Stanley Milgram (Response to Mia)

We briefly touched on obedience in Wednesday's class while talking about the Nazi death camps. Mia's post here about the Milgram experiments makes the classic deduction from this test, which is namely that all human beings are sheep. Milgram claimed that his tests proved he could have recruited the SS in New Haven. However, I think there are several flaws with this test that should let us breathe a little easier about ourselves.

1. If you actually watch footage of the experiment (which was on Youtube but pulled because of copyright claims by Penn State), it becomes pretty obvious that it took some SUBSTANTIAL reassurance to keep those people going. There were 5 (not 4) responses, the last being the statement that the experiment would need to be discontinued if the teacher refused to continue. If we need that many layers to restrain us from not harming our fellow man, I find it reassuring. 

2. The researchers assured the experimental subjects that they would not harm the student (no "permanent tissue damage"). Why would a rational person doubt this? Especially given the fact that they are in a laboratory setting where it could be fairly assumed that the student's health and safety were not in jeopardy. Milgram does provide one anecdote of an electrical engineer who contradicts the supervisor because of his own knowledge of electricity's potential to harm, demonstrating the circumstances under which one could rationally object to the experiment. Absent that knowledge, however, it is perfectly rational for someone to continue.

3. Obedience is in many ways a healthy thing. If we were to constantly doubt everything we hear from people in positions of influence or power, our abilities of judgment would be severely hampered. So perhaps its healthy that we defer to the men from Yale University in the white lab coats. Society depends on hierarchies, and we shouldn't just chuck obedience out the window if we value order and stability.