On Sat, 16 Sep 2006 14:44:20 -0700, Christopher D. Green wrote: >Mike Palij wrote: >>If there were no laws or consequences, would we *necessarily* >>humilate and abuse our students? > >Given enough time, a circumstance would arise in which treating people >(in ways that in our current situation we consider to be) unethically would > lead to one's benefit, and with no external reason not to, most people >would do so.
Again, I am somewhat confused by this perspective: are you saying that a generally ethical teacher, doctor, police officer, day care worker, and so on would (a) make a lapse into some form of unethical behavior on a single/couple of occasions or (b) would systematically engage in unethical behavior because of the nature of having power over other people if there is no continuous supervision of their behavior? Point (a) above suggests that people are not perfect and on occasion will make a mistake while point (b) suggests that the very nature of the unequal power relationship inevitably leads to unethical behavior and mistreatment of others (i.e., I believe that this is argument that is presently used to explain the SPE and Abu Ghraib situations, contra Haslam and Reicher). Point (a) implies that people are generally good and/or reasonable but will screw-up once in a while (though there may be some who need close and continuous scrutiny because they are repeat offenders). Point (b) implies that we all will abuse our power over others whenever we can get away with it which means that we need to closely watch and scrutinize each other's behaviors to make sure that no one engages in such behavior. Perhaps even teaching children to spy on their parents and to report any "suspicious" behavior to the "authorities" because parents can't really be trusted? I guess that the point (b) perspective must be the one taken by many IRB boards who may feel that one can't trust researchers to treat their subjects/participants ethically without constant supervision. >(I invite anyone who believes that they are above such behavior to >consider whether they would have believed that, say, slavery is >immoral if they had been born and raised in, say, Ancient Greece.) Given that most people have no idea what daily life was like in Ancient Greece, it is unrealistic to ask what a person might believe or how they might behave in such a place. A more realistic example is whether people would support or oppose slavery in the U.S. during the 19th century. This is closer to most people's experiences and we have more readily available resources that provide info on the nature of daily life during this time as well as the intellectural, political, and religious currents of the time. Clearly, there were people in favor of slavery and there were people who were opposed to it. I believe that the argument between these two groups may have led to a little conflict (the Civil War), the consequences of which some say we are still dealing with today in the U.S. Of course, a more germaine situation would be whether one would have been a dutiful and obedient Nazi in Hilter's Germany, a point directly relevant to HBE. And who would have actively or passively opposed the regime in power? Criminals? >What is more, those who did not behave in such a way would, in all >likelihood, not survive the situation long. Is this why some academics get tenure and others don't? :-) :-) ;-) >Only by banding together under a set of rules of behavior that are >collectively rigorously enforced upon all individuals within the collective >are we able to evade the war of all against all (we call this arrangement >"civilization") Comrade, I'm willing to accept that social groups ranging from dyads to the whole world operate in the context of some sort of rules but that is not the point. "This arrangement (called) 'civilization' " is no defense against institutionalized sadism, murder, or general mistreatment. Nazi Germany, Stalin's Russia, Mao Tse Tung's China, feudalistic Japan, Pol Pot's Cambodia, and many other "civilizations" controlled behavior through strict sets of rules which controlled the behavior of their citizens -- however, no one would or should confuse the rules that govern an authoritarian or totalitarian regime with the rules of non-authoritarian and non-totalitarian societies. "Civilization" is not enough, ethical and compassionate rules must/should be followed to keep it from becoming an abusive situation where those high in authoritarianism and social dominance impose their will on others. Laws and rules that provide instutionalized support for brutality toward others and their murder doesn't seem like a very good form of civilization to me. It may have survival value for those on top but everyone else loses. >>Do nurses and doctors always torture their patients when they know >>that won't get caught? > >What would make them believe that they wouldn't get caught? *sigh* Do we really need to argue about whether there are situations where a doctor or a nurse or a priest/minister or a teacher and so on is with someone in their charge and (a) would be able to mistreat their charge and (b) get away with it because there are no witnesses and clear evidence for the mistreatment (i.e., situations where it is one's word against another). As stated explicitly in HBE by the reservist who served in Abu Ghraib: no one would have believed what happened in Abu Ghraib if there were no pictures -- the situation was so bizarre that one needed evidence beyond mere words to establish that it actually happened. Moreover, even if one is caught, it doesn't mean that one will be punished for their behavior. There probably are some people in the U.S.who believe that Nixon did not break any laws while he was President (and, of course, he got pardoned for impeachable offenses). >Given no oversight and no enforced code of conduct, I have no doubt >that people in such positions of power would use that power to their >advantage when such a situation arose. I'm curious: is there a surveillance camera in your office that records all of your activity, especially when you are alone with a student? If not, wouldn't you argue that there should be because without such oversight, from your perspective, how can we be sure that you wouldn't mistreat the student? NOTE: I do not mean to offend you or suggest that you would ever mistreat a student, I am only making what I think is a logical externsion of what I think is your perspective, that is, ultimately we will all have to be under a 1984 type of video surveillance 24/7/365/forever. >>>You don't really think that people would behave well toward each >>>other if there WEREN'T laws, police, courts, prisons, etc., do you? >> >>When did Canada become such a dog-eat-dog anti-cooperative >>anti-altruistic country? :-) > >It didn't. It has a set of rigorously enforced, collectively accepted rules >of behavior of which I spoke above. Sort of like North Korea? :-) -In the spirit of rational discourse, Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Most unRomantically, >-- >Christopher D. Green >Department of Psychology >York University >Toronto, ON M3J 1P3 >Canada --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english
