Essay Moral Disengagement in the Perpetration of Inhumanities

Actions and inactions all have moral implications; they are either right or wrong depending on the individual and what s/he believes or feels is right or wrong. Each person’s conduct can and does have implications and ramifications. For every action there is an equal and/or opposite reaction not only for the average person but also for professionals; especially in the area of law enforcement, criminal justice, and criminal procedure. Just discussed is known as moral philosophy.

This textbook example would be extremely deviant to the American culture. American laws would not be accepting of such a criminal act to be performed as punishment for adultery. In America it is not illegal to commit adultery, but it is illegal to tie up and beat someone. Americans do feel by majority that the adultery act is deviant, but punishment that the Pokot women carried out are not accepted as a valid punishment in America.

Stark authority was pitted against the subjects’ [participants’] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects’ [participants’] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.”

In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted a controversial experiment on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined the justifications for acts of genocide given by those accused at the World War II Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on "obedience,” and that they were “just following orders from their superiors” (McLeod, Saul. Milgram Experiment, Simply Psychology).

Most militaries exhibit shame-based characteristics due to the fact that said characteristics are all required to run an organized and efficient military. Contrary to this, most civilian organizations are guilt-based, and rely on the individual’s fortitude and conscience to instill discipline in him/herself.

“In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. He examined the justifications for acts of genocide given by those accused at the World War II Nuremberg War Criminal trials. Their defense often was based on "obedience,” and that they were just following orders from their superiors.

Several morally ambiguous characters played different vital roles in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. In fact, most characters illustrated in this twisted novel can be evaluated as possesing "good" and "evil" qualities. Sonia Marmeladov is especially ambiguous and important in this novel. Her contradicting social and moral statuses along with her contrasting roles as a saintly liberator and sinner allowed Sonia to play a crucial role throughout the novel. Not only that but her character further strengthens the theme of religious awakening. At times Sonia's character becomes hard to categorize as "good" or "evil" because of her actions.        The first descriptions the reader gets of Sonia are from her drunk father, Marmeladov.

“Within Forty-eight hours, more than 236 Jews were murdered; 1,300 synagogues were burned; and more than 7,000 Jewish shops, businesses, schools, and private homes were vandalized and destroyed. The Nazis also arrested more than 30,000 Jews… many never to be seen again” (Hitler Youth Bartoletti pg. 54)[EC1] . [EC2] In difficult situations, like the one mentioned above, there are scenarios where it is tolerable to perform an action that would otherwise be unacceptable. These actions would be acceptable due to the way it impacts a person’s conscience, for a morally just reason, during a life or death situation, and by learning from the mistake[TS3] .

This quote, by Stanley Milgram (1974, p. 205), exemplifies the debate that exists around the topic of obedience. Obedient behaviours have been studied in Milgram’s famous obedience experiments, and evidence of atrocities being carried out as a result of obedience can be seen in situations such as the holocaust in World War Two (Mastroianni, 2000) and more recent events such as (My Lai). This essay will explain both sides of the debate, arguing for situation and individual factors that influence people to behave in particular ways. Therefore, an interactional approach is argued here, that the situation and individual influences cannot be disentangled. A brief explanation of Milgram’s baseline study (1963) will be introduced first, before

Garland, D. (2015). Sociological perspective of punishment. [online] http://www.umass.edu/legal/Benavides/Fall2005/397G/Readings%20Legal%20397%20G/8%20David%20Garland.pdf. Available at: http://www.umass.edu/legal/Benavides/Fall2005/397G/Readings%20Legal%20397%20G/8%20David%20Garland.pdf [Accessed 20 Apr. 2015].

Obedience to Authority is a book by Stanley Milgram. Obedience to authority is a compliance with commands given by an authority figure. Milgram's research showed that people have a strong tendency to comply with authoritative figures. Drawing specifically on the statements of those who testified in Nuremberg, as well as those who have written about it, I will be explaining why Milgram's experiments do help explain the Holocaust and other Nazi war crimes. As Well as the views of Tedford Taylor in An American Tragedy and Hannah Arendt’s A report on the Banality of Evil.

The experiment was designed to find out to which extent ordinary people are willing to cause pain to other innocent members of the society when instructed to follow orders. Therefore, the main object of the study is defined as people’s obedience to the instructions given by people occupying superior positions in situations putting a threat to the well being of an innocent person. The results of the study show that most people obey the instructions even if they are related to hurting people. The main lesson depicted by the author based on the results of the study shows that “ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process” (Milgram 367).

Numerous criminological hypotheses dependably clarify the reasons why individuals perpetrate wrongdoing, or to discover what are the most persuasive elements rouse individuals carry out wrongdoing and damage the social standards. Rather, social control hypotheses have been as of now expected people are possibly perpetrating wrongdoing. In addition, the social control or social bond hypothesis is underscoring why a man don't be a criminal. In social control scholars' suspicions, people have the ability to abuse the laws instead of comply with the laws. Honest practices are not the idea of individuals. Individuals carry out wrongdoing in light of the fact that the powers or obliges of society isn't most grounded enough. It depicts individuals are remaining in the situation amongst abnormality and congruity. It demonstrates the strain of everybody either submit degenerate act or acknowledges the standards. As indicated by Hirschi control speculations

“Obedience is the psychological mechanism that links individual action to political purpose.” (Milgram, 1963). As a Psychologist at Yale University, Milgram proposed an experiment mainly focusing on the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience. In the 1960’s, Stanley Milgram analyzed justifications for genocide acts by those accused during World War II. The Nuremberg War Criminal trials, States the people were thought of them as simply following orders from their higher ranks. His theory focuses on how humans think and how it links to an action of a given command. In this study, the reader will observe the unethical experiment of the Behavioral Study of Obedience.

With all wrongdoing there must be a penalty for the consequences which forms the basis of the term of ‘punishment’.28 Human societies have been heavily characterized for having the view that wrongdoers should suffer a more or less immediate punishment for their bad deeds, therefore the more serious the offense, the more extreme the punishment.28