The Milgram experiment on obedience tested the affect of authority figures on bystanders. It was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. The experiment focused and measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that conflicted with their personal conscience.
1) Notice how hard it is to go against social expectations. The two people in the film who quit at 150 volts had to disobey the experimenter and showed real courage. That was the point of the experiment- how many people would disobey someone who looked like a legitimate authority who ordered them to harm someone. If that seem unrealistic to you, think about how hard it is in your own life to go against the “authority”
2) Over 50% of all participants in the experiment shown in the film went all the way to 450 volts. This is an incredible result that ran against all expectation and shows that tremendous hidden power of social context
3) But the experiment has a major ethical problem. Utilitarians say the incredible results justified the means. Milgram was lying to the participants from the very beginning and put them under a huge amount of psychological pressure. You will see that in the film. Many ethicists who agree more with Kant say Milgram was wrong to run this experiment. Simply being under a psychologist at Yale gave him no right to lie to these people and put them under so much stress. But utilitarians say” yes, he lied and put them under stress but look at the incredibly important results we learned about human behavior. That is the ethical issue.
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