We have all watched cartoons where conscience comes into play. In the situation, the character is confronted with the angel and the devil on his shoulder. Based on how each plays up his side of the story, the character either chooses the angel, his conscience, or the devil, his carnal desires. But is everything as simple as the cartoon makes it seem? Erich Fromm, in "Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem" states choosing the "angel" because of the perception of good is just as bad as choosing the devil. Fromm also states disobedience of authoritarian conscience increases the ability to "be and to judge oneself." Because of this, humanistic conscience is more important. (2-3)
Authoritarian conscience, according to Fromm, is not the conscience from the perspective of a ruler. On the contrary, authoritarian conscience is "the internalized voice of an authority whom we are eager to please and afraid of displeasing." This voice is what most people experience when they hear the word conscience. Whether the voice is of an angel, a deity, or a parent, the morals of the authority figure, not necessarily the morals of the person, are the morals that are weighed. (2)
In contrast, humanistic conscience "is the voice in every human being and (is) independent from external sanctions and rewards." The concept of humanistic conscience assumes all men have a grasp of morality. The distinction between authoritarian and humanistic consciences is based on motivation. If a person obeys a conscience out of fear of hell, or the reward of heaven, they are obeying an authoritarian conscience. However, if a person acts, or does not act, because they know in their heart the action (or inaction) is moral, they are following a humanistic conscience. (2-3)
Because the differences between the two are subtle, it is necessary to weigh the importance of following the two. When taken at face value, both consciences seem to be equal. However, when further evaluating authoritarian conscience, a concern comes up. Throughout the entire essay, Fromm stresses the importance of thought free from the chains of authority. While following your conscience seems internalized, one must remember authoritarian conscience is followed because of fear or anticipation of a reward. Whether heaven or hell, acceptance or disownment, the voice in authoritarian conscience holds a reward or a punishment the person either wants or does not want to get.
In "The Perils of Obedience," Stanley Milgram conducted a study that tests the conflict between obedience to authority and one's own conscience. Through the experiments, Milgram discovered that the majority of people would go against their own decisions of right and wrong to appease the requests of an authority figure.
The world roughly hold about seven billion people. People from different backgrounds, nationality, race, but there is a high percentage of people in this world that struggle to make moral decisions on their own because they are scared of becoming an outcast, an enemy. In addition, this cycle causes people to be controlled by the society and not make decisions that would possibly better them but rather turn them into the society’s robot. In essays such as, “‘Repent Harlequin’ Said the Ticktock Man” and “Shooting an Elephant,” written by Harlan Ellison and George Orwell, respectively, each character faces a conflict with themselves by not using their own moral sense and getting faced with challenges. In the essay “Civil Disobedience,” written
Many people have different views on the moral subject of good and evil or human nature. It is the contention of this paper that humans are born neutral, and if we are raised to be good, we will mature into good human beings. Once the element of evil is introduced into our minds, through socialization and the media, we then have the potential to do bad things. As a person grows up, they are ideally taught to be good and to do good things, but it is possible that the concept of evil can be presented to us. When this happens, we subconsciously choose whether or not to accept this evil. This where the theories of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke become interesting as both men differed in the way they believed human nature to be. Hobbes and Locke both picture a different scene when they express human nature.
The two extremes of our behavior, in which we may self-sacrifice, but may also take the lives of others, demonstrate our highly mixed nature. However, with the exception of “moral monsters”, most of our sinfulness rests on “unchosen evil” facilitated precisely by our human nature (Kekes 84; 66). Philosopher David Livingstone Smith identities authorization as a necessary condition for behavior contrary to our need for cooperation (127-26). When “persons in positions of authority endorse acts of violence, the perpetrator is less inclined to feel personally responsible, and therefore less guilty in performing them” (Smith 127). Stanley Milgram’s “Obedience to Authority” experiment, in which subjects delivered shocks to another person despite hearing and even seeing the suffering they were inflicting, confirms this phenomenon. When interviewed afterwards, Milgram’s subjects expressed sentiment that they did not want to continue with the experiment, but they firmly believed such decision was not up to them (Lecture 9.28.2016). Participants’ autonomy became corrupted acted in response to the powerful cultural values of loyalty, “obedience, and discipline” which often “count for more […] than individual conscience and private morality” (Gray
Aristotle’s psychological types, as described in “Nichomachean Ethics,” are a categorization of different internal moral characters. These categories are a comprehensive attempt - for ancient philosophy - at identifying which internal psychologies manifest virtuous or morally bad behaviour. His moral categories are somewhat obsolete in a post-modern world, where science and politics are far more developed than in Ancient Greece. However, moral psychological ethics and normative debate still holds a relevant position in the moral undercurrent of society – it is dispersed through legal, political, military and medical activity, in relationships and familial function. It is for this reason, that Immanuel Kant examined a similar issue in “Pure Practical Reason and the Moral Law,” and that it still makes for interesting philosophical discussion.
The Crucible is also a study of honour and integrity. Most people have a conscience - the inner sense of morality which steers us towards what we think is right. However, in times of public strife, the conscience takes a back seat to what is expected of us. It takes a strong conscience to know when you are right and say so, even in the face of overwhelming opposition.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s “On the Genealogy of Morality” includes his theory on man’s development of “bad conscience.” Nietzsche believes that when transitioning from a free-roaming individual to a member of a community, man had to suppress his “will to power,” his natural “instinct of freedom”(59). The governing community threatened its members with punishment for violation of its laws, its “morality of customs,” thereby creating a uniform and predictable man (36). With fear of punishment curtailing his behavior, man was no longer allowed the freedom to indulge his every instinct. He turned his aggressive focus inward, became ashamed of his natural animal instincts, judged himself as inherently evil, and developed a bad conscience (46). Throughout the work, Nietzsche uses decidedly negative terms to describe “bad conscience,” calling it ugly (59), a sickness (60), or an illness (56); leading some to assume that he views “bad conscience” as a bad thing. However, Nietzsche hints at a different view when calling bad conscience a “sickness rather like pregnancy” (60). This analogy equates the pain and suffering of a pregnant woman to the suffering of man when his instincts are repressed. Therefore, just as the pain of pregnancy gives birth to something joyful, Nietzsche’s analogy implies that the negative state of bad conscience may also “give birth” to something positive. Nietzsche hopes for the birth of the “sovereign individual” – a man who is autonomous, not indebted to the morality of custom, and who has regained his free will. An examination of Nietzsche’s theory on the evolution of man’s bad conscience will reveal: even though bad conscience has caused man to turn against himself and has resulted in the stagnation of his will, Ni...
One’s morals set in place the actions they see as proper and improper in their current society. Individuals in the same socioeconomic settings tend to overlap and correspond to each other. Other times morals are nonexistent or different due to one’s upbringing and culture, this means that ‘appropriate’ decisions as seen by some people may be seen as ‘inappropriate’ to others. Evil in terms of morals can be defined as someone 's morals being so extreme or nonexistent when compared to those of modern society 's views that they can not be logically comprehended.
Ordinary people are willing to go against their own decision of right and wrong to fulfill the request of an authoritative figure, even at the expense of their own moral judgment and sense of what is right and wrong. Using a variety of online resources including The Perils of Obedience by Stanley Milgram this paper attempts to prove this claim.
More specifically, the movie A Few Good Men depicts the results of blindly obeying orders. Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, also explores obedience to authority in his essay “ The Perils of Obedience”. On the other hand, Erich Fromm, a psychoanalyst and philosopher, focused on disobedience to authority in his essay “ Disobedience as a Psychological and Moral Problem.” Milgram wrote about how people were shockingly obedient to authority when they thought they were harming someone else while Fromm dissected both: why people are so prone to obey and how disobedience from authoritative figures can bring beneficial changes for society. Obeying commands, even when they go against our morals, is human nature; Disobeying commands, however, is challenging to do no matter what the situation is.
Introduction Individuals often yield to conformity when they are forced to discard their individual freedom in order to benefit the larger group. Despite the fact that it is important to obey the authority, obeying the authority can sometimes be hazardous, especially when morals and autonomous thought are suppressed to an extent that the other person is harmed. Obedience usually involves doing what a rule or a person tells you to, but negative consequences can result from displaying obedience to authority; for example, the people who obeyed the orders of Adolph Hitler ended up killing innocent people during the Holocaust. In the same way, Stanley Milgram noted in his article ‘Perils of Obedience’ of how individuals obeyed authority and neglected their conscience, reflecting how this can be destructive in real life experiences. On the contrary, Diana Baumrind pointed out in her article ‘Review of Stanley Milgram’s Experiments on Obedience’ that the experiments were not valid, hence useless.
The human phenomena of conscience and the instinctive concepts of respect and consideration are only a few of the positive qualities that have helped shape complex cultures with all the many different belief systems throughout the world. Every different society in the world has different laws and rules that guide the behavior of their members.
In today’s society, these themes are still dominant. While some view freedom as a responsibility, others take advantage of the privilege. Those with a survival of the fittest attitude do what they want, when they want, in order to get what they want. People with individual conscience believe they have the privilege to do what is right, whether it be for themselves or for others. Unfortunately, those who search for freedom are usually seeking it from those who take advantage of it. While freedom comes with a cost, every American should be able to enjoy their own freedoms and liberties without anyone restricting them.
Ethics are influence from many demographics which include family influences, peer influences, past experiences, religion, and situations. People decide whether something is ethical and whether or not it is right or wrong based on these influences. Individuals decide whether something is ethical or unethical based on family influences because people absorb about the ethical status or something family members based on how our families act. Also individuals also conduct their decisions based on peer influences because classmates and friends that surround us, usually impact a person’s believes on what is right or wrong overtime. Furthermore, people also resolve to their decisions on whether something is right or wrong established on past experiences because they predict their benefits on demographics that had happened to them in the past. Additionally, people select some decisions based on religion because a person’s religious beliefs will usually inspire he or she on what is right or wrong. Finally, another way people base their ethical decisions is based on the situations they are in because people sometimes change their beliefs depending on the circumstances they are in.
For years, the matter of morality has been a widespread topic of discussion, debating whether it is a product of our chemical composition or our free will. Before I get started, I will provide you with what I believe morality exactly is. Ethics is a “code of conduct,” much like a University’s student handbook, but applied to the expected morality of a larger group or society. Morals are how individuals choose to interpret and follow such code. Just as a student may not always act in complete obedience with the student handbook, humans also deviate from their ethical codes of conduct. Therefore, morals are the set of a person’s specific values and opinions formed by their interpretation of their society’s code of ethics. With this version of the meaning of morality, I believe that individual free-will and the neurological hardwiring in which we are born with both significantly influence the development of our mature human morality due to a variety of factors including: human brain development, differences in our upbringing and education, which give rise to disparities in matters such as what is considered right or wrong, decision-making processes, and our ultimate behavioral choices, and lastly, because morality cannot exist if based solely on human nature, it must also involve our own self-determination. My position that morality is not the product of one side of the debate or the other, but rather arises through the integration of both components, allows for a complete demonstration of morality in its entirety. In this system, the ambiguities present in the one-sided arguments are removed, making it easy to link any individual’s action to their personal moral accountability.