# Milgram's Obedience Experiment



## Mashka (Dec 8, 2009)

I have somewhat of a philosophical/psychological question about Milgram's experiment, or rather, what happened afterward. Nowadays we are not allowed to conduct these types of experiments, but my question is: why is it wrong to let someone know their capabilities? 

Milgram experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We cannot conduct these experiments because it is psychologically harmful to people, but, so what? If a person HAS the power to kill someone, why not let them know it? Why should scientific research have to suffer just so people can live a life where they think they have good morals? Sorry if I come off as being mean, I was going to bring this up in my class, but I didn't want a bunch of people nagging at me.


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## Daniel (Dec 8, 2009)

> If a person HAS the power to kill someone, why not let them know it?


Well, the Milgram experiment reminds me of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment.  Professor Zimbardo discusses it most recently in his book _The Lucifer Effect _and his subsequent book tour, which included a number of TV appearances in which he made the point that the people behind Abu Ghraib were just ordinary people.

More info:

http://forum.psychlinks.ca/psycholo...6-a-fine-line-between-normal-and-monster.html


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## Mashka (Dec 8, 2009)

Daniel said:


> Well, the Milgram experiment reminds me of Zimbardo's Stanford Prison experiment.  Professor Zimbardo discusses it most recently in his book _The Lucifer Effect _and his subsequent book tour, which included a number of TV appearances in which he made the point that the people behind Abu Ghraib were just ordinary people.
> 
> More info:
> 
> http://forum.psychlinks.ca/psycholo...6-a-fine-line-between-normal-and-monster.html




The Stanford Prison experiment was more personal; the participants got to react with one another. Even in a later version of Milgram's experiment, the learner and participant were face-to-face, and the participant was even instructed to push the learner's hand down on a...a zap thing, and in this case, there was a dramatic decrease in the number of participants willing to push the learner to higher and higher voltages. What does this say about us? I think it has to do with de-humanizing humans-eliminating as much emotion from a person makes it easier for someone to think of them as an object. My question still stands, whats wrong with letting people know that they could kill someone if it is the truth?


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## Daniel (Dec 8, 2009)

> I think it has to do with de-humanizing humans-eliminating as much emotion from a person makes it easier for someone to think of them as an object.


But that's common knowledge to some degree.  For example, since part of my family is from the South in the U.S., some of my ancestors may have owned slaves for all I know. It's common knowledge now that African Americans were dehumanized in the South by people who went to church every Sunday.

And if my father didn't have the luck of having only a desk job while he was involuntarily in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam War, he could have come back with PTSD after seeing and doing more than he would have ever wanted.


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## Mashka (Dec 11, 2009)

Okay, yes its common knowledge. Back to my main question....


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