"Just following orders"

[Asita]

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

I don't really think you can compare the Milgram experiment to a military organisation. soldiers are not expected to ask questions and are trained to follow orders from a superior officers. Disobeying is grounds for punishment.

Coming from Freud, it's more justifiable that unjustifiable due to that we all subconsciously have irrational and dark desires.

Nevertheless, Do you blame the man or the gun when someone gets shot? Low ranked soldiers are tools to do the job not the reason behind it.

Um, the Milgram experiment's supported the idea of people being predisposed to obey apparent authority figures, even when those actions conflicted with their sense of morality. The expected results among the polled experts suggested that most wouldn't take the experiment beyond even 150 volts (the experiment uses [apparent] voltage up to 450) and that maybe one in a thousand of the subjects would continue the experiment to its apparently lethal end. The actual results showed that 65% actually did, despite their discomfort in doing so (later variations even noted several of the test subjects openly weeping over the actions they were performing). Amazingly enough, Milgram also reported that even among those who refused to go all the way, not a single one ever went to check on the person they were 'electrocuting' without the experimenter's permission. On a more general note, his conclusions on the experiment read as follows:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. 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.


Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority

 

[mad825]

snip

It's a lab experiment (doesn't mean that it will reflects real-life)

The experiment may actually reflect conformity rather than obedience

Also, it varies from culture to culture.

Irrelevant. You still make choices. Plus you made the choice to become a tool. Fully responsible for it all. Except for reasons of ignorance, but that would involve a bigger plan.

Then congratulations to my friend. You've just solved which scientists/philosophers couldn't solve in 2 centuries (and still haven't) in less than a minute.

So you have no argument? Okay glad to see you concede. I wouldn't want to see you pull intellectually dishonest bullshit like not providing an argument and just whining that it's a big problem so I can't possibly be right.

Just because us humans act all smart doesn't mean we aren't still cavemen.

Pretty fucking irrelevant as to whether someone is responsible or not.

intellectually? Yeah, okay.

When you're on about pure hard cold logic and I'm trying to divulge into psychology which has mind numbing stuff it does get hard especially when my knowledge is fairly limited.

Freewill exists in the same realm as infinity.

 

[Scow2]

Irrelevant. You still make choices. Plus you made the choice to become a tool. Fully responsible for it all. Except for reasons of ignorance, but that would involve a bigger plan.

Scientific studies and neural analysis have proven you wrong in more ways than you know. When the time to "make a decision" comes, the brain likes to decide without any conscious input.

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

I don't really think you can compare the Milgram experiment to a military organisation. soldiers are not expected to ask questions and are trained to follow orders from a superior officers. Disobeying is grounds for punishment.

Coming from Freud, it's more justifiable that unjustifiable due to that we all subconsciously have irrational and dark desires.

Nevertheless, Do you blame the man or the gun when someone gets shot? Low ranked soldiers are tools to do the job not the reason behind it.

Why not make the comparison? The Milgram experiment was on "Free-thinking" civilians without threat of repercussions for not doing what they're told. In case you missed it, the Milgram experiment said almost everyone always follows orders, civilian or not.

 

[GoAwayVifs]

snip

It's a lab experiment (doesn't mean that it will reflects real-life)

The experiment may actually reflect conformity rather than obedience

Also, it varies from culture to culture.

The so much of modern psychology is based on the fact the experiments in lab are accurate reflections of real life. The Milgram experiment does more than show that people just cave to authority. It also shows what is known as the 'foot-in-the-door' phenomenon, which is a tendency for people who have agreed to a small request, or order, to be more likely to comply with a much larger request later. Yes, this has been observed across cultures.

Your actions and your beliefs are strongly linked. Performing an action will change your beliefs. This is the basis for actual "brainwashing". It is not so easy as to say that any individual solider is completely responsible for his actions.

 

[Asita]

snip

It's a lab experiment (doesn't mean that it will reflects real-life)

The experiment may actually reflect conformity rather than obedience

Also, it varies from culture to culture.

You may want to read up on the link above, as much of what you state here is actually accounted for and tested for. Repetition showed remarkably consistent results internationally and gave an idea of how various variables affected the experiment. Decreasing the distance between the subject and the victim increased refusal rates, and by a similar token, refusal rates rose as the distance between authority and victim apparently increased (lowest compliance results occuring when contact with the authority figure was only via telecom). Conformity actually produced some of the more extreme results in BOTH directions. With the addition of two additional [apparent] subjects, the true test subject's reaction tended to mimick those of the other two. When the two confederates refused to proceed, completion rates for the experiment dropped to 10%. When the confederates continued to the end, so too did 90% of the subjects.

 

[Nazrel]

Nevertheless, Do you blame the man or the gun when someone gets shot? Low ranked soldiers are tools to do the job not the reason behind it.

Can the gun think? Yes? Well then I'll blame them both.

swinged and missed the entire point.

Nope, crushed it.

You are told what you need to know and you're progressively taught to dehumanise your enemy. "thinking" is far more complex that you think.

Irrelevant. You still make choices. Plus you made the choice to become a tool. Fully responsible for it all. Except for reasons of ignorance, but that would involve a bigger plan.

Because getting drafted was completely a choice.

People seem to be missing that you are not the only one at risk when you refuse to pull that trigger.

Spouse? Possible concentration camp, or possibly tortured and killed.

Children? Re-education camps... assuming they aren't just killed as an example.

All friends and family are at risk of similar fates.

"Moral Cowardice" is the cry of the self-righteous self-superior who never have and likely never will be put in such a position.

P.S.
I am obviously not assuming modern day U.S. for this example.

 

[Hazy992]

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

It's not easy, but you still make the choice to obey.

Its not quite as simple as it being a difficult choice, Milgrams study basically suggest that most people will feel coerced into it because it's an authority figure.

 

[Dagda Mor]

If you don't follow the order, your commander will give it to someone else. You're more useful to your own beliefs alive than as a martyr, most of the time. It's best to die for your beliefs when it's most prudent, and live for them otherwise.

 

[shintakie10]

snip

It's a lab experiment (doesn't mean that it will reflects real-life)

The experiment may actually reflect conformity rather than obedience

Also, it varies from culture to culture.

How exactly would it reflect conformity when participants were brought in 1 by 1 and never interacted with other participants?

On topic.

I would absolutely love to say its a black and white issue of it is never a good reason, ever in any circumstance. Unfortunately I know better. The Milgram experiment is always the go to thing when it comes to this. We as a people are programmed to listen to authority figures from day 1. We can and, as studies, experiments, even actual circumstances have shown, have done horrible awful things because someone told us to.

Does anyone truly and honestly believe the person with the gun to their head with the order to either shoot that person on their knees or be shot and then the person on their knees will get shot is a horrible person for choosin to pull the trigger? In my case? No...no I dont. I would love to believe that if I was in that situation I'd be able to say no and be perfectly willin to die knowin that at least I wasn't the one who took that life, but I can not say definitively if I could.

 

[Scow2]

"Moral Cowardice" is the cry of the self-righteous self-superior who never have and likely never will be put in such a position.

You, sir, have just won the thread about a hundred times over with this line.

 

[Hazy992]

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

It's not easy, but you still make the choice to obey.

Its not quite as simple as it being a difficult choice, Milgrams study basically suggest that most people will feel coerced into it because it's an authority figure.

Coercion or not, it's ALWAYS your choice. Authority only has meaning if you decide it does.

Again not that simple. If you're being coerced then it's not exactly your choice anymore is it? You're being forced

 

[xPixelatedx]

Why does it hold any weight at all?

For the same reason Kings and Queens held power, we allow it. All the power we grant people is technically all in our imaginations, however it's real because we act on it, if we didn't act on it then it wouldn't be. Funny how that works.

I hold "Just Following Orders" in the same category of BS as 'No backsies' and 'Artistic Integrity'. It's a shield people put up to try and defend the wrongs they've done when they don't have any legitimate defense otherwise, and the only reason why we let that slide is because we let it slide.

 

[Gilhelmi]

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

I just read about that experiment. It amazed me.

INB4 Milgram experiment

But yeah that experiment shows that it's not as easy ad you think to just say no to an authority figure even if you want to.

It's not easy, but you still make the choice to obey.

Its not quite as simple as it being a difficult choice, Milgrams study basically suggest that most people will feel coerced into it because it's an authority figure.

Coercion or not, it's ALWAYS your choice. Authority only has meaning if you decide it does.

That is easy to say, but if you have a rifle too your head and told 'shoot the civilian or die' then it becomes different. Even if the coercion is not that extreme, the urge too obey is powerful and strongly trained into soldiers of every military in the world.

It is easy to say 'its a choice' but it is hard to make that choice.

I pray no one here ever has too make that "choice".