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Critique of Stanly Milgram's Obedience To Authority Experiment - Rev
Critique of Stanly Milgram's Obedience To Authority Experiment - Rev
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Introduction
the ‘obedience to authority’ experiment. The ethics experiment meant to explain how ordinary
people can inflict pain to fellow humans when entrusted with authority over them. Milgram’s
experiment was a response to notorious trials associated with Nazi war criminal (Gudehus 4).
The experiment was conducted to evaluate whether human beings could obey orders which were
ethically wrong. Therefore, the paper critiques Milgram’s experiment on obedience to authority.
Milgram’s Study
In 1963, Milgram while at Yale University studied behavioral obedience and came up
with an experiment that made him a landmark in the field of social psychology. In his
experiment, Milgram argued that the majority of people in a society obey authority even when it
is morally wrong. Milgram used precise procedures to confirm that human beings are inclined to
authority figures which included having an actual situation where people adhere to authority
(Lunt 5). He used police officers to show how they must obey commands for monetary
compensation. However, his experiment faces modern criticism like experimenter prompts used
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as commands were not obeyed in the experiment. Also, Milgram could not fully describe his
participants and their roles after they participated in the experiment. There was disobedience in
Milgram’s experiment because some chosen participants in the unpublished version of his
ethically wrong. Though his aim was to uncover the truth that ordinary people in the society
obey abhorrent orders from their leaders, the experiment moralism and autonomism aspects of
individuals who participated in the experiment are violated because they have to modify their
Conclusion
In conclusion, Milgram made one of the best studies in social psychology while at Yale
University. He studied the acts of genocide and other criminal trials after Nazi wars before
organizing an experiment to prove that human beings are inclined to authority. However, he
failed to describe fully the participants in his experiment and this forms the basis for modern
criticism.
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Works Cited
Kulturwissenschaften, p. 4.
Lunt, Peter. "Milgram’s Obedience to Authority Experiments." Stanley Milgram, 2009, pp. 1-
22.