Hard Measures And The Lucifer Effect Essay

I believe that although valuable information came from it, the ethical quality of this experiment is very questionable. I suspected that the guards would turn more authoritative than any of them would have in real life, but I never thought that they would go as far as ridiculing some prisoners to tears. Although there were none of the prisoners had any long term effects from participating, while in the experiment they would be harassed and punished for no reason, which is where I think the experiment should have been discontinued. Control of the experiment was lost as everybody involved, including Zimbardo became completely engulfed in their roles of the prison. This really makes me question Zimbardo and the other researchers to how they could be too involved in their own experiment to stop the experiment when it began to grow out of control. I think that in the experiment the guards showed who they really were. None of them would have acted that way in their own lives. Zimbardo watched all of this on a hidden camera, and didn’t do anything until long after I along with many others think it should have been. It’s not only that the participants didn’t see the unethical characteristics of this experiment, a priest that was called in and the prisoners parents that came for a visitation day didn’t protest the treatment of their sons after hearing stories of the mock prison. There is something about these symbols of

In “The Abu Ghraib Prison Scandal: Sources of Sadism,” Marianne Szegedy-Maszak informs the reader of the situation United States guards caused against Iraqi detainees. Under Bush’s presidency, United States soldiers brought physical abuse and humiliation upon the Abu Ghraib Prison. Szegedy-Maszak briefly analyzes the situation and compares the abuse to further scientific experiments in which test obedience. One of the experiments was the topic of another article titled, “The Stanford Prison Experiment,” written by Philip G. Zimbardo. In his work, Zimbardo discusses the experiment he held at Stanford University. A group of male students from the university were paid to participate in an experiment held in a mock prison. Half of the group

After watching Frontlines documentary Secrets, Politics and Torture one is automatically faced with mixed views on the major issue, torture, discussed throughout the documentary. At first it shows the different ways our government tries to protect our country and national security, but as one continues to watch the documentary you see how our government attempts to manipulate rules and scenarios in order to help protect the CIA’s inappropriate behavior. On the one hand it is easy to understand why it was unnecessary to torture the prisoners we held captive, but in another light we must also understand the real reasons for acting with such cruel behavior.

citizens, but it was the researchers afterwards that contributed the most startling idea. Zimbardo, the same man who ran the Stanford Prison Experiment, said in an interview with the New York Times, “Prisons tend to be brutal and abusive places unless great effort is made to control the guards’ base impulses. It’s not that we put bad apples in a good barrel. We put good apples in a bad barrel. The barrel corrupts anything that it touches” (Swhwartz, 2004 p. 2). A professor of Law at Loyola University, Marcy Strauss, studies criminal procedure and wrote a forty-two page manuscript on the lessons that should be discussed beyond news articles. Strauss said of Abu Ghraib, “Undoubtedly, these factors [poor training of guards, poor oversight and horrendous conditions] played a major role in facilitating the abuse. Correcting these conditions is imperative. But, to end the introspection there would be a mistake” (Strauss, 2005 p.9). The idea that people could be malignant under specific circumstances has been proven by Milgrams’ studies and this idea is now apparent in real life. Thus, the concern for prisons, as pointed out by both Zimbardo and Strauss, cannot simply be that the guards or correctional officers do not abuse people in the future. The issue is that the maltreatment and indignity in Abu Ghraib was a result of the poor foundation of the U.S. correctional system (Strauss,

In the News Week article from 1982 Michael Levin an American philosopher and university professor, presents his premises and his conclusion to why he personally believes that torture is morally permissible. In addition Levin’s expects others to understand why such thing as torture is a permissible act that everyone should incorporate as a morally acceptable act. To commence, Levin presents his topic by presenting the usual though that torture may seem barbaric; however, he then diverts to his issue, in which he personally states his believe in the quote “There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but morally mandatory.” Then, Levin moves on to explain his reasons for why he believes in such moral claim. For

David Figueroa Eng. 101A Professor Stern 4/20/15 Final draft In conclusion, in discussions of torture, one controversial issue has been on the use of it. On one hand, the people against torture argue that it is cruel and unusual punishment. On the other hand, those for torture argue that it should be used for the greater good. Others even maintain that under extreme circumstances, it may be admissible if it can save American lives. My own view is that no one should be subjected to cruel punishment because it is not only illegal, unreliable, ineffective, time consuming, it also has too many flaws that could potentially ruin innocent lives. The definition of torture is any act, whether physical or emotional, or maybe both, is intentionally subjected to a specific individual or a group for many reasons. Most of these reasons that torture is administered is for extracting information from an individual or just for punishing him/her for a crime that he/she has committed or is suspected of committing. The use of torture can be used to intimidate a person to give information that may be beneficial for a nation. The use of torture has been used for many centuries. The purposes of using torture have changed over the years as well as the methods in which a person is tortured. One crucial piece that has been established that separates us human beings from barbarians is the prohibition of using torture. There are many reasons why torture has been deemed a crime now in society. There are

Any man can withstand adversity; if you want to test his character, give him power.

The Abu Ghraib torture scandal left a large blemish on the occupation of Iraq and George Bush’s War on terror. As stories of the torture happening in the Abu Ghraib prison began circulating, American citizens had trouble comprehending the acts of evil their soldiers had committed on Iraqis. Some began to see a correlation between Abu Ghraib and the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment. Though the guards in both situations were brutal to their captives, distinct differences lay in the severity of their actions. Abu Ghraib’s guards were much more vicious to their captives, and this can be attributed to the prejudices the guards felt against their captors, the environment, and the lack of training, compounded with a lack of accountability in the leadership.

She begins recounting the notorious details, how innocent college students labeled prisoners and guards displayed psychological abuse after only six days of confinement, and makes reference to Stanley Milgram’s obedience study and Abu Ghraib, where similar maltreatment, perceived or real, was conducted on civilians by civilians. She addresses and refutes the accepted belief that the Stanford Prison Experiment proved that anyone could become a tyrant when given or instructed by a source of authority. Instead, she suggests that Zimbardo’s inquiry points toward but does not land on one exact conclusion. She explains the influence of the setting, the presentation of the roles, Zimbardo’s participation, and perhaps a sense of expectation felt, all of which can be reflected in the shocking behavior of a few guards. She argues that it should not have been so shocking. Konnikova discredits the neutrality of Zimbardo’s experiment by insisting that people who would respond to an ad for a psychological study of prison life were not “normal” people. However, with her diction and choice of evidence she displaces the study's culpability in a way that ultimately blurs and undermines her claim.

Torture was considered to be somewhat justified in such incidents known as the ticking time bomb scenario. For there to be a justification for the necessity of torture to protect lives there must be six key items present: 1) There must be a planned attack. 2) The captive must know about the planned attack. 3) Torture must be the only way to obtain the information. 4) The captive must be persuaded to provide the information. 5) The information must be accurate. 6) If the information is obtained, there must be time and means to prevent the attack. The ticking time bomb scenario did not pertain to Abu Ghraib, since the detainees were merely Iraqi delinquents who did not have knowledge of future planned attacks on the United States by al Qaeda.

When the amount of people being sent to prison increased, the army couldn’t keep up with rising numbers. “There was- when I left, there was over 900 inmates. There was only five soldiers plus two non-commissioned officers in charge for those 900- over 900 inmates” said Sgt. Frederick (60 Minutes, Abuse at Abu Ghraib). For every guard there is roughly 128 prisoners. At most United States prisons, it is supposed to be for every guard there is five inmates. When 60 minutes interviewed Sgt. Frederick, he was asked about the treatment of prisoners. "We learned a little bit of Arabic, basic commands. And they didn't want to listen, so sometimes, you would just give them a little nudge or something like that just to get them to cooperate so we could get the mission accomplished" answered Sgt. Frederick (Abuse at Abu Ghraib). Soldiers in Abu Ghraib reported that they needed to sometimes “get rough” with the inmates in order to remain in control and make sure the prisoners listened to them (60 Minutes, Abuse at Abu Ghraib). In the end one of the biggest causes of the scandal was lack of training and how understaffed the prison

Let us begin with Michael Levin, whose thesis states, “There are situations in which torture is not merely permissible but not morally mandatory,” in the second

The author, Melissa Mae, explains the issue, along with the opposing sides, clearly. Mae begins the essay by introducing the issue. She says the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib gained attention around 2004. Americans became concerned when they found out the government was using torture and were extremely upset about it. She states that people believed torture was being used as a part of the government’s “interrogation of war-on-terror detainees.” Though she tells the readers what the issue is, she never fully explains it. She only tells us that the essays she wrote about were written around the time the debate was heating up. A positive trait about this essay is that she stated the issue in the first paragraph.

On December 9, 2014, a 528 page document was released to the public known as the “CIA Torture Report”. It contains details of the CIA’s (Central Intelligence Agency) “enhanced” interrogation. The document, which is actually a summary of the 6,700 page report states that the United States, has been torturing its detainees in foreign countries in order to get confessions or answers from them. The many tactics used by the CIA include but not limited to, facial and abdominal slaps, rectal “feeding” and/or rehydration, ice-water baths, sleep deprivation for more than a week, shackling in stress positions, isolation, sensory deprivation, water-boarding, and walling (being slammed against a wall repeatedly). Detainees were also told that their families would be harmed, and/or sexually assaulted. Many Americans are against this “enhanced” interrogation, others feel it is necessary.

Sometimes we wonder why people do things. Is it because they were forced to? Maybe they were pressured into it, or maybe they thought it was the right thing to do. In the book The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo he studies the psychological motives of humans and situational personalities. Zimbardo produced an experiment called the “Stanford prison experiment” which put one group of students as guards and another as the prisoners. The main point of the experiment was to watch the prisoners and see how they reacted to being detained; however, when the experiment was conducted it was the guards who were more interesting to study.