Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Intricacies of ethics
Unoriginality of Evil
The Americans dropped two atomic bombs on Japan’s burgeoning cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in August 1945. The two atom bombs severely decimated the population in the affected cities, but who is to blame? Does blame fall upon the pilots who delivered destruction, or their superiors delivering the order? The claim of responsibility is not easy to make. To convey the convoluted concept “Banality of Evil” was introduced. In 1963 Hannah Arendt came up with this phrase in her book “Eichmann in Jerusalem” She states, “Banality of evil is a philosophical term meaning that evil occurs when ordinary individuals are put into corrupt situations that encourage their conformity”. This phrase became the foundation for many different essays, including Carol Tavris’ and Stanley Milgram’s articles “In Groups We Shrink” and “Perils of Obedience” respectively. Travis uses the concept of “Banality of Evil” to explain why individuals act differently when they are placed within groups. She uses the idea of “Banality of Evil” to explain the reason for immoral behavior of individuals within groups. She conveys this by her use of experimental evidence, historical evidence and diffusion of responsibility. Milgram incorporates Arendt’s concept to explain that authority can make an individual do unethical and immoral things. Compared to Tavris, Milgram is partially effective in using experimental and historical evidence, but is ineffective because his definition of “banality of evil” has a limited scope, dismissing fact that people have their own motives for performing an ill deed.
Tavris uses effectively gives experimental evidence to show that “Banality of Evil” is provoked due to selfish motives. Whereas, Milgram uses experimen...
... middle of paper ...
...hen a guy gave a 450 volts shock in Milgram’s experiment, maybe he fought with his wife and came to experiment. His anger took decision to give that level of shock it may not be the authority that made him to give shock. Authority can make someone do evil but at times people just do it for fun or out of anger or depending upon the situation.
All in all, Tavris uses experimental, historical and elaboration on diffusion of responsibility, made her more effective in using the concept of Banality of Evil. While Milgram used experimental and historical evidence to make his argument more effective in context to the meaning of “Banality of Evil” but was ineffective as his definition gave a limited scope as he failed to explain the evil without authority.
On my honor, I have neither received not given any unauthorized assistance.
Anand Patel _____________________
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.
At first Milgram believed that the idea of obedience under Hitler during the Third Reich was appalling. He was not satisfied believing that all humans were like this. Instead, he sought to prove that the obedience was in the German gene pool, not the human one. To test this, Milgram staged an artificial laboratory "dungeon" in which ordinary citizens, whom he hired at $4.50 for the experiment, would come down and be required to deliver an electric shock of increasing intensity to another individual for failing to answer a preset list of questions. Meyer describes the object of the experiment "is to find the shock level at which you disobey the experimenter and refuse to pull the switch" (Meyer 241). Here, the author is paving the way into your mind by introducing the idea of reluctance and doubt within the reader. By this point in the essay, one is probably thinking to themselves, "Not me. I wouldn't pull the switch even once." In actuality, the results of the experiment contradict this forerunning belief.
In her excerpt, Baumrind discusses the potential dangers of the aftereffects on the participants of the experiment. On many occasions she suggests that these people are subjects of a cruel and unethical experiment, and suffer from harm to their self-image and emotional disruption (227). She also calls Milgram’s experiment a “game” (Baumrind 225); this illustrates her negative outtake on the experiment which is seen throughout the article. On the contrary, Parker discusses the aftereffects on Milgram himself. He expresses how the experiment, although it shows light to what extent of obedience a person may travel, ruined Milgram’s reputation. Parker also cites many notable authors and psychologists and their reactions to Milgram’s experiment. Despite their differences, Baumrind and Parker are able to find common ground on a few issues concerning the Milgr...
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 were considered one of the most influential and famous works in the history of psychology. His examination on obedience was that people were possibly capable of doing abuse to other individuals by being demanded 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 capability to act morally, sympathetically, or even ethically. However, Milgram’s theoretical basis for this particular study was that human
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.
...ature separates how good and evil are both viewed by society and how much of both have existed in the world. The creature has been admiring and discovering life by experiencing and learning the language, interactions, and overall love; he can’t believe how much evil there has been and how he hates it.
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
Hannah Arendt discovered a concept known as “The banality of Evil” during the time of the Holocaust, she wanted to understand the nature of evil and explain how it can be different from the concept of radical evil. Her theory arose from the actions led by a man whose job was to organize the transportation of Jews to concentration camps in various cities. Adolf Eichman was a typical Bureaucrat. Arendt described him as an average joe whose sole purpose was to be successful and follow the orders lead by his superior, Hitler. The orders led by Hitler are portrayed as motives led by absolute evil or “radical evil”. Arendt noted in her philosophy paper that there is a significant difference of character in Hitler and Eichman such that Hitler was
As World War 2, came to a close, The United States unleashed a secret atomic weapon upon the enemy nation of Japan that was quickly recognized as the most powerful wartime weapon in human history. They completely destroyed the entire Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and essentially vaporized countless innocent Japanese lives. Some historians believe that it was a foolish, brutal decision to use the atomic bomb on a weakened Japan, and that the civilians of the country did not deserve that kind of mass-annihilation. On the opposite side, other historians assert that dropping the bomb saved countless American and Japanese lives by ending the war faster than a regular invasion would have. What is undisputed is that this sad event dramatically changed the course of human history.
Mr. Milgram wanted to see how long a person would inflict pain on another person simply because they were told to do so. The results of his experiment are still applied to this day when explaining why people are so willing to follow the instructions of authority, no matter how inhumane, malicious, and egregious the instructions may be (Romm, 2015).
In finding that people are not naturally aggressive. Milgram now alters the experiment to find out why do people act the way they do. He compiled the experiment to answer, why do people obey authority, even when the actions are against their own morals.
By recognizing evil as banal, society is forced to face the reality that monstrous acts are not committed by those carrying an abnormal trait. It is the normality and mediocrity which terrified Arendt, along with others who study the Eichmann trial. It is the way in which evil became so average that makes Eichmann as dangerous as he was considered, not just the thoughtless acts he committed. By changing views on evil, however, society will be able to makes steps toward understand how events such as genocide can occur within the larger society.
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.
It is harder to go against or make an objection about unethical aspect of the experiment when people do not know each other well. Therefore, rather than strongly opposing and criticizing the instructor 's unethical decision, people just behaved according to the orders. Thirdly, the participants regarded the instructor as a professional researcher (Blass, 2009, p113). Therefore, they believed in the instructor 's decision to do so and obeyed the given instruction. Since Milgram or the instructor was a more intelligent person than most of the people, the participants would have imagined that there would be a specific reason why he held this experiment. Therefore the participants tried to understand the instructor 's intention and respected his choice. Or on the other hand, the participants were ignorant about the experiment, since they were not the one getting the consequent electric shocks. Lastly, the electric shocks were explained to the participants to be painful, but not detrimental (Griggs & Whitehead, 2015, p316). Thus these factors affected the participants to rely more on the instructor 's orders and obey what was told them to
...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.