Alden Joyce M.

Miguel BSAT3-2 January 25, 2012 Reflection Paper: Obedience to Authority

Obedience is the act of obeying, or the state of being obedient. It is the compliance with that which is required by authority. According to Wikipedia, obedience can be seen as both a sin and a virtue. For instance, in a situation when one orders a person to kill another innocent person and he or she does this willingly, it is a sin. However when one orders a person to kill an enemy who will end a lot of innocent lives and he or she does this willingly it can be deemed a virtue. Following orders from an authority figure is called obedience. When we are still a child, we are ordered by our parents to obey them, our teachers and the elders. Even dogs have learned to obey their owners or their masters, just like the soldiers who are ordered to follow commands. There are different forms of obedience such as obedience to laws, social norms, to God, to government, to the management in the workplace, obedience of a spouse or child, and many others. To be "good" in society requires absolute obedience to the laws and to the chain of command if you are a soldier as well. If you disobey, sometimes even if its just once and just something minor, you forever become one of those "disobeyers" and you can never clear your name, never be "good" in society again. But sometimes, being obedient to someone makes others suffer and hurt just like the example above. Another example of obeying someone that makes one hurt is Milgram experiment which studied the obedience of individuals. There are points in our life that we have to obey even though it will result to a difficult situation to some people. In Milgram experiment, the teacher is

being test on how he is able to go on the experiment knowing that the learner is suffering in pain whenever he gets the wrong answer. For me, being obedient is necessary but it depends on what will be the effect of our acts to other people. I once had this experience when we had a quiz in one of my subjects. Our professor told us to exchange our papers for checking, and unfortunately, my friends paper is the one I was assigned to check. Before checking, our professor clearly told us that we must check only the RIGHT answers. Answers without the word while and merely definitions are not considerable. If we disobey her, we are the ones who will be considered wrong. We are ordered to check our classmates paper the way she told us. Because it was our first time to be her student, I was really scared and nervous. I dont know how her guidelines or rules, but one thing for sure, what she says is what she says. Meaning, you have to follow what she has told you. The questions in our quiz are almost essay, we have to differentiate some terms to others. The hardest part here is choosing if I will obey her or not. Am I going to consider the answer of my friend or not? Have you experienced being torn between the situations? Its like choosing whom I will save from being drowned, my boyfriend or my friend. I dont know what will I do that time, should I check her paper, or not? All of her answers do not include the word while and it merely definitions. I consulted my seatmates if Im going to check hers or not, if Im going to consider or not? All of them told me to just do what our professors told us, that is to mark the wrong answers wrong and to consider only the answers that really differentiate. So, I obeyed my professor. I do not consider her answers. I know from that moment that my friend will be upset and disappointed to me. But what will I do? What am I supposed to do if thats the order of our prof? I had no choice but to obey her. Aside from being humiliated if we are caught by her if we checked wrong answers, we will

also be the one to suffer from wrong checking. Because every wrong answers that we check, that number will also be the deductions in our score. This is only one part of my life that I have to decide if I will obey order or not. And from this experience, I may say that it is really hard to obey most especially if it will make our loved ones or even others suffer. So before we obey the commands of anyone, we have to carefully think first of the consequences of our acts to ourselves and to others, so that we will not regret our decisions. We must also put our feet in the shoes of the ones involve. If it will result to a good effect, then obey, otherwise, not.