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Peter Lu

Mr. Murphy

Philosophy

17 April 2020

Philosophy of Lies: Are Lies Justified in Milgram’s Obedience Experiment?

Deception consists of an essential part of most psychological experiments. In

order to attain accurate results about underlying mechanisms of the mind, researchers

need to control the confounding variables, such as the belief about the true purpose of

psychological experiment. For that end, researchers must conceal or lie about some

essential information of the experiments, which creates dispute among the

philosophers about the inherent moral legitimacy of such measures. With their

different focuses on intention or result, philosophers arrive at different and often

contradicting conclusions. Milgram’s obedience experiment is no exception. Yet,

despite inherent concerns of the justification of lies, if it can guarantee controllable

outcomes, respect for social norms, and contribution to scientific community,

deception in psychological experiments should be permitted. Based on such criteria,

Milgram’s deception in his experiment meets these standards and thus is justified.

Firstly, the paper will begin with the background of Milgram’s experiment. After

the World War 2, Nazi war criminals were trialed and convicted. Nevertheless, during

such process, a significant number of war criminals, including the Nazi officer Ekman

who invented the gas chamber, claimed that they only obeyed the orders from the

authority to fight and kill innocent Jews. Such a phenomenon intrigued psychology
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researchers, such as Stanley Milgram, to conduct experiments to investigate the

manifestations and causes of obedience. In the name of a “learning experiment,”

Milgram invited 40 unsuspecting participants, who are paid 4.5 dollars for

participation, to take the role of “teachers” while appointed one of his confederates as

a “student.” During the experiment, the “student” purposefully misspelled some of the

words, which the “teachers” were required to apply increasingly intense

“electroshock” from 30V to 450V every time misspell occurs. Facing faked cries of

pain and begs, some participants wanted to quit, yet Milgram just repeatedly ordered

them to continue. Only when the participants refused the order 5 times in a row or

reach the 450V of electroshock would the experiment terminate. After the experiment,

the participants met with the confederate, who was never given any actual shock at

all, and got debriefed about the true purpose of the experiment (Milgram). During

such procedure, Milgram deceived the participants three times about the true purpose

of the experiment, the cries and begs of the participants, and the electroshock given to

the “student.” However, the experiment provided insights into the act of obedience to

the authorities’ orders, which resulted in the Holocaust and other massacres in the

history.

Besides the description of the study, a definition of lies also paves the path for

subsequent discussions. From Aristotle’s teleological argument, every statement, the

same for any other existent beings, must have a “final cause”, which is the intended

end that the statements may achieve (xxv.). From such concept, the distinction

between truth and lies can be delineated. For truth, its final cause is to assist people in
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finding out the reality with truthful and relevant information, but for lies, its final

cause is to mislead people away from the reality with irrelevant or distorted

information. Hence, lies are statements that are intended to sway people away from

their objectives with misinformation, which also include misleading truths because

both intend the same final cause.

With that definition in mind, different philosopher’s viewpoints will be

introduced, starting with Robert Nozick’s libertarianism. Nozick would agree that

people can do as they please if they do not infringe others’ basic rights and take their

labors without consent. He upholds the same view as John Locke that everyone has

the right to life, liberty, and property. Nozick extends upon that point by stating that

only minimal government that solely protect its citizens with consent should be

allowed. Thus, because property is derived from labor, taking property without

consent equals forced labor, which is identical to slavery. In the case of psychological

experiments, “informed” can be defined as willingly participating in the experiment

with knowledge of potential risks and get debriefed about the true purpose of the

experiment afterwards. If lying does not create the conditions to take other’s labors or

infringe their rights to life and liberty without informed consent, it is okay to lie to

participants. As for Milgram’s study, although the participants agreed to enter the

experiments with payment, such deception doe involve unwanted coercion, because

the participants chose to rather leave the experiment but were repeatedly told to

continue, which they did so unwillingly. Moreover, since the faked cries and

“electroshock” changed the participants’ mindsets from consenting to non-consenting,

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Milgram may not have full consent of the participants when asking them to continue

the experiment. As Milgram coerced the participants without full consent, Nozick

would deem the use of deception in Milgram’s experiment immoral.

A contemporary of Nozick, ethical egoist Rand holds a different criterion to

Nozick. She would deem an action moral if all participants act according to their best

interests. Because every individual has but one life, it is the most important thing to

them that cannot be compromised for another person’s good. Therefore, if one acts to

serve their best own interests, one’s action is moral as it honors the supreme value of

one’s life. In Milgram’s experiment, therefore, if lying does not undermine the best

interests of both participants and experimenters, deception is justified in Milgram’s

study. For deceiving the true purpose of the experiment, Milgram is moral when using

such deception, since it does not interfere with participants’ payment in the

experiment, nor does it undermine the participants best interests in life, property, and

liberty. For Milgram, he attained his optimal goal of investigating the essence of

obedience through concealing the true purpose of the experiment. By faking cries and

electroshocks, Milgram also reached his goal of investigating obedience, while the

participants’ benefits are not undermined as their payments went unaffected, thereby

making these deceptions moral. Therefore, Rand would concur with Milgram’s

choices in the experiment.

Transcending beyond individual’s interests, Immanuel Kant prioritizes universal

moral principles through his categorical imperative. To attain true autonomy, which is

determining one’s actions by oneself, one must act according to one’s will. Therefore,
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people should strive to have a “good will,” which is acting morally just for respecting

the moral duty behind the actions. Such moral duty transcends all situations and

consequences, which every human being would perform such duty on others. From

the stance of categorical imperative, therefore, Kant would object to any form of

deception regardless of the value produced by lying, because it violates the moral duty

of respecting the truth. For Milgram’s experiment, although his studies brought

insights into the essence of obedience, his deceptions are still unjustified because all

of them manages to mislead participants from the truth of the experiment, a violation

of the moral duty of respecting the truth.

Contrary to Kant, Jeremy Bentham places aggregate consequential happiness

over any moral duties. Bentham proposes the Greatest Happiness Principle, which is

producing the greatest amount of net happiness for the greatest majority. Because pain

and pleasure are the sensations that govern all people’s actions, an action is moral if it

produces the greatest amount of net pleasure. To measure such amounts of happiness

and pain, Bentham adapts the measures of intensity, duration, certainty, and

remoteness (happens sooner or later), and pleasure shares the same unit amount as

pain. In Milgram’s experiment, the uninformed participants indeed suffered some

psychological pain when hearing the cries and performing “electroshock.” Yet, the

duration and intensity of such pains are infinitesimal compared to that generated by

the research results about obedience, which may better understand and prevent the

formation of fascist and authoritarian governments that bring torture and deaths of

millions of innocents. Even though the participants’ pain is more certain and closer to
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the pain of the millions under a fascist government, the pain of participants cannot

outweigh that of the innocents under a fascist government due to much greater

intensity and duration of the suffers under such government. Therefore, Bentham

would say that Milgram is moral when using the deceptions in the experiment.

Rather than focusing on sensations, Aristotle focuses on the actions’ effect on

inner virtues. He posits that there are three types of needs: vegetative needs for

nourishment and reproduction, animal needs for sensations and travelling, and human

needs of rational thoughts. In order to satisfy human needs, Aristotle claims that

people should act to cultivate moderate virtues. From his stance, Aristotle would

claim that Milgram deceives morally if he intends to polish desirable and moderate

qualities, which should be the final cause of Milgram’s deception. From the virtues of

Milgram’s deceptions themselves, his lies manifest scientific deliberation and

prudence in preventing harm of the innocents, because he controls the variable of

“electroshock” to quantify the strength of obedience and minimizes the harm through

only faking cries and “electroshock”. On the impacts of his study on people’s virtues,

Milgram applies deception for acquiring the causes of blind obedience to the authority

that breeds recklessness instead of courage, and stubbornness instead of loyalty. When

the results of his studies are published, the public can better comprehend and prevent

the generation of such excessive qualities, thereby promoting moderation. Both these

two aspects indicate that, from Aristotle’s teleological standard, Milgram applies

deception morally.

In my opinion, lying is justified if it promotes stability in three aspects. The

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stability of the society should be prioritized because it constitutes a prerequisite of the

normal and productive function of a society. Firstly, deception should yield

constructive results, which means that it advances people’s knowledge and welfare

further, because these ends can help maintain stability of the society by better

satisfying people’s needs. I borrow such a standard on results from Bentham’s

consequentialist thoughts, yet I seek to emphasize stability instead of aggregate

happiness of such consequences, as stability in a society has more long-lasting effects

on individuals than transient sensations of happiness, thereby making stability more

important than just aggregate happiness. Moreover, such lies can help refine the social

norms but not subvert them, because subversion detriments the foundation of the

society, thereby threatening its stability, while refinement strengthens stability by

removing potentially destabilizing elements from the society gradually. Finally, lying

should create conditions that the deceiver can control, since uncontrollable elements

may destabilize the society with few informed people that understand the cause of the

situation. In the case of Milgram’s study, he deceived morally throughout the

experiment. For constructive results, Milgram elicits the psychology behind

obedience, which may destabilize the globe by giving rise to fascist and aggressive

governments. His study not only expands people’s knowledge about obedience but

also promotes welfare for assisting the prevention of destabilizing governments. For

refinement of social norms, Milgram reminds people of the cause of detrimental blind

obedience, which can refine the social norms by reducing the norms that promote

blind obedience. For controllable conditions, since Milgram has complete control over
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the termination of the experiment, including the use of deception, and does not derive

uncontrollable elements, such as PTSD of the participants or handicap of

electroshock, he meets the criterion when he lies. Based on such standard, Milgram

lies morally.

As the above discussion manifests, Milgram’s experiment, with its disputable

deception, has earned both complements and critiques from various philosophers.

While more consequential philosophers, such as Jeremy Bentham and Aye Rand,

would affirm Milgram’s actions for his actions, rights-and-intention-oriented

philosophers, such as Immanuel Kant and Robert Nozick, would deplore Milgram for

his deception and coercion. Nevertheless, from my stance of prioritizing stability,

Milgram morally deceived the participants in his experiment because he discovered

the mechanisms behind obedience that may help understand and prevent the

emergence of destabilizing governments, which does not generate uncontrollable

elements but can help refine the social norms by removing potentially destabilizing

rules. Thus, Milgram’s experiment illustrates how deception in psychological

experiments should be carried out, which minimizes the confounding factors as well

as moral concerns.
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Works Cited

Aristotle. Physics. Oxford University Press, 1999, p. xxv.

Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics.

Bentham, Jeremy. Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation.

Prometheus Books, 1988, pp.

Kant, Immanuel. Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Vail-Ballou Press, 2002.

Nozick, Robert. Anarchy, State and Utopia. Basic Books, 1974.

Rand, Ayn. The Virtue of Selfishness. Signet Classics, 1964.

Sandel, J. Michael. Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? Farrar, Straus and Giroux,

LLC, 2009.