“some psychologist were troubled by the ethics of it. Many, if not most subjects, found it a very highly stressful, conflicted experience. People are stammering, stuttering, laughing hysterically” Professor at time 6:48
” he cant stand it. I am not gonna kill that man. Who’s gonna take responsibility if anything happens to that gentleman” Subject at time 8:08
Milgram is a fascinating man. He created a great experiment. He can really explain to us what human psychology is through the help of this experiment. Many complex questions such as why do we participate in wars, genocide, ethnic cleansing,dictatorships etc can be simply answered by this question. It is fascinating that he though of this ideas after WW2 when he wanted to understand why it is that the Germans didn’t want to stop Hitler from slaughtering millions of innocent lives. He was curious about how people though in that era. The two quote above show how I interpret authority. I think there are two kinds of people on this earth. One that has no regard for human existence the other that has the utmost respect for human existence but is forced to do compromise his ideals because of someone in the higher position that has a higher power than them. In the Quotes above. The First subject reacts to the pain of the victim very differently than the second subject. These two subject show us exactly how humans would react to an authoritarian. The First person in the first quote will be the part of the oppression and find it funny and disregard humanity completely. While the second subject in the second quote will pause and think about the circumstances of torture as well as show the utmost respect for a human life.
I think Gaurav makes some really strong points about the Milgram experiment, and about society as a whole, however I disagree about the concept that there are only 2 types of people, those with regard from human life and those with no regard for human life. I personally believe while those two types of people do exist, it is actually more of a spectrum than a black and white equation. I think that this experiment doesn’t really show lack of care for human life, because I’m sure if anyone that was very callous during the experiment was told that they were actually hurting someone and the doctor was a fake doctor, they would snap out of their trance and help this poor human. Thus I believe that this experiment showcases the ability of humans to shift responsibility away from their own actions.
I believe it wasn’t ethical to do this study given the reations of the subjects and how this experiment could have led to psychological problems such as paranoia. When the subject mentioned “I’m going to kill this man” that really shows the power that conscience plays at that moment. I think anyone would’ve broken down regardless of their economic status or background. No one enjoys being dehumanized and being or being inflicted pain wrongfully .The ethical dilemmas in this experiment is similar to the Stanford Prison experiments in the sense that both experiments place people in an environment where they feel inferior and helpless. I think both experiments were helpful but this experiment was unethical.