Monday, March 23, 2009

Homework for Wednesday, March 25

Both the Milgram experiment and the prison experiment suggest that peoples’ values vary dramatically depending on the situation they are placed in? Do you agree? Why or why not?

10 comments:

  1. Yes, i agree. It's simple to answer this question because it's relating to the simple fact that everything is relative. Every one would like to say that he/she has at least a few values in their lives that remain relatively constant no matter what. This could very well be true, if the world around us remaind constant and never changed. This is all a matter of exceptance. What you can except as being alright for the situation. A good example would be in the Milgram experiment. I'm sure that plenty (if not all) of the "teachers" would not have listened to you if you were to walk up to them on the street and tell them to go severely hurt someone. It would be immoral, it would most likely go against some VALUES that they hold (such as not randomly going over to some one and electrocuting them till they're almost dead).

    (this post is not done)

    Collin Semprebon

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  2. I would also definitely agree that people's values are subject to their surrounding circumstances. The values that are the most extreme though, are usually hypothetical ones-killing people or badly beating them are both things people would say they wouldn't do, but most people haven't experienced those situations.
    As both experiments we read about showed, people in authoritative positions will bend their values for their own preservation. As shown in the prison experiment, this proves to be a vicious cycle: The guards assert their control over the prisoners, leading the prisoners to become less cooperative which furthers the guards to become more extreme in their contol efforts and so on.
    Perhaps one of the reasons things like this are allowed to happen is human nature's problematic ability to justify almost anything to themselves.
    -Andrew

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  3. (Continuing my last post)

    However, when they were told to do this in a controlled situation by some one who was in a position of authority (and thus considered to know what was best in the situation), it became acceptable to many of them to severely injure this man or perhaps (at least they thought) almost kill him.

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  4. That continuation was also by Collin....

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  5. I too would agree. You can see those who administrating the pain - in the shock treatment and as prison guards - are reluctant at times, bu they quickly proceed as they are told and as necessary. Those who took place in the imprisonment experiment were stripped of their identities and were just given a number. They were powerless and were subject to the arbitrary exercise of power and were not recognized as humans. They couldn't handle this, their values changed, they became rebellious. However those in charge in both experiments did little to change things, they accepted their titles, they even embraced them. Depending on the situation, people's values change dramatically.

    - Jack.

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  6. ya i totally agree, i mean all these people didnt think theyd do all this twisted stuff, but they did, i worked at a summer camp last summer and i can kind of see what they were talking about, me and another 16 people from 17-25 were the authority to about 200 kids at a time, and that was the whole population for a week at a time sometimes two, it becomes its own world, especially when you're totally engulfed in it, i'll tell you i was on a total power trip, i didnt think i was unfair really like these prison guards but i could usually ask a kid for some candy and always get it, its was a total trip, there were some rules that i didnt actually care about that i enforced though, like shoes had to be on outside the cabin and no teather ball before 7, actually most rules i didnt really care for, but i found myself getting so upset when these kids did something they werent suppose to, especially towards the end of the summer, one time this kid kept coming out of his cabin late at night with no shoes, and let him go to the bathroom and everything without shoes but hosed down the whole area outside the bathroom so his feet would get all dirty, and we were like wear some shoes kid, probably a little unnessicary but we thought it would really let him know to obey and conform to us cause when someone is conformed you dont have to worry about them doing something wrong. so yes definetly i agree.
    -Charlie O

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  7. yes i agree, in the prison expiriment they had to stop it early because things got to out of hand. no one expected the guards to go so mad with power. i doubt the people acting as guards planned to act the way they did.

    peoples values are only upheld as long as those people believe they have to uphold them. by this i mean if people are put in a position of power or a potition where they may not have consequences their values will change or dissapear all together.

    people are selfish, peoples values may seem to be "humain" or otherwise "right" in the eyes of a society but the values of a society on paper and the actual values of the people in the society are not the same.

    -Jacob G.

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  8. yes thats completely true. people tend to fall into their roles depending on the situation their in. it is the nature of people to try to do what they think is right, and most of the time, this involves doing what they have to do in order to fit in at all costs.
    -brendan

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  9. Values, like most aspects of the human mentality, are subjective. They are therefore extremely variable. When somebody judges a situation and decides how to morally document it, the only real guidelines they use are their initial emotional responses, and then they filter it through their adopted sense of right and wrong. Both these things, however, are based on past events and happenstance. Something that somebody might judge as wrong one day because of certain factors, they might have judged as right the day before because these factors were not yet evident. It is all relative.
    -Julian

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  10. Yes I agree, becuase everyone is different and relative. People's actions can change to any wide variety of things depending on the situation. The situation governs most of what we do. Someone can say "I did this, but in this situation I would have done that.". The situation is the driving force of what we decide to do or not to do.

    -Coti

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