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.

Moral Bar

This is a moral bar. For many people it’s as simple as “I will never murder, rape, pillage or torture.” I think this bar is important. It’s what makes us gauge things like war as horrifying. I think this is the moral high ground which we individually set for ourselves, and we set it as a challenge to ourselves, that regardless of the situation, regardless of the difficult decisions, or the suffering that we might be put through, that we won’t fall below that moral bar.

I think it’s a tough bar to keep up, but just because it’s difficult doesn’t mean it’s not worth trying to keep up.

I think this is where morality comes into play. Being moral and righteous when we’re not put to the test is easy. Being moral in the context of immorality is a real challenge and I think it’s a challenge we should all accept.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s fair for us to label people as immoral, or hell-bound for faltering. I think there’s a chance that anyone even a saint can falter - but I always think there’s room to repent. It doesn’t mean that immoral acts are excusable, but I don’t think it means that those that commit them, are immoral people.

I think it’s a situation where given a transgression we should learn from it and strive to do better next time, and do better.

Contradiction

I think despite all this, I still expect people to do better… to not be led like lambs into the slaughter. I expect police officers - despite being in a daily war like state - to not be brutal. I even expect people who provide services to be very good at what they do, despite however crappy their job situation is.

I think these expectations are ultimately reasonable. We don’t just set a moral bar for ourselves, we set it for everyone. There’s a reasonable expectation that we won’t all meet it, but at least we can all try.