From: Mike Godwin <mnemonic@eff.org>
Date: Tue, 26 Apr 94 09:34:28 PDT
To: hfinney@shell.portal.com (Hal)
Subject: Re: Milgram & Authority
In-Reply-To: <199404261618.JAA04119@jobe.shell.portal.com>
Message-ID: <199404261633.MAA24470@eff.org>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


 
Hal writes:

> I saw a documentary about this research about ten years ago, and they made
> a point which hasn't come up here: that Milgram, in subjecting his exper-
> imental subjects to such psychological stress (many were traumatized for
> months afterwards about what they had done) was being just as unethical, just
> as unfeeling and unthinking, as his experiment was designed to show his sub-
> jects as being.  Why was Milgram willing to push his subjects to such lengths?
> Was his obedience to the "authority" of abstract scientific research any more
> defensible than his subjects' obedience to that authority?

I have my doubts about the ethics of Milgram's research. But it's
difficult not to be grateful to him for his having done it.


--Mike