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"I don't think that means what you think it means." That experiment deals with ability to disobey authority, not with the basic goodness of the people performi

"I don't think that means what you think it means." That experiment deals with ability to disobey authority, not with the basic goodness of the people performing the actions. Nearly 100% of the people performing the actions questioned what they were doing. That indicates they knew it was wrong, instinctively and didn't wish to do it. But we are well trained to listen to authority, and the authority figure was telling them to continue. This actually backs up the idea that people are essentially good. But it also provides evidence for the idea that most people can be easily lead into violating their natural conscience. Studies of innate "goodness" performed on children reveal that most people, from birth, have an innate moral conscience that we would consider 'good'. I'll see if I can find a link to back this up. Here we go: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1311784203-lIy+svrV0/54Iv1qUUfs6A http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/science/01human.html?adxnn...

mcantelon 15y ago
I wouldn't call someone that acts against their conscience "good" (unless their survival is at stake).
- sukuriant 15y ago
  Depending on what you're thinking the authority can do, "for survival's stake" may very well be exactly what those people in the Milgram Experiment were experiencing. "No, I-I can't, b-but he's in authority, and I'll be in trouble if I don't, so", he cringes, "I must."
  - mcantelon 15y ago
    The Milgram Experiment doesn't indicate that it in any way threatened the participants for non-compliance, yet these people were willing to knowingly endanger someone else's life. I think why they were willing to do that lies more with the belief that the authority would take the blame rather than any reasonable fear of punishment from the authority.
    - dbingham 15y ago
      My guess is that they were rationalizing it in the experiment context. "The authority is telling me to go ahead, there has to be something else going on here. His life can't really be in danger."
    - sukuriant 15y ago
      The mere presence of authority could have been threatening to some people. We'd need studies for this too, though.
ZoFreX 15y ago
I don't find it that surprising, given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/. It's perhaps a useful simplification in early life but is one I've long-considered harmful.
- pbhjpbhj 15y ago
  >given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/ One of the important aspects I'm trying to maintain with my kids is a right to reply and express their opinion. My eldest's teacher goes against this, she demands "do it first time" whilst I demand a response - he can refuse but he can't ignore a request, if he can reason his way out/in to something then that's far better IMO than blind obedience. It can be a useful simplification in the sense that one needs a child to obey commands like "don't touch the hot stove" and "don't run in to the road" ("stop" covers both).
  - ZoFreX 15y ago
    One of the examples I normally bring out for this is the case of me being told off by a teacher for insisting that my spelling of a word was correct and theirs was wrong. This (excuse for a) teacher insisted that it had no bearing at all that my spelling was indeed correct, and that I was in the wrong for disagreeing regardless. Needless to say, I adopted a slightly different teaching style.
  - cookiecaper 15y ago
    It's important to teach children to obey authority figures. It's also important to teach them critical thinking skills and learn how to detect when a thing is arbitrary. However, instead of teaching the child to disrupt the authority in place, I think it is preferable to teach the children to obey unless there is a moral imperative against doing so. For instance, while your son's teacher may assign him some silly work, while there is no reason to do this work other than the teacher said so, he should learn to work within the framework and do the work anyway because he is subject to the teacher in his current circumstances. If the teacher, however, assigns him to physically harm another student or participate in another morally objectionable act, he should refuse to comply. Things go much smoother this way than they do if people are constantly nagging and arguing over things that really have no incident; much energy could be saved by both your son and his teacher by compliance with non-useful but non-harmful requests rather than disrupting the flow of instruction and encouraging further disorder and disrespect to authority.

mcantelon 15y ago

I wouldn't call someone that acts against their conscience "good" (unless their survival is at stake).

sukuriant 15y ago
Depending on what you're thinking the authority can do, "for survival's stake" may very well be exactly what those people in the Milgram Experiment were experiencing. "No, I-I can't, b-but he's in authority, and I'll be in trouble if I don't, so", he cringes, "I must."
- mcantelon 15y ago
  The Milgram Experiment doesn't indicate that it in any way threatened the participants for non-compliance, yet these people were willing to knowingly endanger someone else's life. I think why they were willing to do that lies more with the belief that the authority would take the blame rather than any reasonable fear of punishment from the authority.
  - dbingham 15y ago
    My guess is that they were rationalizing it in the experiment context. "The authority is telling me to go ahead, there has to be something else going on here. His life can't really be in danger."
  - sukuriant 15y ago
    The mere presence of authority could have been threatening to some people. We'd need studies for this too, though.

ZoFreX 15y ago

I don't find it that surprising, given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/. It's perhaps a useful simplification in early life but is one I've long-considered harmful.

pbhjpbhj 15y ago
>given that we are taught from birth to obey authority figures (parents, family, teachers, policemen) /without question/ One of the important aspects I'm trying to maintain with my kids is a right to reply and express their opinion. My eldest's teacher goes against this, she demands "do it first time" whilst I demand a response - he can refuse but he can't ignore a request, if he can reason his way out/in to something then that's far better IMO than blind obedience. It can be a useful simplification in the sense that one needs a child to obey commands like "don't touch the hot stove" and "don't run in to the road" ("stop" covers both).
- ZoFreX 15y ago
  One of the examples I normally bring out for this is the case of me being told off by a teacher for insisting that my spelling of a word was correct and theirs was wrong. This (excuse for a) teacher insisted that it had no bearing at all that my spelling was indeed correct, and that I was in the wrong for disagreeing regardless. Needless to say, I adopted a slightly different teaching style.
- cookiecaper 15y ago
  It's important to teach children to obey authority figures. It's also important to teach them critical thinking skills and learn how to detect when a thing is arbitrary. However, instead of teaching the child to disrupt the authority in place, I think it is preferable to teach the children to obey unless there is a moral imperative against doing so. For instance, while your son's teacher may assign him some silly work, while there is no reason to do this work other than the teacher said so, he should learn to work within the framework and do the work anyway because he is subject to the teacher in his current circumstances. If the teacher, however, assigns him to physically harm another student or participate in another morally objectionable act, he should refuse to comply. Things go much smoother this way than they do if people are constantly nagging and arguing over things that really have no incident; much energy could be saved by both your son and his teacher by compliance with non-useful but non-harmful requests rather than disrupting the flow of instruction and encouraging further disorder and disrespect to authority.