Murder has always been a crime of the offender no matter the context surrounding it: however, current psychology and research experiments suggest that this might not be so. In Rob Reiner’s film, A Few Good Men, he examines the idea of why people of good character behave in an ill manner a in militaristic situation. Lt. Kaffee, a military lawyer, defends two marines (Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey) accused of murder after following an extrajudicial punishment known as a Code Red. In court, Kaffee proves their innocence by arguing that a crime committed due to obedience is a crime attributed to the commander, not the executioner. Why do Dawson and Downey follow the Code Red? Dawson fell victim, as many people do, to the militaristic
Obedience is the good guy, the virtue that society constantly preaches to you as a child: obey your parents, obey your elders, do as you are told. Disobedience is considered to be terrible not only within society, but especially in the military. From the day that they entered the Marine Corps, Dawson and Downey were taught the importance of obedience. If they did not obey orders at all times, the consequences would range in severity from hazing to death. They did not disobey their orders because they feared the consequences, however this is ironic because disobeying the Code Red would have saved a life. Dawson is a perfect example of how years of practicing obedience can change you. In the scene where Kaffee offers Dawson a six month plea deal, Kaffee is offended by the responses of Dawson and begins to grow irritated and noisy. Out of obedience to authority which in this case was Lt. Kaffee, Dawson says, “Permission to speak”(A few). Erich Fromm, psychoanalyst, philosopher, historian and sociologist of the beginning to late 1900’s, speaks about the psychological and moral issues of obedience. In the climax of his essay he states, “If mankind commits suicide it will be because people will obey those who command them to push the deadly buttons; because they will obey the archaic passions of fear, hate, and greed; because they will obey obsolete cliches of State sovereignty and national honor”(Fromm 125). This example explains Dawson and Downey’s actions perfectly. Dawson and Downey will obey the authoritarians and follow the Code Red because they fear the consequences. In the same scene mentioned earlier in this paragraph Dawson stands in admiration for his profession and on behalf of himself and Downey says “ We joined the marines because we wanted to live our lives by a certain code and we found it in the Corps”(A Few). The two
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 question of why these Marines obeyed the “Code Red” may be answered by Stanley Milgram’s conclusions from his experiment on obedience. When asked by Kaffee, while...
In A Tactical Ethic, Moral Conduct in the Insurgent Battlespace, author Dick Couch addresses what he believes to be an underlying problem, most typical of small units, of wanton ethical and moral behavior partly stemming from the negative “ethical climate and moral culture” of today’s America (Couch, D., 2010, p. 15). In chapter one, he reveals what A Tactical Ethic will hope to accomplish; that is identify the current ethics of today’s military warriors, highlight what is lacking, and make suggestions about what can be done to make better the ethical behavior of those on the battlefield and in garrison. He touches on some historic anecdotes to highlight the need for high ethics amongst today’s military warriors as well as briefly mentions
In a series of experiments conducted from 1960 to 1963, American psychologist Stanley Milgram, sought to examine the relationship between obedience and authority in order to understand how Nazi doctors were able to carry out experiments on prisoners during WWII. While there are several theories about Milgram’s results, philosopher Ruwen Ogien uses the experiment as grounds for criticizing virtue ethics as a moral theory. In chapter 9 of Human Kindness and The Smell of Warm Croissant, Ogien claims that “what determines behavior is not character but other factors tied to situation” (Ogien 120). The purpose of this essay is not to interpret the results of the Milgram experiments. Instead this essay serves to argue why I am not persuaded by Ogien’s
Stanley Milgram’s article “Behavioral Study of Obedience” was published in volume 67 of the Journal of Abnormal Psychology. The article discusses the experiment led by Milgram to determine how willing a person is to harm another individual if ordered to do so by a superior individual. Milgram based this study of off the question that asked “Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?” The participants of this experiment were males between the ages of 20 and 50 who had attained different levels of education and worked in various occupations. They were under the impression that they would be participating in a study of learning and memory at Yale. As payment
The second characteristic of professionalism is responsibility. General responsibility creates the moral responsibility of marines and helps us understand the set of values which guide us. In addition, however, marines must also possess the values of other human beings and question service to a society which does not respect these values. These values include justice, common courtesy, human dignity and humbleness. A government which does not respect these values is illegitimate and cannot be said to serve the society it directs. In the case of United States marines, the values of the United States must be examined in the context of the military profession. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution provide clear statements of these values and Ethics. Ethics are standards by which one should act based on values. Values are core beliefs such as honor, courage, and commitment that motivate attitudes and actions. Not all values...
In the pursuit of safety, acceptance, and the public good, many atrocities have been committed in places such as Abu Ghraib and My Lai, where simple, generally harmless people became the wiling torturers and murderers of innocent people. Many claim to have just been following orders, which illustrates a disturbing trend in both the modern military and modern societies as a whole; when forced into an obedient mindset, many normal and everyday people can become tools of destruction and sorrow, uncaringly inflicting pain and death upon the innocent.
Davenport’s various violations of the Code need to be considered from another point of view as an example of responsible disobedience. As Dr. Davenport and Antwone are both members of the military, there is a certain camaraderie experienced between them that the general public does not experience. Taking this into consideration, Dr. Davenport may be expressing responsible disobedience as he violates various standards in the Code in an attempt to respect the intricacies of the military culture (Cottone & Tarvydas, 2007). Because the military is a culture of its own, it is difficult to say whether any or all of the situations that resulted in an ethical violation were justified. It is easy to say that Dr. Davenport violated principle ethics during his work with Antwone but virtue ethics may support Dr. Davenport as he interpreted the standards in the context of the military culture (Cottone & Tarvydas, 2007).
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.
In the film “ A Few Good Men” the rule of law and fundamental justice were not followed by Lance Cpl. Harold and Pfc. Louden Downey. The rule of law was disobeyed as soon as Cpl. Lance and Pfc. Louden acted above the law. They committed a criminal offence and disregarded Pvt. Santiago's rights. Although, the orders were given by superior officer, Col. Nathan Joseph, the fact of the matter still remains the same, a crime was committed . Pvt. Santiago’s rights were not taken into consideration, which inevitably lead to his death. Although Cpl. Lance and Pfc. Louden clearly disregarded the rules of law and acted above the law, procedural justice was still exercised. Both Cpl. Lance and Pfc. Louden were given rights to a fair trial and the
Obedience is a widely debated topic today with many different standpoints from various brilliant psychologists. Studying obedience is still important today to attempt to understand why atrocities like the Holocaust or the My Lai Massacre happened so society can learn from them and not repeat history. There are many factors that contribute to obedience including situation and authority. The film A Few Good Men, through a military court case, shows how anyone can fall under the influence of authority and become completely obedient to conform to the roles that they have been assigned. A Few Good Men demonstrates how authority figures can control others and influence them into persuading them to perform a task considered immoral or unethical.
One of the reading it relates to is the reading of Aristotle. Aristotle said human beings act the way they act because they don’t like pain and shame but love pleasure; some love virtue and some evil. We see the two Marines they committed the crime by killing their fellow marines but they don’t want to be punished because they want to avoid pain and shame. One of the marine Dawson refused to go back home for six months because he did not want to be dishonored and be discharged as a marine. To him he was following an order and he did nothing wrong. Similarly, what commander Jessup and lieutenant Kendrick cares is pleasures and glory. They want to receive all the respect and being feared by people. They do not want the death of Santiago to bring them shame and ruin their reputation. When kaffe asked for document from commander Jessup, he commanded him to ask him very nicely in other words he wanted to be respected. This is exactly what Aristotle said In his Nicomachean ethics book 10. Aristotle said “for the many naturally obey fear, not shame; they avoided what is base because of the penalties, not because it is disgraceful. For since they live by their feelings, they pursue their proper pleasures and the source of them, and avoid the opposed pains,” (Aristotle). The other readings we covered is about the state of nature by John Locke. Lock said in the state of nature all men are equal because we all belong to the
Stanley Milgram’s theory focused on obedience, and to more specifically, find an answer for the mass killings that happened during the holocaust at the time of World War 2. In his experiment, he wanted to study the conflict between obedience to authority and personal conscience in human behavior. The experiment is criticized today for its unethical procedures, but at the time, it sheds a light to others about how and why people carry out actions, and how far do people push harmful actions onto others. In the same manner, the results shocked Milgram and his researchers. Many thought only a small percentage of people would continue to inflict painful shocks to a “learner”, they were surprised to find 65% would continue with the experiment and
Disobedience is a message, not just an act of incompliency. It’s a message of what the people want. Ignoring our developing morals and thoughts is only ignoring a quality of life that we strive for. We can’t live under rules that nobody wants to follow. For instance, Rosa Parks had refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger. She initiated civil rights movements. We recognize Rosa Parks as a hero because she gave everyone the courage to stand up for what they believe in. Societies have to adapt to the people. If the people wanted equality then the world is forced into equality. Disobedience and rebellion makes it clear when that time comes. Disobedience is critical to communicate a need for change. Questioning and having faith in our
America had been troubled by its prison dynamic long before the experiment took place. The general sadistic personalities found on prison guards were confusing and overwhelming. Since people tend to attribute changes in behaviors or any behavior at all to internal factors, this prison phenomenon was poorly understood. However, the results of the Stanford Prison Experiment clearly demonstrate that people are clearly subject to their surrounding environment. Even if it contradicts to our day-to-day characteristics, we can still easily pick up the social roles they are expected to play, especially when it comes to roles that are strongly stereotypical like prison characters. Our individuality can be defined by the social environment and since these expectations all come from the external environments, the experiment shows how big an effect the environment has on our individual behaviors, even able to of negate our steady moral and behavioral guidelines. Because of this study, the brutality reported among guards in American prisons was explained. People started to understand that the situation wasn’t caused by a shared genetic defect among these guards but rather by the hostile prison environment. This realization is crucial to America’s judicial system. In the bloody revolts took place in San Quentin and Attica shortly after the Stanford Prison Experiment, the results from this study greatly