Obedience counts as one of the most important elements of the human social life. Centuries of culturing have resulted in obedience being a basic behavioral inclination in most human beings. This primitive inclination to obey always may at times supersede training on moral conduct, sympathy, or ethics. Different philosophers have provided various arguments on whether a person should obey commands that conflict with an individual’s moral code. Stanley Milgram, a Psychologist from Yale University, conducted an experiment meant to test if people would violate their moral code by obeying immoral instructions. The study, which involved people from different areas of life, entailed one participant inflicting pain on another. In his article, The Perils of Obedience, Milgram explains that under certain conditions, obedience to authority would make human beings commit atrocities, negating their own moral code.
The Perils of Obedience involves the description of an experiment meant to test how far different individuals would obey instructions provided by a scientist when faced with a moral dilemma. The study was mainly a ‘blind experiment’, where two participants took up the roles of a teacher and student. The teacher would provide several pairs of words to a learner seated in a miniature electric chair. The teacher would then ask the learner to provide one word in each pair, with each failed answer resulting in an increased electric shock (Milgram 632). The teacher was required to administer electric shock until a voltage of 450 V. The learner was, however, an actor, who only pretended to receive the shocks (Milgram 632).
The study participants generally administered the electric shock with no questions, but a conflict arose when the learner showed signs of discomfort. The learner first grunts at 120 volts, then demands to be released at 150 volts. The learner continues to protest and complain as the voltage is increased. The learners discomfort results in instances of tension and hesitance, but orders from the scientist result in the teacher continuing to inflict pain. However, there are those participants who refuse to continue inflicting pain on the learner. Milgram provides an example of a young female medical technician, who politely declines to administer an electric shock past 210 votes. The woman provides a calm and reasonable explanation on her reason for declining to continue with the experiment (Milgram 634). Her courteous behavior makes her disobedience rational and simple. Milgram explains that the woman’s response and behavior were the main expected outcomes of the study (634).
Most of the other participants obeyed the instructions to the end of the experiment. Although they obeyed the instructions, some of the participants had instances of doubt and questioned the researcher several times. One of the participants sought to enquire who would take responsibility for any harm that may come to the learner (Milgram 635). Even after reassurance that the researcher would take full responsibility, the participant continued but still questioned the researcher’s orders until the end of the experiments. There were also participants who enjoyed inflicting pain to the learner. One of the participants, a social worker, offers to switch places with the learner out of compassion, but after being instructed that instructions could not change, continues to administer the electric shock. At the end of the experiment, the participant is noted to laugh as he administers the shock (Milgram 637).
The article also provided different instances in human history where obedience turned ordinary people into agents of terror. Milgram provides a description of activities conducted by German Nazi officers. Milgram explains that most of the arrested individuals reported that they were only following orders from above; therefore, illustrating that human beings were more likely to forego their moral standards when following instruction from authorities.
Works Cited
Milgram, Stanley. "The Perils of Obedience." Harper's (1973): 62. Print.
