Perils of Human Obediance essays

Perils of Human Obediance essays From the time we are born the ideals of obedience is taught and instilled in us all. Authoritarian figures are established and rules, guidelines, and codes of ethics are instituted. Each person chooses how strictly to follow these terms by his or her own accord, knowing that they will suffer the repercussions and consequences for disobedience. Whether it is a parent spanking a child or an adult being fired from a job there is always a certain disciplinary actions for not following orders. Everybody is expected to obey authority at all costs, but what happens when following orders means defying ones own morals? In 1963 Yale psychologist Stanley Milgram set up and conducted an experiment to test this very questions limits. It was designed to Force participants to either violate their conscience by obeying the immoral demands of an authority figure or refuse those demands(Milgram 343). In it a teacher(Milgram 345) subject and a learner(Milgram 345) subject are used. The teacher is a clueless volunteer but the learner is a pre-informed actor. Learner subjects are strapped in a chair and to a fake electric shock generator. The teacher is instructed to teach word pair questions to the learner and administer an electric shock for each wrong answer, increasing the voltage with each wrong answer. Testing not the learners ability to respond, but the teachers obedience to authority when ordered to continue regardless of the pleas to stop by the learner. It brings up the definite human conflict of personal-morals versus following orders from a higher authority. The results were unexpected and shocki ng to even Milgram himself. An unbelievably high 25 of 40 teacher subjects complete the test to the end, administering the highest possible shock level to the learner subject many times(Milgram 347). This shocking behavior is a demonstration of human nature being prone to follow orders at all ...