Superior Ordeers
Superior Orders
How well do you know yourself? Would you have the strength to disobey a boss, elder, or even a friend? According to most studies, you wouldn't. So why, when the superior orders defense is used in a war crime trial, is it almost always defeated? Stanley Milgram, who preformed one of the most highly known studies on obedience, said that, "The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his action" (323). According to Milgram we, as humans, all need some system of authority. From the day we are born we have authority figures who, for most people, are our parents. They teach us all of the things we need to know; they also teach us things they don't even know they're teaching us. From day one they teach us to obey authority. This lesson sticks with us throughout our lives; first we obey our parents, then our grandparents, then our teachers, then our bosses. This of course is a necessary lesson for children, but another lesson must be taught in order to avoid problems later in life. A hard thing to explain to a little kid is the idea of morals. A good example of this is an older brother telling his younger brother to do something stupid like, jump off the roof. When the younger brother is being reprimanded by his parents, he tells them that his brother told him to do it. This is where the parents must explain to him that he has to use his own judgment. Milgram found that only forty percent of adults could use their own judgment in situations with much higher consequences.
We as a people want to believe that only the worst of the worst are capable of doing the horrible things that we hear about on the news. That's why we're all so surprised when someone uses superior orders as a defense. We say to ourselves, I wouldn't do that if I was in that situation. How could they do...
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