The Perils Of Obedience Summary

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Over the years the question of absolute power and morality have been discussed in many articles. In the article "The Perils of Obedience" Stanley Milgram shares his experimental study where he sets out to prove that ordinary people perform unjust tasks to the public eye. Milgram reveals the negative side of blindly obeying (Milgram 77). The people in the experiment are told to say different words, and the learner has to memorize and repeat them. If the learner fails to recite the words correctly, the subjects deliver a level of shock. The learner is secretly an actor but pretends to be in pain. The subjects continue to follow the authority even when they have the chance for the experiment to end. The question of blind obedience and absolute …show more content…

He believes that if society continues to act on this, and then eventually these acts will destroy society and lead the world into destruction. According to Fromm, he states that original sin is what set man free and that humans have the intuitive knowledge of what is human and inhuman (Fromm 124-126). He synthesizes that an individual must find the courage to stand up for his or her morals and have the courage to say no. Milgram and Fromm effectively agree on the necessary following of orders from Dawson and Downey, as well as the issue of their blind obedience to the order by Jessup's call for code red, and they effectively explain Jessup and Markinson’s role in absolute power and how it can affect the entire …show more content…

Jessup had absolute power over Dawson and Downey to order a code red. Milgram logically explains this in his article with the experimenter’s power of the individual performing the immoral act even when accustomed the choice to stop. Both Milgram and Fromm would agree that absolute power can be corrupt. While Christopher Shea author of "Why Power Corrupts" would disagree and states in his study that power does not corrupt and only heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. However, he does agree that there is a relationship between moral identity, ethical behavior and aggressiveness. This resembles the way the subjects thought in Milgram's experiment, and they believed that they must proceed because the experimenter told them to (Milgram 81). According to Ronald E Riggo PhD "How Power Corrupts leaders" he effectively ties on the idea that leaders tend to use their power to acquire tasks not always for the good. Fromm verifies this idea by stating that for centuries people have insisted that obedience is a virtue and disobedience is a vice (Fromm 125). These statements lead to an explanation of the action by Jessup to order code red, Riggo explains that Jessup would have sensed personal power in the situation and deluded himself into thinking he was working for the greater good of the unit but engaged in power that is morally wrong. Fromm and Riggo would explain the

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