The Unethical Analysis Of Stanley Milgram's Obedience

While discussing Stanley Milgram’s obedience experiment, conducted in 1963, Ian
Parker and Theodore Dalrymple subconsciously yet substantially concur throughout their prestigious articles, “Obedience” and “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” respectively. Psychologist Ian Parker thoroughly writes and describes his interpretation on the Milgram experiment: He explains why Milgram finally was able to publish this piece in proper scientific context when comparing his results to the conductors of the Holocaust while also coming to the aid of Milgram when discussing the ethics of the experiment and how it affected him as a human being (Parker 95). Former prison doctor and current psychiatrist Theodore Dalrymple has an alluring assessment on obedience

He progresses to write that when he sent out a questionnaire to all his subjects along with a report explaining the true purpose of the experiment the responses were troubling. One man wrote that he had experienced a heart attack in the months after the experiment and had been visiting group therapy. Was this truly in direct result of Milgram’s bold obedience experiment? Parker argues the subjects were properly debriefed after the experiment and told exactly what had happened and why; thus, they could not have been traumatized when they were distinctly told that they indeed had not been harming a person throughout the entire procedure. Parker then adequately comes to the aid of Milgram while in fact conveying that Milgram’s career was truly affected with the obedience experiment permanently hanging over his head. Parker defends Milgram as a human being illustrating that his only intention was indeed to reveal the truth about people’s natural response to authority (Parker 100). Theodore Dalrymple, again, would agree completely with Parkers claim. Dalrymple effectively adds that had Milgram informed his subjects about what was about to happen and used “proper ethical measures”, as critics said about his experiment that he did not accomplish, his experiment could not have transpired at all due to the lack of an actual real-life-situation reaction that Milgram in fact received by not informing his subjects. He would have never achieved his groundbreaking findings about obedience if he had conducted the experiment in any other approach, Dalrymple claims. His final opinion on the experiment derives of two considerations, completely subscribing with Parker: First, the subjects approved of their participation and were given complete control on when they felt like exiting the situation they were placed; similar to Parker’s assessment of the debriefings that were given after the experiment. Second, Dalrymple effectively