Hi James M. Clark Professor of Psychology 204-786-9757 204-774-4134 Fax [email protected]
>>> "Mike Palij" <[email protected]> 17-Apr-09 6:54:53 AM >>> Here's a question that one might consider when covering ethics and topics such as Milgram's obedience to authority and related issues: When is it okay to violate ethical principles and even federal and international laws? JC: When the laws are unjust or ill-founded? Once illegal for people from different races to marry. Currently illegal in some states and not others for gays to marry. As Mike goes on to note, issue is very complex. I wonder if it is better worded as having to do with where one draws line between appropriate/acceptable behavior and inappropriate/unacceptable behavior, and how external factors work into drawing that line? If one's family was being threatened to coerce unacceptable behavior from us, would we be culpable in carrying out some barbarous act? If one's country was being threatened, what is acceptable? (I realize these are not perfectly parallel, but wonder if the mind's of those endorsing torture work along these lines?) Reminds one of some of Kohlberg's moral dilemmas (steal medicine or not?). In the McDonald's incident, people (at least the manager's boyfriend) were found guilty despite attributing their behavior to "obeying" the policeman on the phone, as was the case with those tried at Neuremburg. Mike: P.S. As a seperate exercise, we could also ask students to review the research literature on the effectiveness of torture to elicit any useful information. If it turns out that torture produces unreliable information, what possible justification could it have? JC: Raises a quandary doesn't it? How can one properly research effectiveness of torture? Clearly awkward (to say the least) to include torture condition in the research design. Even if torture occurred outside confines of the research, would one be justified in using "knowledge" gained from those inappropriate (to most) actions? I understand that there is (was?) debate about whether to use knowledge generated by the clearly unethical "medical" research conducted by Nazis. --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
