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Ethical dilemmas
Disobedience, causes and disadvantages
The effect of disobedience
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Disobedience leads to severe consequences, as we have always been told. If an officer wants to pull you over, you pull over because you don’t want more trouble. If a teacher orders you to put your phone away, you do or it’s taken away. Authorities are known to lead you into a good direction, and keep you safe, so we follow, but when you’re directed into a bad direction what do you do? The milgram experiment tested that “obedience” factor in 1963. The results of the experiments were surprising.
Psychologist at Yale University, Stanley Milgram, focused on the conflict between personal morals and obedience. He investigated how far the people tested would go in obeying an instructor if it involved harming another person (McLeod 7). He wanted to
know how easy ordinary people can be influenced to commit cruel acts.The experiment consisted of a “learner” memorizing a set of words and a “teacher” naming a word and asking the learned to recall the pair that went with that word (McLeod 11). After every mistake, the learner was shocked, the volts could increase up to 450. After his eighteen studies, about 65% of the participants continued to the highest volts, the rest went up to 300 (McLeod 14). Milgram concluded that most people will follow an authority figure, even if it leads to killing an innocent human being. This experiment was inspired by the Germans in WWII. Nazi soldiers at concentration camps were torturing and degrading innocent jews to death, all because they were being told to do so by Hitler, their authority figure. But why did they continue to commit these atrocious acts? Many were probably scared to take a stand seeing what Hitler was doing to this religion of people. And many of the other soldiers were following him thinking that he was was helping Germany, and they didn’t think twice about the big picture. Obedience establishes order, but your morals tell you whether what you're obeying is right or wrong, good or not okay.
Milgram’s experiment basically states, “Be that as it may, you’d still probably commit heinous acts under the pressure of authority.” He also, found that obedience was the highest when the person giving the orders was nearby and was perceived as an authority figure, especially if they were from a prestigious institution. This was also true if the victim was depersonalized or placed at a distance such as in another room. Subjects were more likely to comply with orders if they didn’t see anyone else disobeying if there were no role models of defiance.
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.
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.
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
In this article “The Pearls of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram asserts that obedience to authority is a common response for many people in today’s society, often diminishing an individuals beliefs or ideals. Stanley Milgram designs an experiment to understand how strong a person’s tendency to obey authority is, even though it is amoral or destructive. Stanley Milgram bases his experiment on three people: a learner, teacher, and experimenter. The experimenter is simply an overseer of the experiment, and is concerned with the outcome of punishing the learner. The teacher, who is the subject of the experiment, is made to believe the electrical shocks are real; he is responsible for obeying the experimenter and punishing the learner for incorrect answers by electrocuting him from an electric shock panel that increases from 15 to 450 volts.
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.
A former Yale psychologist, Stanley Milgram, administered an experiment to test the obedience of "ordinary" people as explained in his article, "The Perils of Obedience". An unexpected outcome came from this experiment by watching the teacher administer shocks to the learner for not remembering sets of words. By executing greater shocks for every wrong answer created tremendous stress and a low comfort levels within the "teacher", the one being observed unknowingly, uncomfortable and feel the need to stop. However, with Milgram having the experimenter insisting that they must continue for the experiments purpose, many continued to shock the learner with much higher voltages.The participants were unaware of many objects of the experiment until
Stanley Milgram’s experiment shows societies that more people with abide by the rules of an authority figure under any circumstances rather than follow their own nature instinct. With the use of his well-organized article that appeals to the general public, direct quotes and real world example, Milgram’s idea is very well-supported. The results of the experiment were in Milgram’s favor and show that people are obedient to authority figures. Stanley Milgram shows the reader how big of an impact authority figures have but fails to answer the bigger question. Which is more important, obedience or morality?
In “ Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments On Obedience” by Diana Baumrind, and in “Obedience” by Ian Parker, the writers claim that Milgram’s Obedience is ethically wrong and work of evil because of the potential harm that the subjects of the experiment had. While Baumrind’s article focused only on the Subjects of the experiment, Parker’s article talked about both immediate and long term response to experiment along with the reaction of both the general public and Milgram’s colleagues, he also talks about the effect of the experiment on Milgram himself. Both articles discuss has similar points, they also uses Milgram’s words against him and while Baumrind attacks Milgram, Parker shows the reader that experiment
Obedience to authority and willingness to obey an authority against one’s morals has been a topic of debate for decades. Stanley Milgrim, a Yale psychologist, conducted a study in which his subjects were commanded by a person in authority to initiate lethal shocks to a learner; his experiment is discussed in detail in the article “The Perils of Obedience” (Milgrim 77). Milgrim’s studies are said to be the most “influential and controversial studies of modern psychology” (Levine).While the leaner did not actually receive fatal shocks, an actor pretended to be in extreme pain, and 60 percent of the subjects were fully obedient, despite evidence displaying they believed what they were doing was harming another human being (Milgrim 80). Likewise, in Dr. Zimbardo, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, conducted an experiment, explained in his article “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” in which ten guards were required to keep the prisoners from
Lt. Daniel Kaffee uses his Harvard law education to represent two Marines who are being charged for murder in the movie A Few Good Men. Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway and Lt. Sam Weinberg assist Kaffee on his investigation, thought to be a Code Red, a form of abusive peer discipline. While conversing with Jessep and his two senior officers in Cuba, Kaffee becomes suspicious about certain information given. In the end, Kaffee is triumphant over the case by proving Jessep’s guilt. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, introduces his opinion on obedience in his article, “The Perils of Obedience,” while discussing the background to his experiment. An experimenter ordered the unaware teacher to give the learner agonizing shocks, not knowing that the learner was not truly hooked up to the voltage. The experimenter’s goal was to make sure that the teacher followed all orders, even if that meant supposedly harming the learner. Surprisingly, more people obeyed the experimenter rather than following the instinct to help the learner. Likewise, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, claims that obedience and disobedience both can have good and bad consequences. From...
Civil Disobedience is a paradox. Civility and disobedience diametrically oppose one another; civility implies politeness or a regard to the status quo while disobedience is a refusal to submit to the standard. When these words are coupled together, however, they compliment one another. The purpose of Civil Disobedience is to disregard the obligation of observing a law with the intention of highlighting a need for change. Morality, Religion, and Ethics often play into the decision to willingly break a law which creates more depth behind the practical meaning phrase, because those three tend to emphasize a respect for authority and integrity. When people break the law in the name of civility, they often are asking questions like, “What must I
Benjamin Jr. Ludy T. & Simpson, Jeffrey A. The Power of the Situation: The Impact of Milgram’s Obedience Studies on Personality and Social Psychology. From American Psychologist. Vol. 64 (1), pp.12-18, 2009.
In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a Yale University Psychologist conducted a variety of social psychology experiments on obedience to authority figures. His experiments involved three individuals, one of them was a volunteer who played the role of the teacher, one was an actor who played the role of the student, and one was the experimenter who played the role of the authority. The teacher was instructed by the authority to administrate shocks to the student (who claimed to have a heart condition) whenever they answered a question incorrectly. The voltage of the shock would go up after every wrong answer. The experimenter would then instruct the teacher to administrate higher voltages even though pain was being imposed. The teacher would then have to make a choice between his morals and values or the choice of the authority figure. The point of the experiment was to try to comprehend just how far an individual would continue when being ordered by an individual in a trench coat to electrically shock another human being for getting questions incorrect. The experiment consisted of administrating pain to different people and proved that ordinary people will obey people with authority. Some of the various reasons are that the experimenter was wearing a trench coat, fear of the consequences for not cooperating, the experiments were conducted in Yale University a place of prestige, and the authority f...
Would you harm another person against your better judgment just because someone of authority told you to? Stanley Milgam’s experiment of obedience was unique in that he wanted to find out if there was a link between obedience to authority and Nazi Germany by conducting an experiment that required one to shock someone else because they were told. The experiment, though slightly extreme, was effective despite what some might think in determining how someone reacts when given orders by an authority in a stressful situation. It is argued that his methods were unethical, that he should not have deceived the subjects, that he inflicted harm upon the subjects and did not do enough of a follow up, that his overall design was flawed, and that his reasons for the experiment did not apply to actual real-world situations; however, this is simply not the case because Milgram’s study was both effective and ethical for what he was trying to accomplish.