(no AO1) the agentic state and legitimacy of authority

• the agentic state and real life obedience

  Lifton

  • study of german doctors at auschwitz
  • found doctors gradually and irreversibly from ordinary to capable of carrying out potentially lethal experiments
  • milgram's claim people shift back and forth between autonomous state and agentic state fails to explain this
• agentic state or plain cruel?

  milgram believed agentic state best explained findings

  BUT

  • the cruelty found may have just been them using situation to express their sadistic impulses
  • SPE - guards rapidly escalated to cruelty with no obvious authority figure telling them to
• legitimacy of authority and real life obedience

  can serve as basis for justifying harm on others

  • people may no longer feel their own moral values are relevant to their conduct
  • = when directed by a legitimate authority figure to engage in immoral actions, people are alarmingly willing to do so
• research support for legitimacy of authority

  Tarnow

  • review of serios aviation accidents 1978 to 1990 where flight crew actions contributed to crash
  • data from US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
  • as with Milgram's study - Tarnow found excessive dependence on captain's authority and expertise, with sometimes tragic consequence