The Theory Of Freedom Under An Authoritative Figure

After viewing both Milgram’s experiment and the Stanford Prison experiment, I can say that I was disappointed - but not surprised - by the results of each study. Throughout history the rise of one individual’s power has altered the course of entire cultures - Hitler, Stalin, and the Kim Jongs being obvious examples of this. Another story detailing the dangers of such stratified social hierarchy and thirst for power is Lord of the Flies. Though gruesome, this book proves how one person’s quest for ultimate authority can lead to the downfall of the entire group. While subjects in Milgram’s experiment seemed more apprehensive towards carrying out their “duties,” it was disheartening to see most of them buckle under the false sense of authority. I believe the average citizen would tell themselves they weren't capable of going along with such atrocities, but this experiment just goes to prove how toxic unquestioned authority can be. When we perceive an individual to hold supreme power over ourselves, we allow their teachings to grip our moral compass in a stranglehold, preventing us from acting in a civilized, rational manner. This is especially apparent in the Prison Stanford experiment. Even though all members of the study knew it was just that - no more than a sociological experiment - they quickly fell down the slippery slope that is group conformity. This demonstrates the Thomas Theorem extraordinarily well - the prisoners thought they were less than the guards, so they

“The Perils of Obedience” was written by Stanley Milgram in 1974. In the essay he describes his experiments on obedience to authority. I feel as though this is a great psychology essay and will be used in psychology 101 classes for generations to come. The essay describes how people are willing to do almost anything that they are told no matter how immoral the action is or how much pain it may cause.

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

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.

The purpose of Stanley Milgram writing his “The Perils of Obedience,” is to show to what extent an individual would contradict his/her moral convictions because of the orders of an authority figure (Milgram 78). He constructed an experiment wherein an experimenter instructs a naïve subject to inflict a series of shocks of increasing voltage on a protesting actor. Contrary to Milgram’s expectations, about sixty percent of the subjects administered the highest voltage shock. (Milgram 80). According to Milgram, experiment variations disproved the theory that the subjects were sadists. (Milgram 85). Milgram states that although the subjects are against their actions, they desire to please the experimenter, and they often

Each of the two experiments carried out by Milgram and Zimbardo had questionable ethics in their procedure. Ethics is defined as “Moral principles that govern a person’s behaviour or the conducting of an activity” (Oxford Dictionaries, 2016). In psychology, ethics are moral guidelines when conducting social experiments such as these, so that the dignity of each participant is respected and preserved. This piece of work will evaluate the perceived ethics in Milgram’s experiment of human obedience to authority figures, and Zimbardo’s experiment of conformity to roles, and also provide an overall conclusion on whether or not these studies were ethical.

Draft thesis statement: Through numerous examples as illustrated in Milgram’s “The Perils of Obedience”, along with the “Replicating Milgrim” experiment by Burger, individuals that have comprised an entirely different set of moral in order to obey, should not be excused for all accountability, even when responsibility is presumably accepted by someone with authority, as there is a lack of correlation between the impact of self awareness in morality to the pressure for obedience.

In his article "The Perils of Obedience”, Stanley Milgram conducted an experiment to determine if the innate desire to obey an authority figure overrides the morality and consciousness that had been already established in a person. After Milgram conducted his experiments he concluded that 60% of the subjects complied to an authority figure rather than their own sympathy. There was additional testing outside the US which showed an even higher compliance rate. Milgram reasoned that the subjects enjoyed the gratification from the experimenter, who was the authority figure in the experiment. He noted that most of the subjects are "proud" to carry out the demands of the experimenter. Milgram believed for that reason, why the

In 1961, Stanley Milgram, a psychologist at Yale University, conducted an experiment on a group’s obedience to authority. This experiment has encountered intense scrutiny ever since its findings were first published in 1963; many people question the ethics and validity of the experiment. Multitudes of researchers have taken it upon themselves to determine the answers to the questions (McLeod). Based on new guidelines for ethics, Stanley Milgram’s experiment on the obedience to authority was neither ethical nor valid.

Empowering Morality Everyday, people make countless decisions—what to eat, say, do, etc.—but most decisions that appear to be chosen by oneself is partially chosen by others around them. Society influences individuals into conforming their personalities to a held standard, creating numerous clones that are not capable of thinking independently. However, the few that are capable of standing up for what is right are often scrutinized or outcasted from society, subsequently pressuring many into thoughtlessly following the crowd. This is unwise, for the crowd may be mistreating a minority group or may be contradicting with one’s moral beliefs. The Milgram Experiment Revisited, The Wave, and Night emphasize the importance of fully standing by one’s beliefs instead of following the status quo as it is often times fallacious and unjust.

People are known to do atrocious things when they are told to by authoritative figures. The question is why; why would a seemingly non-violent person do something that acts against their morality unless urged to by an authoritative figure? Nonetheless, the average person does not often commit immoral acts of their own will without retaliating and therefore the situation needs further inspection, and that is the case with Milgram’s experiment (Milgram’s experiment as cited in McDermott et al. 115 ). In Stanley Milgram’s “Behavioral Study of Obedience” experiment the research indicates that authority figures can cause the average person to commit immoral acts such as

How can the power of situations and individual conscience affect your decision making? That is the question that many people ask every day. After reading many articles about this topic I didn’t realize how much some of these stories told an experiments conducted actually applied to me. Throughout this paper I am going to talk about that Ross & Nisbett, Asch, Milgram and the Zimbardo prison experiment and how each one of those relate in some way or another to each other.

Humans are taught the difference between right and wrong. However in certain circumstances, humans throw away their morals due to a higher influence. This is shown in The Milgram Obedience Experiment, where humans follow what an authority figure tells them to do. It is also shown in Lord of the Flies, when the boys end up following Jack’s savage ways, since he becomes somewhat of an authority figure. The understanding reached is shown with, “This shows most participants were good, average people, not evil individuals. They obeyed only under coercion” (Encina). Just like the boys from the Lord of the Flies, these people were ordinary

What I shall continue with is a discussion of the relevance of Spinoza in understanding freedom. Now while I may have been fundamentally opposed to Spinoza’s claim that he was offering freedom in my previous papers, I feel that I am better equipped to speak about this issue now in terms of its relevance.

One of the most fundamental philosophical conundrums in the relationship between individual human beings and society is the inherent conceptual conflict between the autonomy of the individual and the authority of the state. Absolute freedom of the individual precludes any exercise of state authority; but some degree of state authority is necessary to ensure and protect the autonomous rights of individuals from being infringed upon by the exercise of the will of other equally autonomous individuals. Absolute authority protects all individuals from the autonomous choices of other individuals, but at the complete expense of individual autonomy.