prevent the perpetrator from facing consequences. The intimidation can get so terrible that many female Military personnel have decided to go throughout their service terms keeping the assault to
In 1996, Captain Derrick Robinson, Sergeant Delmar Simpson, and Sergeant Nathanael Beech were arraigned for their suspected involvement in one of the biggest sex scandals the United States Military had seen. According to CNN, between these three men, charges of rape and adultery were pending in a huge case of sexual misconduct against female soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland (CNN, 2996). Following this incident, the United States Military took it upon themselves to open a telephone hotline to encourage the reporting of similar harsh crimes. Furthermore, the spike in reporting influenced extensive research to examine the prevalence of rape against women soldiers in the U.S. Military (Titunik, 2000). This paper will explore the dynamics of rape against women soldiers in the military and the research done on its prevalence.
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.
Milgram complies with a follow-up questionnaire of a subject. In the follow-up, the man was appalled by the way he was able to be obedient throughout the experiment and states that his wife referred to him as Eichmann, a WWII Nazi official who maintained an alibi of merely following orders (Milgram 84). Complying with Szegedy-Maszak and Milgram, Robert Hoyk, a doctor of psychology, found similar results in the work office. In his article “Roots of Unethical Behavior,” he found that bosses can direct employees to do unethical actions which the employees morally question. But due to fear of losing their job, the employees perform these acts (Hoyk). Milgram would agree with Hoyk and add that for his experiment, the “experimenter” was simply a man in a lab coat and did not threaten with any form of consequence. How does that relate to Szegedy-Maszak and the Abu Ghraib scandal? In the article “Military Orders: To Obey or Not to Obey?” written by Rod Powers, the oath in which all military personnel must swear to is written. The oath states, “. . . and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice” (Powers). As mentioned by Powers, these recruits are instilled with the practice of obeying immediately and without question (Powers). In fact, if military personnel do not obey their superior officers, it is considered a crime by Articles 90, 91, and 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. According to the same site, such acts are punishable by death (www.usmilitary.about.com). Szegedy-Maszak might conclude that this could be a possible reason as to why those American troops found that they were
In the research article “OBEY AT ANY COST”, Stanley Milgram conducted a study to examine the concept of obedience and composed disturbing findings. Milgram’s findings on obedience are considered one of the most influential and famous works in the history of psychology. His examination of obedience was that people were possibly capable of doing abuse to other individuals by being required to do so. Milgram pertained this to World War II and the inhumanity that has been bolstered and the barbarity. Yet, his hypothesis was that people have the propensity to obey is authoritative, which cancels out a person’s ability to act morally, sympathetically, or even ethically.
Fromm explains that humans obey orders because of “fear, hate, and greed”, which, in the end, harms humanity (Fromm 125). Agreeing with this idea, Zimbardo states that “self-aggrandizement” is accomplished by “self-deprecation” of others (Zimbardo 109). Christopher Shea’s experiment also backs up the claim that people act for themselves. Shea would concur with Fromm that humans behave greedily (Shea). In contrast, Shea would not believe that people behave to put others down, which is Zimbardo’s beliefs (Shea). Jessup wished to express his authority by giving orders and allowing himself to advance even higher. Jessup harmed Santiago to advance personally; in addition, Dawson and Downey obeyed orders to gain approval from Jessup. Fromm may argue that Dawson and Downey followed commands due to fear. Zimbardo would believe that they thought completing the order was the correct action to be taken. The article “Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity” also connects with Zimbardo’s viewpoint. The article explains why people become passive and eventually deem their actions as correct (Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity). Zimbardo would not consider humans to be passive just blind to the truth. “Human Obedience: The Myth of Blind Conformity” would reply that individuals need to rely on their mind and not listen to commands. Both authors believe the marines’ actions
The Army currently has an ethical code ebodied in the Army Values, which provides guidance to the individual and the organization. These values are universal across the Army regardless of an individual’s personal background or religious morals. Professional Military Education schools teach the Army Ethic and evaluation reports for leaders affirm this ethic. The Army punishes individuals, especially leaders, who violate this code. The Army administratively punishes Soldiers who do not adhere to this code, and the severity of punishment increases with rank. One recent and highly visible example of this is former General Petraeus’s adultery and the subsequent professional sanctions he experienced. The Army gr...
“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.
The common story from victims who report being raped, according to a Military Rape Crisis Center worker, is that they were “met with disbelief and skepticism, blamed for the crime, and disposed of one way or another,” (Kitfield). Until the military stops re-victimizing the victims it will never be able to completely eradicate rape from the ranks.
Now for the Army, it becomes an obligation more than“willingness” while you have to be willing to do it as well. Those that are unable to be accountable are the ones that jeopardize the combat readiness of any unit. Basically it is the understanding that from the bottom up. Top down and laterally everyone is going to do and is willing to do the right thing even when no one else is looking. This is practiced at your home base where everyone is assigned tasks and details not only including your own job that you are expected to do and do right but hold others accountable as well as a system of “check yourself, then check your buddy.” Doing the job correctly and ensuring others do it as well and do it safely are all part of accountability in the military as one does not have to experience combat to understand that just being in the military is inherently dangerous given the types of equipment and weapons that are used to train and deploy with. As an example any live weapons range you go to part of the safety brief is “everyone here is a range safety” meaning anyone can call a cease fire if they observe dangerous behavior or a situation regardless of rank and it can be a Colonel or a brand new private, does not matter. As such in that event everyone becomes accountable not only for the operation of the range, the mission objective to have everyone qualify but do it in a safe
There are some opponents of the ban of women fighting in combat that say that having women and men together in war may lead to women accusing the men of sexual harassment, and it can happen, and it has before. All women that fight in war claim that it is a problem happening persistently, not stopping. It happened to a female soldier in the navy. She claimed she was being sexually harassed by shipmates. She reported one man that just would not stop harassing her and then she waited for him to be brought to justice. Some people say that they have seen commanders “look away” when women reported being sexually harassed, meaning that ...
Civilian obedience also comes from the sense that the responsibility for the victim is not their own. Since they do not have the blood on their hands, so to speak, their actions do not effect them.
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
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.
Introduction 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 real life experiences. 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.
The purpose of this essay is to discuss the issue of rape and sexual assault in the military. The number of attacks for rape and sexual assault in the military are at an all-time high. Women have recently been allowed to fight on the front line. While this may be a huge achievement for women-kind, for this woman, it is a very scary thought. I am a junior at Texas Academy of Biomedical Sciences; a school geared towards students wishing to enter the medical field. I may be forced to join the military one day if a war breaks out and women are needed to protect the country. I would be happy to serve my country if I did not have to be scared of my fellow soldiers. Rape and sexual assault are major issues in the military and have been for many years without much effort to decrease the attacks. I am suggesting that unless the rape and sexual assault issue is fixed, the amount of people joining the military, specifically the women, will decrease greatly.