22 Dec 2008
Morality and Contradictions
I’ve been reading about Miligram’s shock tests which also relates to the Stanford Prison experiments. Both sort of confirm the same thing: given the proper authoritarian conditions, ordinary people will act in a brutal manner. I’m paraphrasing this, but it is a valid takeaway.
It’s a way of understanding war-crimes and even police brutality.
I’m trying to use this to understand my own take on morality. From what I understand, 2/3 of people follow the authority (someone in a labcoat), and about 1/3 stick to their guns and quit.
You can read this and say, that given the right conditions, anybody has the capability to do evil. But that seems like a detrimental way of taking this. Yes, during war, evil horrors are committed, but if we read between the lines there are people who resist this. There are people who despite all pressure will resist any of this.
