Hi there.
One thing that always bugged me about the Milgram Experiment (See here for explanation) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment] is that even though what it told us about human beings and their capacity for evil was important to know, it was ruled unethical and could not be done today. Here we have a clear warning about how none of us is above committing atrocities, and therefore it's important to be aware of this and guard against it, and it was condemned because the subjects didn't like finding out that they're Not So Different from the Nazis.
It basically seems like a culture-wide case of denial to me. How different would our culture be if we had taken the lessons of the experiment to heart instead? Would so many of us speak of torture as necessary if we had? Would politicians and media be perhaps less likely to blame movies, music, or video games for school shootings?
What really concerns me is how many other critical lessons have not been learned because the required experiments would be deemed unethical? What we have here is basically a ban on introspection at a society level. What happens to a person if they never examine their flaws? Usually they become complete jerks or worse. So what happens to a society if it outlaws examination of its flaws?
The biggest objection raised seems to be that it caused "inflicted insight". In other words, it caused people to realize that they were capable of doing horrible things simply because they were told to, and this made them uncomfortable. To me, that seems like a good thing. That discomfort is a sign of a healthy sense of morality, and if they had any right to call themselves adults, they would have learned from it, and tried not to make the same mistake in real life. This is exactly what many of the subjects actually did, saying later on that they were glad they participated in the experiment.
So, what do you think? Is the discomfort of the subjects reason to ban experiments like this? Is the possible benefit to society worth it? Is that discomfort no different from the discomfort of maturing as an individual? Is it cowardly to shy away from learning the truth about ourselves simply because it may not be flattering?
Edit: Not sure why a chunk of the second answer is missing. I am unable to fix it. It should read "The experiment was unethical, but we learned important things from it."
One thing that always bugged me about the Milgram Experiment (See here for explanation) [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment] is that even though what it told us about human beings and their capacity for evil was important to know, it was ruled unethical and could not be done today. Here we have a clear warning about how none of us is above committing atrocities, and therefore it's important to be aware of this and guard against it, and it was condemned because the subjects didn't like finding out that they're Not So Different from the Nazis.
It basically seems like a culture-wide case of denial to me. How different would our culture be if we had taken the lessons of the experiment to heart instead? Would so many of us speak of torture as necessary if we had? Would politicians and media be perhaps less likely to blame movies, music, or video games for school shootings?
What really concerns me is how many other critical lessons have not been learned because the required experiments would be deemed unethical? What we have here is basically a ban on introspection at a society level. What happens to a person if they never examine their flaws? Usually they become complete jerks or worse. So what happens to a society if it outlaws examination of its flaws?
The biggest objection raised seems to be that it caused "inflicted insight". In other words, it caused people to realize that they were capable of doing horrible things simply because they were told to, and this made them uncomfortable. To me, that seems like a good thing. That discomfort is a sign of a healthy sense of morality, and if they had any right to call themselves adults, they would have learned from it, and tried not to make the same mistake in real life. This is exactly what many of the subjects actually did, saying later on that they were glad they participated in the experiment.
So, what do you think? Is the discomfort of the subjects reason to ban experiments like this? Is the possible benefit to society worth it? Is that discomfort no different from the discomfort of maturing as an individual? Is it cowardly to shy away from learning the truth about ourselves simply because it may not be flattering?
Edit: Not sure why a chunk of the second answer is missing. I am unable to fix it. It should read "The experiment was unethical, but we learned important things from it."
