The issue of morality, concerning absolute obedience within the military, has been debated inside courtrooms and all areas of society for decades. Is it possible for there to be positive and negative acts of blind obedience? In his article “The Perils of Obedience,” Stanley Milgram administers an experiment in order to understand the negative side of blind obedience (Milgram 77-89). His findings prove that people display a higher probability of hurting others when ordered to act out. Likewise, in his article “The Genocidal Killer in the Mirror,” Crispin Sartwell explains to his readers the cause of a “moral hero,” and he conveys why normal people display the capacity to commit heinous acts (Sartwell 117-119). Finally, examining the positive …show more content…
Concerning the issue of the negative outcome of Dawson and Downey’s blind obedience and Kaffee’s positive obligation to defend them, Milgram and Sartwell effectively agree on the detachment of accountability, while Milgram and Dalrymple assist in clarifying why it was necessary for Kaffee to assume position as their defense lawyer. In the movie A Few Good Men, the plot focuses on the lawsuit of Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and Private Louden Downey. Dawson and Downey blindly follow the order of Colonel Nathan Jessup to perform a code red, ultimately murdering their comrade Private William Santiago. Milgram and Sartwell would logically agree that Dawson and Downey were able to obey Jessup’s command because they were able to detach themselves from the responsibility of the action, believing they would avoid retaliation. However, the authors would argue on what specifically triggered their disconnection. Milgram would effectively argue that Dawson and Downey could detach themselves from the accountability by stating they were “only following orders”, resembling the …show more content…
Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is assigned as the lawyer to defend Dawson and Downey. Even with his reluctance, Kaffee is forced to perform his duty. Without Kaffee’s abilities, Dawson and Downey may not be cleared of the murder charges. As both Milgram and Dalrymple would logically explain, Kaffee’s execution of his orders were necessary to ensure a fair trial. Milgram would effectively convey that, in the same way that his subjects understood the necessity to maintain the happenings of the experiment, Kaffee contained a sense of necessity in order to defend his clients and to help verify innocence (Milgram 88-89). However, it was not easy for Kaffee to develop a desire to assist Dawson and Downey, but Milgram and Dalrymple would effectively clarify that Kaffee must obey his instructions. Furthering Milgram’s argument, Jerry M. Burger, Professor of Psychology at Santa Clara University, declares in his article “Conformity and Obedience” that attitudes and behaviors are often conformed by the concern of what others think of the person (Burger). Because of the knowledge that he was Dawson and Downey’s only mean of defense, Kaffee eventually concedes and proves Milgram’s claim that his assistance was required. Furthermore, Sartwell—understanding Milgram’s claim—would similarly state that certain acts of obedience are required to ensure safety and/or desired outcomes of situations. Sartwell would
In the pursuit of safety, acceptance, and the public good, many atrocities have been committed in places such as Abu Ghraib and My Lai, where simple, generally harmless people became the wiling torturers and murderers of innocent people. Many claim to have just been following orders, which illustrates a disturbing trend in both the modern military and modern societies as a whole; when forced into an obedient mindset, many normal and everyday people can become tools of destruction and sorrow, uncaringly inflicting pain and death upon the innocent.
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
War has always been an essential ingredient in the development of the human race. As a result of the battles fought in ancient times, up until modern warfare, millions of innocent lives have ended as a result of war crimes committed. In the article, “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience,” Herbert C. Kelman and V.Lee Hamilton shows examples of moral decisions taken by people involved with war-related murders. This article details one of the worse atrocities committed during the Vietnam War in 1968 by the U.S. military: the My Lai Massacre. Through this incident, the question that really calls for psychological analysis is why so many people are willing to formulate , participate in, and condone policies that call for the mass killings of defenseless civilians such as the atrocities committed during the My Lai massacre. What influences these soldiers by applying different psychological theories that have been developed on human behavior.
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.
There are certain standards that the courts use to determine competency. In order to find the accused competent, a court should find out by a preponderance of evidence that the defendant has remarkable ability to consult with his lawyer with a reasonable degree of rational indulgence. The def...
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.
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.
If a person of authority ordered you inflict a 15 to 400 volt electrical shock on another innocent human being, would you follow your direct orders? That is the question that Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University tested in the 1960’s. Most people would answer “no,” to imposing pain on innocent human beings but Milgram wanted to go further with his study. Writing and Reading across the Curriculum holds a shortened edition of Stanley Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience,” where he displays an eye-opening experiment that tests the true obedience of people under authority figures. He observes that most people go against their natural instinct to never harm innocent humans and obey the extreme and dangerous instructions of authority figures. Milgram is well aware of his audience and organization throughout his article, uses quotes directly from his experiment and connects his research with a real world example to make his article as effective as possible.
Matas,R.(2007, October 17).Defence rests in Pickton case. The Globe and Mail. Retrieved from archives http://www.theglobeandmail.com/archives/defence-rests-in-pickton-case/article789013/
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
At this moment it seems as if rank vanishes because Kaffee has the control of the conversation because he is asking all the questions. Jessup’s rank disappears when he is up there because he is under the law where no one is seen higher than anyone else. Although Kaffee is nervous at first to begin his examination, once the air marshals arrive in the courtroom, it seemed as if Kaffee then became more confident with his questions to Jessup. Kaffee disregards Jessup 's rank because he wants the truth to come out. The barrier is broken between the two characters once Jessup shows his fear when the air marshal 's walk in. Jessup no longer holds power over Kaffee. The camera specifically focuses in on his face to capture his reaction to seeing the two men walk in. Jessup 's face stiffens up and he seems to become more tense than before. He becomes more defensive to questions that Kaffee is asking him and tries to undermine him. When Kaffee begins getting deeper into his questions Jessup smiles and chuckles, a reaction that also happened to some of the participants in the Milgram experiment. In the article “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram he discusses the peculiar reactions of some of his subjects in his experiment. One man began to laugh to the point that he could not control his laughter no matter what he did. He would have to rub his face to hide his laughter (83). It seems when someone is faced with
In order for a military to execute its function, every platform of the chain of command must expect and demand obedience to commands (Montrose, 2013), because if this does not happen many lives can be at stake. A simply failure to comply with the orders given can not only jeopardize the lives of the soldiers, it can compromise the safety of all military personnel involved, even in the matter of national security. Utilitarianism has a core theory that some actions may be considered right or wrong relying on the effects of the outcomes. This theory is mostly what could be applied this situation of the detainees in the military prisons. During this time, national security was weak, the country was being attacked and threatened, and thousands of innocent civilians lost their lives. The military could was only looking out for the interest of the country and many interrogation techniques were used to get information that could lead the capture of Al-Qaeda leaders. Soldiers are sent to warzones without the ability to deny their own obligation to war, just because they believe it to be morally wrong. They are sent and receive orders under the assumption the government has all the information needed to make the best decision for the country. According to the periodical, Unjust War and a Soldier’s Moral Dilemma, individual soldiers who have
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.
Murphy, John M. Doris: Dominic. "From My Lai to Abu Ghraib: The Moral Psychology of Atrocity." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2007: 25-55.