Evil Is Done for a Believed Good Cause

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Evil not so banal, says disturbing new probe

Every time the learner made a mistake, the "teacher" was told by a stern-faced, lab-coated official to crank up the shock, starting with a mild 15 volts and climaxing at a lethal 450 volts. The experiment was fake—the learner was an actor and the shocks never happened. The teacher could hear, but not see, the learner.
Frighteningly, in one test, nearly two-thirds of volunteers continued all the way to "lethal" voltage, even when the learner pleaded for mercy, wept or screamed in agony.
These experiments became enshrined in textbooks as an illustration of how the conscience can be put on hold under orders.

The new research, published in the British Journal of Social Psychology, took a closer look at Milgram's "teachers".
A team sifted through a box in the Yale archives that contained comments written by the volunteers after they were told the purpose of the experiment, and that the torture had been fake. Of the 800 participants, 659 submitted a reaction. Some said they had felt unease or distress during the tests, but most reported being positive about the experience, some extremely so.


"To be part of such an important experiment can only make one feel good," said one.

"I feel I have contributed in some small way toward the development of man and his attitudes towards others," said another.

"If it [is] your belief that these studies will benefit mankind then I say we should have more of them," said another.

Were these happy comments spurred by relief, after volunteers learned they had not, in fact, hurt anyone?
No, suggests the paper. A sense of pleasure, of duty fulfilled, of having served a higher calling, pervaded the comment cards.

Milgram had also given the volunteers a dose of mission-priming before the experiment. Without saying what it entailed, he told them that what they would do would advance the cause of knowledge.

Participants' awe of Ivy-League Yale played a role, too—obedience levels were higher there than when experiments were conducted in offices in Bridgeport, Connecticut.
Milgram "was a skilful dramatist as well as a psychologist," said Kathryn Millard, a professor at Macquarie University, Sydney.
 

LucyL

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They needed a study for this? 6000 years of human government history couldn't suffice?
 
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LucyL said:
They needed a study for this? 6000 years of human government history couldn't suffice?

They needed a study to refute the "banality of evil" thing.
 

jyb

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Were the participants aware that 450 volts is lethal? Obviously even if they were not, they were still aware of the pain since the learner was screaming.
 

mt_dreams

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If this is the same test that happened in the late 50s/early 60's, then I believe they were being paid for this. I'm sure not all of them needed the money, but I would guarantee many of them kept pressing the shock buttons for their own families sake, due to the threat of not being paid if the entire experiment was not completed.

I watched the video of this experiment. They were not told that 450 volts was lethal, but there was a steady increase in the actors screaming, so by the end the 'teacher' was well aware that they were causing large amounts of pain. The example that has stuck the most was when one of the actors was screaming that he just had a bypass (or something like that), and that he was felling chest pain and thought he was going to die. The 'teacher' after looking at the scientist, was told to proceed, and he did so. Though most of the outcomes were negative, there were many examples where the 'teacher' refused to press anymore buttons, and even would try to access the room with the actor, So there's still a chance for our species.
 

Hugh Johnson

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To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek justification for his actions.

Macbeth’s self-justifications were feeble – and his conscience devoured him. Yes, even Iago was a little lamb too. The imagination and the spiritual strength of Shakespeare’s evildoers stopped short at a dozen corpses. Because they had no ideology.

Ideology – that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and other’s eyes, so that he won’t hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors. That was how the agents of the Inquisition fortified their wills: by invoking Christianity; the conquerors of foreign lands, by extolling the grandeur of their Motherland; the colonizers, by civilization; the Nazis by race; and the Jacobins (early and late), by equality, brotherhood, and the happiness of future generations.

Thanks to ideology, the twentieth century was fated to experience evildoing on a scale calculated in the millions. This cannot be denied, nor passed over, nor suppressed. How, then, do we dare insist that evildoers do not exist? And who was it that destroyed these millions? Without evildoers there would have been no Archipelago.

– Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
 
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"Science" was the ideology in this case.
 

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