Superior orders

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Superior orders, often known as the Nuremberg defense, lawful orders or by the German phrase Befehl ist Befehl ("an order is an order"), is a plea in a court of law that a person—whether a member of the military, law enforcement, a firefighting force, or the civilian population—not be held guilty for actions ordered by a superior officer or an official.

The superior orders plea is often regarded as the complement to command responsibility.

One of the most noted uses of this plea, or defense, was by the accused in the 1945–1946 Nuremberg trials, such that it is also called the "Nuremberg defense". The Nuremberg Trials were a series of military tribunals, held by the main victorious Allied forces after World War II, most notable for the prosecution of prominent members of the political, military, and economic leadership of the defeated Nazi Germany. These trials, under the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal that set them up, established that the defense of superior orders was no longer enough to escape punishment, but merely enough to lessen punishment.

Historically, the plea of superior orders has been used both before and after the Nuremberg Trials, with a notable lack of consistency in various rulings.

Apart from the specific plea of superior orders, discussions about how the general concept of superior orders ought to be used, or ought not to be used, have taken place in various arguments, rulings and statutes that have not necessarily been part of "after the fact" war crimes trials, strictly speaking. Nevertheless, these discussions and related events help to explain the evolution of the specific plea of superior orders and the history of its usage.

History before 1900

The trial of Peter von Hagenbach

Hagenbach on trial, from Berner Chronik des Diebold Schilling dem Älteren

In 1474, in the trial of Peter von Hagenbach by an ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire, the first known "international" recognition of commanders' obligations to act lawfully occurred. Hagenbach offered the defense that he was just following orders, but this defense was rejected and he was convicted of war crimes and beheaded.

Specifically, Hagenbach was put on trial for atrocities committed under his command but not by him directly, during the occupation of Breisach. This was the earliest modern European example of the doctrine of command responsibility. Since he was convicted for crimes "he as a knight was deemed to have a duty to prevent", Hagenbach defended himself by arguing that he was only following orders from the Duke of Burgundy, Charles the Bold, to whom the Holy Roman Empire had given Breisach.

History from 1900 to 1947

Court-martial of Breaker Morant

During the Second Boer War, three Australian officers (Morant, Handcock and Witton) were charged and tried for a number of murders, including those of prisoners who had surrendered. A significant part of the defense was that they were acting under orders issued by Lord Kitchener to "take no prisoners". However, these orders were verbal, were denied by Kitchener and his staff, and could not be validated in court, resulting in a guilty verdict against all three men.

German military trials after World War I

On June 4, 1921, the legal doctrine of superior orders was used during the German Military Trials that took place after World War I: One of the most famous of these trials was the matter of Lieutenant Karl Neumann, who was a U-boat captain responsible for the sinking of the hospital ship the Dover Castle. Even though he frankly admitted to having sunk the ship, he stated that he had done so on the basis of orders supplied to him by the German Admiralty and so he could not be held liable for his actions. The Reichsgericht, then Germany's supreme court, acquitted him, accepting the defense of superior orders as a grounds to escape criminal liability. Further, that very court had this to say in the matter of superior orders:

... that all civilized nations recognize the principle that a subordinate is covered by the orders of his superiors.

Many accused of war crimes were acquitted on a similar defense, creating immense dissatisfaction among the Allies. That has been thought to be one of the main causes for the specific removal of this defense in the August 8, 1945 London Charter of the International Military Tribunal. The removal has been attributed to the actions of Robert H. Jackson, a Justice of the United States Supreme Court, who was appointed Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials.

Dostler case

Dostler tied to a stake before the execution

On October 8, 1945, Anton Dostler was the first German general to be tried for war crimes by a US military tribunal at the Royal Palace in Caserta. He was accused of ordering the execution of 15 captured US soldiers of Operation Ginny II in Italy in March 1944. He admitted to ordering the execution but said that he could not be held responsible because he was following orders from his superiors. The execution of the prisoners of war in Italy, ordered by Dostler, was an implementation of Adolf Hitler's Commando Order of 1942, which required the immediate execution of all Allied commandos, whether they were in proper uniforms or not, without trial if they were apprehended by German forces. The tribunal rejected the defense of Superior Orders and found Dostler guilty of war crimes. He was sentenced to death and executed by a firing squad on December 1, 1945, in Aversa.

The Dostler case became a precedent for the principle that was used in the Nuremberg Trials of German generals, officials, and Nazi leaders beginning in November 1945: using superior orders as a defense does not relieve officers from responsibility of carrying out illegal orders and their liability to be punished in court. The principle was codified in Principle IV of the Nuremberg Principles, and similar principles were found in sections of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Nuremberg Trials after World War II

In 1945 and 1946, during the Nuremberg trials the issue of superior orders again arose. Before the end of World War II, the Allies suspected such a defense might be employed and issued the London Charter of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), which explicitly stated that following an unlawful order is not a valid defense against charges of war crimes.
Thus, under Nuremberg Principle IV, "defense of superior orders" is not a defense for war crimes, although it might be a mitigating factor that could influence a sentencing authority to lessen the penalty. Nuremberg Principle IV states:

The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.

During the Nuremberg Trials, Wilhelm Keitel, Alfred Jodl and other defendants unsuccessfully used the defense. They contended that while they knew Adolf Hitler's orders were unlawful, or at least had reason to believe they were unlawful, their place was not to question, but to obey. They claimed they were compelled to do so by the Führerprinzip (leader principle) that governed the Nazi regime, as well as their own oath of allegiance to Hitler. In most cases, the tribunal found that the defendants' offenses were so egregious that obedience to superior orders could not be considered a mitigating factor.

(Before the trials, there was little consensus among the Allies as to what was to be done with the Nazi war prisoners. Winston Churchill was inclined to have the leaders 'executed as outlaws'. The Soviets desired trials but wished there to be a presumption of guilt, as opposed to the procedural presumption of innocence that accompanies most Western criminal trials.)

The German military law since 1872 said that while the superior is ("solely") responsible for his order, the subordinate is to be punished for his participation in it if he either transgressed the order on his own account, or if he knew the order to be criminal. For many of their offenses (e.g., killing a non-combatant without trial) the Nazis did not bother to (or were too reluctant to) legalize them by a formal law, so, the judges at Nuremberg could have argued that the defendants heavily broke German law to begin with. However, this line of argumentation was only in very limited amounts argued on in the trials.

"Nuremberg defense"

The trials gained so much attention that the "superior orders defense" has subsequently become interchangeable with the label "Nuremberg defense", a legal defense that essentially states that defendants were "only following orders" ("Befehl ist Befehl", literally "an order is an order") and so are not responsible for their crimes.

However, US General Telford Taylor, who had served as Chief Counsel for the United States during the Nuremberg trials, employed the term "Nuremberg defense" in a different sense. He applied it not to the defense offered by the Nuremberg defendants but to a justification put forward by those who refused to take part in military action (specifically America's involvement in the Vietnam War) that they believed to be criminal.

History from 1947 to 2000

Eichmann on trial in 1961

The defense of superior orders again arose in the 1961 trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Israel, as well as the trial of Alfredo Astiz of Argentina, the latter responsible for a large number of disappearances and kidnappings that took place during that country's last civil-military dictatorship (1976-1983), which forced a State-sponsored terrorism upon the population, resulting in what (to several sources) amounted to a genocide.

In the 1950s and 1960s the use of Befehlsnotstand (English: Compulsion to obey orders), a concept in which a certain action is ordered which violates law but where the refusal to carry out such an order would lead to drastic consequences for the person refusing to carry out the order, as a defence in war crimes trials in Germany was quite successful as it protected the accused from punishment. With the formation of the Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes this changed as a historical research by the organisation revealed that refusing an unlawful order did not result in punishment.

Israeli law since 1956

In 1957, the Israeli legal system established the concept of a 'blatantly illegal order' to explain when a military order (or in general, a security-related order) should be followed, and when an order must not be followed. The concept is explained in 1957 by the infamous Kafr Qasim massacre ruling.

The Kafr Qasim trial considered for the first time the issue of when Israeli security personnel are required to disobey illegal orders. The judges decided that soldiers do not have the obligation to examine each and every order in detail as to its legality, nor were they entitled to disobey orders merely on a subjective feeling that they might be illegal. On the other hand, some orders were manifestly illegal, and these must be disobeyed. Judge Benjamin Halevy's words, still much-quoted today, were that "The distinguishing mark of a manifestly illegal order is that above such an order should fly, like a black flag, a warning saying: 'Prohibited!'"

Captain (res.) Itai Haviv, a signatory of the 'courage to refuse' letter of 2002 tells of his unhappiness about his service for the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and says "For 35 years a black flag was proudly hanging over our heads, but we have refused to see it". A translation note explains the "Black Flag" principle but adds "In the 45 years that passed since [the ruling], not even a single soldier was protected by a military court for refusing to obey a command because it was a 'black flag' command."

1968 My Lai Massacre

Following the My Lai Massacre in 1968, the defense was employed during the court martial of William Calley. Some have argued that the outcome of the My Lai Massacre courts martial was a reversal of the laws of war that were set forth in the Nuremberg and Tokyo War Crimes Tribunals. Secretary of the Army Howard Callaway was quoted in the New York Times as stating that Calley's sentence was reduced because Calley believed that what he did was a part of his orders.

In United States v. Keenan, the accused was found guilty of murder after he obeyed an order to shoot and kill an elderly Vietnamese citizen. The Court of Military Appeals held that "the justification for acts done pursuant to orders does not exist if the order was of such a nature that a man of ordinary sense and understanding would know it to be illegal". The soldier who gave the order, Corporal Luczko, was acquitted by reason of insanity.

The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

The provision containing the superior orders defense can be found as a defense to international crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. (The Rome Statute was agreed upon in 1998 as the foundational document of the International Criminal Court, established to try those individuals accused of serious international crimes.) Article 33, titled "Superior orders and prescription of law", states:

1. The fact that a crime within the jurisdiction of the Court has been committed by a person pursuant to an order of a Government or of a superior, whether military or civilian, shall not relieve that person of criminal responsibility unless:

• (a) The person was under a legal obligation to obey orders of the Government or the superior in question;
• (b) The person did not know that the order was unlawful; and
• (c) The order was not manifestly unlawful.

2. For the purposes of this article, orders to commit genocide or crimes against humanity are manifestly unlawful.

There are two interpretations of this Article:

• This formulation, especially (1)(a), whilst effectively prohibiting the use of the Nuremberg defense in relation to charges of genocide and crimes against humanity, does however, appear to allow the Nuremberg defense to be used as a protection against charges of war crimes, provided the relevant criteria are met.
• Nevertheless, this interpretation of ICC Article 33 is open to debate: For example, Article 33 (1)(c) protects the defendant only if "the order was not manifestly unlawful". The "order" could be considered "unlawful" if we consider Nuremberg Principle IV to be the applicable "law" in this case. If so, then the defendant is not protected. Discussion as to whether or not Nuremberg Principle IV is the applicable law in this case is found in a discussion of the Nuremberg Principles' power or lack of power.

History 2000 to present

Legal proceedings of Jeremy Hinzman in Canada

Nuremberg Principle IV, and its reference to an individual's responsibility, was at issue in Canada in the case of Hinzman v. Canada. Jeremy Hinzman was a U.S. Army deserter who claimed refugee status in Canada as a conscientious objector, one of many Iraq War resisters. Hinzman's lawyer, (at that time Jeffry House), had previously raised the issue of the legality of the Iraq War as having a bearing on their case. The Federal Court ruling was released on March 31, 2006, and denied the refugee status claim. In the decision, Justice Anne L. Mactavish addressed the issue of personal responsibility:

An individual must be involved at the policy-making level to be culpable for a crime against peace ... the ordinary foot soldier is not expected to make his or her own personal assessment as to the legality of a conflict. Similarly, such an individual cannot be held criminally responsible for fighting in support of an illegal war, assuming that his or her personal war-time conduct is otherwise proper.

On Nov 15, 2007, a quorum of the Supreme Court of Canada made of Justices Michel Bastarache, Rosalie Abella, and Louise Charron refused an application to have the Court hear the case on appeal, without giving reasons.

Legal proceedings of Ehren Watada in the United States

In June 2006, during the Iraq War, Ehren Watada refused to go to Iraq on account of his belief that the Iraq war was a crime against peace (waging a war of aggression for territorial aggrandizement), which he believed could make him liable for prosecution under the command responsibility doctrine. In this case, the judge ruled that soldiers, in general, are not responsible for determining whether the order to go to war itself is a lawful order – but are only responsible for those orders resulting in a specific application of military force, such as an order to shoot civilians, or to treat POWs inconsistently with the Geneva Conventions. This is consistent with the Nuremberg defense, as only the civilian and military principals of the Axis were charged with crimes against peace, while subordinate military officials were not so charged. It is often the case in modern warfare that while subordinate military officials are not held liable for their actions, neither are their superiors, as was the case with Calley's immediate superior Captain Ernest Medina.

Based on this principle, international law developed the concept of individual criminal liability for war crimes, which resulted in the current doctrine of command responsibility.

Arguments for and against

Historical overview summary table

Date	Preceding context	Jurisdiction / decisionmaker	Defendant(s) or case(s)	[found] "responsible" despite superior orders	[found] "not responsible" because of superior orders
1474	the occupation of Breisach	ad hoc tribunal of the Holy Roman Empire	Peter von Hagenbach	yes
1921	World War I	Germany's Supreme Court (trials after World War I)	Lieutenant Karl Neumann and others		yes
1945	World War II	Nuremberg trials after World War II	all defendants	yes
1998	preparation for future cases	Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court	future cases under Article 33 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court	in cases of genocide and possibly other cases	possibly in cases other than genocide
2006	Iraq War	Justice Anne L. Mactavish - Federal Court (Canada)	Jeremy Hinzman (refugee applicant)		equivalent to yes

Note: Yellow rows indicate the use of the precise plea of Superior Orders in a war crimes trial - as opposed to events regarding the general concept of Superior Orders.

This is a dynamic list and may never be able to satisfy particular standards for completeness. You can help by expanding it with reliably sourced entries.

Arguments

The superior orders defense is still used with the following rationale in the following scenario: An "order" may come from one's superior at the level of national law. But according to Nuremberg Principle IV, such an order is sometimes "unlawful" according to international law. Such an "unlawful order" presents a legal dilemma from which there is no legal escape: On one hand, a person who refuses such an unlawful order faces the possibility of legal punishment at the national level for refusing orders. On the other hand, a person who accepts such an unlawful order faces the possibility of legal punishment at the international level (e.g. Nuremberg Trials) for committing unlawful acts. Nuremberg Principle II responds to that dilemma by stating: "The fact that internal law does not impose a penalty for an act which constitutes a crime under international law does not relieve the person who committed the act from responsibility under international law."

The above scenario might present a legal dilemma, but Nuremberg Principle IV speaks of "a moral choice" as being just as important as "legal" decisions: It states: "The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him".

In "moral choices" or ethical dilemmas an ethical decision is often made by appealing to a "higher ethic" such as ethics in religion or secular ethics. One such "higher ethic" found in many religions and in secular ethics, is the ethic of reciprocity, or Golden Rule. It states that one has a right to just treatment, and therefore has a reciprocal responsibility to ensure justice for others. Higher ethics, such as those, could be used by an individual to solve the legal dilemma presented by the superior orders defense.

Another argument against the use of the superior orders defense is that it does not follow the traditional legal definitions and categories established under criminal law. Under criminal law, a principal is any actor who is primarily responsible for a criminal offense. Such an actor is distinguished from others who may also be subject to criminal liability as accomplices, accessories or conspirators. (See also the various degrees of liability: absolute liability, strict liability, and mens rea.)

The common argument in this matter, is that every individual under orders should be bound by law to immediately relieve of command a superior officer who gives an obviously unlawful order to their troops. This represents a rational check to be put in place versus organizational command hierarchies.

Nuremberg Principle IV, the international law that counters the superior orders defense, is legally supported by the jurisprudence found in certain articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that deal indirectly with conscientious objection. It is also supported by the principles found in paragraph 171 of the Handbook on Procedures and Criteria for Determining Refugee Status, which was issued by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Those principles deal with the conditions under which conscientious objectors can apply for refugee status in another country if they face persecution in their own country for refusing to participate in an illegal war.

Eichmann in Jerusalem (The banality of evil)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

First edition
Author	Hannah Arendt
Language	English
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	1963
Media type	Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages	312

Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil is a book by political theorist Hannah Arendt, originally published in 1963. Arendt, a Jew who fled Germany during Adolf Hitler's rise to power, reported on Adolf Eichmann's trial for The New Yorker.

Overview

Arendt's subtitle famously introduced the phrase "the banality of evil," which also serves as the final words of the book. In part, at least, the phrase refers to Eichmann's deportment at the trial as the man displayed neither guilt for his actions nor hatred for those trying him, claiming he bore no responsibility because he was simply "doing his job" ("He did his duty...; he not only obeyed orders, he also obeyed the law." p. 135).

Arendt takes Eichmann's court testimony and the historical evidence available, and she makes several observations about Eichmann:

• Eichmann stated himself in court that he had always tried to abide by Immanuel Kant's categorical imperative (as discussed directly on pp. 135–137). She argues that Eichmann had essentially taken the wrong lesson from Kant: Eichmann had not recognized the "golden rule" and principle of reciprocity implicit in the categorical imperative, but had understood only the concept of one man's actions coinciding with general law. Eichmann attempted to follow the spirit of the laws he carried out, as if the legislator himself would approve. In Kant's formulation of the categorical imperative, the legislator is the moral self, and all men are legislators; in Eichmann's formulation, the legislator was Hitler. Eichmann claimed this changed when he was charged with carrying out the Final Solution, at which point Arendt claims "he had ceased to live according to Kantian principles, that he had known it, and that he had consoled himself with the thoughts that he no longer 'was master of his own deeds,' that he was unable 'to change anything'" (p. 136).
• Eichmann's inability to think for himself was exemplified by his consistent use of "stock phrases and self-invented clichés". The man demonstrated his unrealistic worldview and crippling lack of communication skills through reliance on "officialese" (Amtssprache) and the euphemistic Sprachregelung that made implementation of Hitler's policies "somehow palatable."
• While Eichmann might have had anti-Semitic leanings, Arendt argued that he showed "no case of insane hatred of Jews, of fanatical anti-Semitism or indoctrination of any kind. He personally never had anything whatever against Jews” (p. 26).
• Eichmann was a "joiner" his entire life, in that he constantly joined organizations in order to define himself, and had difficulties thinking for himself without doing so. As a youth, he belonged to the YMCA, the Wandervogel, and the Jungfrontkämpferverband. In 1933, he failed in his attempt to join the Schlaraffia (a men's organization similar to Freemasonry), at which point a family friend (and future war criminal) Ernst Kaltenbrunner encouraged him to join the SS. At the end of World War II, Eichmann found himself depressed because "it then dawned on him that thenceforward he would have to live without being a member of something or other" (pp. 32–3).
• Despite his claims, Eichmann was not, in fact, very intelligent. As Arendt details in the book's second chapter, he was unable to complete either high school or vocational training, and only found his first significant job (traveling salesman for the Vacuum Oil Company) through family connections. Arendt noted that, during both his SS career and Jerusalem trial, Eichmann tried to cover up his lack of skills and education, and even "blushed" when these facts came to light.
• Arendt confirms several points where Eichmann actually claimed he was responsible for certain atrocities, even though he lacked the power and/or expertise to take these actions. Moreover, Eichmann made these claims even though they hurt his defense, hence Arendt's remark that "Bragging was the vice that was Eichmann's undoing" (p. 46). Arendt also suggests that Eichmann may have preferred to be executed as a war criminal than live as a nobody. This parallels his overestimation of his own intelligence and his past value in the organizations in which he had served, as stated above.
• Arendt argues that Eichmann, in his peripheral role at the Wannsee Conference, witnessed the rank-and-file of the German civil service heartily endorse Reinhard Heydrich's program for the Final Solution of the Jewish question in Europe (German: die Endlösung der Judenfrage). Upon seeing members of "respectable society" endorsing mass murder, and enthusiastically participating in the planning of the solution, Eichmann felt that his moral responsibility was relaxed, as if he were "Pontius Pilate".
• During his imprisonment before his trial, the Israeli government sent no fewer than six psychologists to examine Eichmann. These psychologists found no trace of mental illness, including personality disorder. One doctor remarked that his overall attitude towards other people, especially his family and friends, was "highly desirable", while another remarked that the only unusual trait Eichmann displayed was being more "normal" in his habits and speech than the average person (pp. 25–6).

Arendt suggests that this most strikingly discredits the idea that the Nazi criminals were manifestly psychopathic and different from "normal" people. From this document, many concluded that situations such as the Holocaust can make even the most ordinary of people commit horrendous crimes with the proper incentives, but Arendt adamantly disagreed with this interpretation, as Eichmann was voluntarily following the Führerprinzip. Arendt insists that moral choice remains even under totalitarianism, and that this choice has political consequences even when the chooser is politically powerless:

[U]nder conditions of terror most people will comply but some people will not, just as the lesson of the countries to which the Final Solution was proposed is that "it could happen" in most places but it did not happen everywhere. Humanly speaking, no more is required, and no more can reasonably be asked, for this planet to remain a place fit for human habitation.

Arendt mentions, as a case in point, Denmark:

One is tempted to recommend the story as required reading in political science for all students who wish to learn something about the enormous power potential inherent in non-violent action and in resistance to an opponent possessing vastly superior means of violence.
It was not just that the people of Denmark refused to assist in implementing the Final Solution, as the peoples of so many other conquered nations had been persuaded to do (or had been eager to do) — but also, that when the Reich cracked down and decided to do the job itself it found that its own personnel in Denmark had been infected by this and were unable to overcome their human aversion with the appropriate ruthlessness, as their peers in more cooperative areas had.

On Eichmann's personality, Arendt concludes:

Despite all the efforts of the prosecution, everybody could see that this man was not a "monster," but it was difficult indeed not to suspect that he was a clown. And since this suspicion would have been fatal to the entire enterprise [his trial], and was also rather hard to sustain in view of the sufferings he and his like had caused to millions of people, his worst clowneries were hardly noticed and almost never reported (p. 55).

Legality of the trial

Beyond her discussion of Eichmann himself, Arendt discusses several additional aspects of the trial, its context, and the Holocaust.

• She points out that Eichmann was kidnapped by Israeli agents in Argentina and transported to Israel, an illegal act, and that he was tried in Israel even though he was not accused of committing any crimes there. "If he had not been found guilty before he appeared in Jerusalem, guilty beyond any reasonable doubt, the Israelis would never have dared, or wanted, to kidnap him in formal violation of Argentine law."
• She describes his trial as a show trial arranged and managed by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, and says that Ben-Gurion wanted, for several political reasons, to emphasize not primarily what Eichmann had done, but what the Jews had suffered during the Holocaust.  She points out that the war criminals tried at Nuremberg were "indicted for crimes against the members of various nations," without special reference to the Nazi genocide against the Jews.
• She questions Israel's right to try Eichmann. Israel was a signatory to the 1950 UN Genocide Convention, which rejected universal jurisdiction and required that defendants be tried 'in the territory of which the act was committed' or by an international tribunal. The court in Jerusalem did not pursue either option. 
• Eichmann's deeds were not crimes under German law, as at that time, in the eyes of the Third Reich, he was a law-abiding citizen. He was tried for 'crimes in retrospect'. 
• The prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, followed the tone set by Prime Minister Ben-Gurion, who stated, 'It is not an individual nor the Nazi regime on trial, but Antisemitism throughout history.' Hausner's corresponding opening statements, which heavily referenced biblical passages, was 'bad history and cheap rhetoric," according to Arendt. Furthermore, it suggested that Eichmann was no criminal, but the 'innocent executor of some foreordained destiny.' 

The banality of evil

Arendt's book introduced the expression and concept the banality of evil. Her thesis is that Eichmann was not a fanatic or sociopath, but an extremely average person who relied on cliché defenses rather than thinking for himself and was motivated by professional promotion rather than ideology. Banality, in this sense, is not that Eichmann's actions were ordinary, or that there is a potential Eichmann in all of us, but that his actions were motivated by a sort of stupidity which was wholly unexceptional. In his 2010 history of the Second World War, Moral Combat, British historian Michael Burleigh calls the expression a "cliché" and gives many documented examples of gratuitous acts of cruelty by those involved in the Holocaust, including Eichmann. Arendt certainly did not disagree about the fact of gratuitous cruelty, but, she claims, "banality of evil" is unrelated to this question. Similarly, the first attempted rebuttal of Arendt's thesis relied on a misreading of this phrase, claiming Arendt meant that there was nothing exceptional about the Holocaust.

Controversy

Arendt sparked controversy with Eichmann in Jerusalem upon its publishing and the years since. Arendt has long been accused of "blaming the victim" in the book.

Stanley Milgram maintains that "Arendt became the object of considerable scorn, even calumny" because she highlighted Eichmann's "banality" and "normalcy", and accepted Eichmann's claim that he did not have evil intents or motives to commit such horrors; nor did he have a thought to the immorality and evil of his actions, or indeed, display, as the prosecution depicted, that he was a sadistic "monster" (ch.1).

Jacob Robinson published And the Crooked Shall be Made Straight, the first full-length rebuttal of her book. Robinson presented himself as an expert in international law, not saying that he was an assistant to the prosecutor in the case.

In his 2006 book, Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes and Trial of a "Desk Murderer", Holocaust researcher David Cesarani questioned Arendt's portrait of Eichmann on several grounds. According to his findings, Arendt attended only part of the trial, witnessing Eichmann's testimony for "at most four days" and basing her writings mostly on recordings and the trial transcript. Cesarani feels that this may have skewed her opinion of him, since it was in the parts of the trial that she missed that the more forceful aspects of his character appeared. Cesarani also presents evidence suggesting that Eichmann was in fact highly anti-Semitic and that these feelings were important motivators of his actions. Thus, he alleges that Arendt's claims that his motives were "banal" and non-ideological and that he had abdicated his autonomy of choice by obeying Hitler's orders without question may stand on weak foundations. This is a recurrent criticism of Arendt, though nowhere in her work does Arendt deny that Eichmann was an anti-Semite, and she also did not claim that Eichmann was "simply" following orders, but rather had internalized the clichés of the Nazi regime.

Cesarani suggests that Arendt's own prejudices influenced the opinions she expressed during the trial. He argues that like many Jews of German origin, she held Ostjuden (Jews from Eastern Europe) in great disdain. This, according to Cesarani, led her to attack the conduct and efficacy of the chief prosecutor, Gideon Hausner, who was of Galician-Jewish origin. In a letter to the noted German philosopher Karl Jaspers she stated that Hausner was "a typical Galician Jew... constantly making mistakes. Probably one of those people who doesn't know any language." Cesarani claims that some of her opinions of Jews of Middle Eastern origin verged on racism as she described the Israeli crowds in her letter to Karl Jaspers: "My first impression: On top, the judges, the best of German Jewry. Below them, the prosecuting attorneys, Galicians, but still Europeans. Everything is organized by a police force that gives me the creeps, speaks only Hebrew, and looks Arabic. Some downright brutal types among them. They would obey any order. And outside the doors, the Oriental mob, as if one were in Istanbul or some other half-Asiatic country. In addition, and very visible in Jerusalem, the peies (sidelocks) and caftan Jews, who make life impossible for all reasonable people here." Cesarani's book was itself criticized. In a review that appeared in the New York Times Review of Books, Barry Gewen argued that Cesarani's hostility stemmed from his book standing "in the shadow of one of the great books of the last half-century", and that Cesarani's suggestion that both Arendt and Eichmann had much in common in their backgrounds making it easier for her to look down on the proceedings, "reveals a writer in control neither of his material nor of himself."

Eichmann in Jerusalem, according to Hugh Trevor-Roper, is deeply indebted to Raul Hilberg's The Destruction of the European Jews, so much so that Hilberg himself spoke of plagiarism. The very points which Arendt borrows from Hilberg, were borrowed by Hilberg himself from H.G. Adler.

Arendt also received criticism in the form of responses to her article, also published in the New Yorker. One instance of this came mere weeks after the publication of her articles in the form of an article entitled "Man With an Unspotted Conscience". This work was written by witness for the defense, Michael A. Musmanno. He argued that Arendt fell prey to her own preconceived notions that rendered her work ahistorical. He also directly criticized her for ignoring the facts offered at the trial in stating that "the disparity between what Miss Arendt states, and what the ascertained facts are, occurs with such a disturbing frequency in her book that it can hardly be accepted as an authoritative historical work.". He further condemned Arendt and her work for her prejudices against Hauser and Ben-Gurion depicted in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. Musmanno argued that Arendt revealed "so frequently her own prejudices" that it could not stand as an accurate work.

Arendt relied heavily on the book by H.G. Adler Theresienstadt 1941-1945. The Face of a Coerced Community (Cambridge University Press. 2017), which she had read in manuscript. Adler took her to task on her view of Eichmann in his keynote essay What does Hannah Arendt know about Eichmann and the Final Solution (Allgemeine Zeitung der Juden in Deutschland. 20 November 1960).

In more recent years, Arendt has received further criticism from authors Bettina Stangneth and Deborah Lipstadt. Stangneth argues in her work, Eichmann Before Jerusalem, that Eichmann was, in fact, an insidious antisemite. She utilized the Sassen Papers and accounts of Eichmann while in Argentina to prove that he was proud of his position as a powerful Nazi and the murders that this allowed him to commit. While she acknowledges that the Sassen Papers were not disclosed in the lifetime of Arendt, she argues that the evidence was there at the trial to prove that Eichmann was an antisemitic murderer and that Arendt simply ignored this. Deborah Lipstadt contends in her work, The Eichmann Trial, that Arendt was distracted by her own views of totalitarianism to objectively judge Eichmann. She refers to Arendt's own work on totalitarianism, The Origins of Totalitarianism, as a basis for Arendt's seeking to validate her own work by using Eichmann as an example. Lipstadt further contends that Arendt "wanted the trial to explicate how these societies succeeded in getting others to do their atrocious biddings" and so framed her analysis in a way which would agree with this pursuit.

Milgram experiment

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Play media

Obedience (1965), Stanley Milgram's documentary film on the experiment.

 

The experimenter (E) orders the teacher (T), the subject of the experiment, to give what the latter believes are painful electric shocks to a learner (L), who is actually an actor and confederate. The subject is led to believe that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual electric shocks, though in reality there were no such punishments. Being separated from the subject, the confederate set up a tape recorder integrated with the electro-shock generator, which played pre-recorded sounds for each shock level.

The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram. They measured the willingness of study participants, men from a diverse range of occupations with varying levels of education, to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts conflicting with their personal conscience. Participants were led to believe that they were assisting an unrelated experiment, in which they had to administer electric shocks to a "learner." These fake electric shocks gradually increased to levels that would have been fatal had they been real.

The experiment found, unexpectedly, that a very high proportion of men would fully obey the instructions, albeit reluctantly. Milgram first described his research in a 1963 article in the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology and later discussed his findings in greater depth in his 1974 book, Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.

The experiments began in July 1961, in the basement of Linsly-Chittenden Hall at Yale University, three months after the start of the trial of German Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. Milgram devised his psychological study to answer the popular contemporary question: "Could it be that Eichmann and his million accomplices in the Holocaust were just following orders? Could we call them all accomplices?" The experiment was repeated many times around the globe, with fairly consistent results.

Procedure

Milgram Experiment advertisement

Three individuals took part in each session of the experiment:

1. The "experimenter", who was in charge of the session;
2. The "teacher", a volunteer for a single session. The "teacher" was led to believe that they were merely assisting, whereas they were actually the subject of the experiment;
3. The "learner", an actor and a confederate of the experimenter, who pretended to be a volunteer.

The subject and the actor arrived at the session together. The experimenter told them that they were taking part in "a scientific study of memory and learning", to see what the effect of punishment is on a subject's ability to memorize content. Also, he always clarified that the payment for their participation in the experiment was secured regardless of its development. The subject and actor drew slips of paper to determine their roles. Unknown to the subject, both slips said "teacher". The actor would always claim to have drawn the slip that read "learner", thus guaranteeing that the subject would always be the "teacher".

Next, the teacher and learner were taken into an adjacent room where the learner was strapped into what appeared to be an electric chair. The experimenter told the participants this was to ensure that the learner would not escape. In a later variation of the experiment, the confederate was sure to mention to the participant that he had a heart condition. At some point prior to the actual test, the teacher was given a sample electric shock from the electroshock generator in order to experience firsthand what the shock that the learner would supposedly receive during the experiment would feel like.

The teacher and learner were then separated, so that they could communicate but not see each other. The teacher was then given a list of word pairs that he was to teach the learner. The teacher began by reading the list of word pairs to the learner. The teacher would then read the first word of each pair and read four possible answers. The learner would press a button to indicate his response. If the answer was incorrect, the teacher would administer a shock to the learner, with the voltage increasing in 15-volt increments for each wrong answer. If correct, the teacher would read the next word pair.

The subjects believed that for each wrong answer, the learner was receiving actual shocks. In reality, there were no shocks. After the learner was separated from the teacher, the learner set up a tape recorder integrated with the electroshock generator, which played prerecorded sounds for each shock level. As the voltage of the fake shocks increased, the learner began making audible protests, such as banging repeatedly on the wall that separated him from the teacher. When the highest voltages were reached, the learner fell silent.

If at any time the teacher indicated a desire to halt the experiment, the experimenter was instructed to give specific verbal prods. The prods were, in this order:

1. Please continue;
2. The experiment requires that you continue;
3. It is absolutely essential that you continue;
4. You have no other choice, you must go on.

If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession.

The experimenter also had prods to use if the teacher made specific comments. If the teacher asked whether the learner might suffer permanent physical harm, the experimenter replied, "Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on." If the teacher said that the learner clearly wants to stop, the experimenter replied, "Whether the learner likes it or not, you must go on until he has learned all the word pairs correctly, so please go on."

Results

Before conducting the experiment, Milgram polled fourteen Yale University senior-year psychology majors to predict the behavior of 100 hypothetical teachers. All of the poll respondents believed that only a very small fraction of teachers (the range was from zero to 3 out of 100, with an average of 1.2) would be prepared to inflict the maximum voltage. Milgram also informally polled his colleagues and found that they, too, believed very few subjects would progress beyond a very strong shock. He also reached out to honorary Harvard University graduate Chaim Homnick, who noted that this experiment would not be concrete evidence of the Nazis' innocence, due to fact that "poor people are more likely to cooperate." Milgram also polled forty psychiatrists from a medical school, and they believed that by the tenth shock, when the victim demands to be free, most subjects would stop the experiment. They predicted that by the 300-volt shock, when the victim refuses to answer, only 3.73 percent of the subjects would still continue and, they believed that "only a little over one-tenth of one percent of the subjects would administer the highest shock on the board."

In Milgram's first set of experiments, 65 percent (26 of 40) of experiment participants administered the experiment's final massive 450-volt shock, and all administered shocks of at least 300 volts. Subjects were uncomfortable doing so, and displayed varying degrees of tension and stress. These signs included sweating, trembling, stuttering, biting their lips, groaning, digging their fingernails into their skin, and some were even having nervous laughing fits or seizures. Every participant paused the experiment at least once to question it. Most continued after being assured by the experimenter. Some said they would refund the money they were paid for participating.

Milgram summarized the experiment in his 1974 article, "The Perils of Obedience", writing:

The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience are of enormous importance, but they say very little about how most people behave in concrete situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale University to test how much pain an ordinary citizen would inflict on another person simply because he was ordered to by an experimental scientist. Stark authority was pitted against the subjects' [participants'] strongest moral imperatives against hurting others, and, with the subjects' [participants'] ears ringing with the screams of the victims, authority won more often than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go to almost any lengths on the command of an authority constitutes the chief finding of the study and the fact most urgently demanding explanation.

Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and without any particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terrible destructive process. Moreover, even when the destructive effects of their work become patently clear, and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few people have the resources needed to resist authority.

The original Simulated Shock Generator and Event Recorder, or shock box, is located in the Archives of the History of American Psychology.

Later, Milgram and other psychologists performed variations of the experiment throughout the world, with similar results. Milgram later investigated the effect of the experiment's locale on obedience levels by holding an experiment in an unregistered, backstreet office in a bustling city, as opposed to at Yale, a respectable university. The level of obedience, "although somewhat reduced, was not significantly lower." What made more of a difference was the proximity of the "learner" and the experimenter. There were also variations tested involving groups.

Thomas Blass of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County performed a meta-analysis on the results of repeated performances of the experiment. He found that while the percentage of participants who are prepared to inflict fatal voltages ranged from 28% to 91%, there was no significant trend over time and the average percentage for US studies (61%) was close to the one for non-US studies (66%).

The participants who refused to administer the final shocks neither insisted that the experiment be terminated, nor left the room to check the health of the victim without requesting permission to leave, as per Milgram's notes and recollections, when fellow psychologist Philip Zimbardo asked him about that point.

Milgram created a documentary film titled Obedience showing the experiment and its results. He also produced a series of five social psychology films, some of which dealt with his experiments.

Critical reception

Ethics

The Milgram Shock Experiment raised questions about the research ethics of scientific experimentation because of the extreme emotional stress and inflicted insight suffered by the participants. Some critics such as Gina Perry argued that participants were not properly debriefed. In Milgram's defense, 84 percent of former participants surveyed later said they were "glad" or "very glad" to have participated; 15 percent chose neutral responses (92% of all former participants responding). Many later wrote expressing thanks. Milgram repeatedly received offers of assistance and requests to join his staff from former participants. Six years later (at the height of the Vietnam War), one of the participants in the experiment sent correspondence to Milgram, explaining why he was glad to have participated despite the stress:

While I was a subject in 1964, though I believed that I was hurting someone, I was totally unaware of why I was doing so. Few people ever realize when they are acting according to their own beliefs and when they are meekly submitting to authority ... To permit myself to be drafted with the understanding that I am submitting to authority's demand to do something very wrong would make me frightened of myself ... I am fully prepared to go to jail if I am not granted Conscientious Objector status. Indeed, it is the only course I could take to be faithful to what I believe. My only hope is that members of my board act equally according to their conscience ...

In his book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View, Milgram argued that the ethical criticism provoked by his experiments was because his findings were disturbing and revealed unwelcome truths about human nature. Others have argued that the ethical debate has diverted attention from more serious problems with the experiment's methodology.

Applicability to the Holocaust

Milgram sparked direct critical response in the scientific community by claiming that "a common psychological process is centrally involved in both [his laboratory experiments and Nazi Germany] events." James Waller, Chair of Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Keene State College, formerly Chair of Whitworth College Psychology Department, expressed the opinion that Milgram experiments do not correspond well to the Holocaust events:

• The subjects of Milgram experiments, wrote James Waller (Becoming Evil), were assured in advance that no permanent physical damage would result from their actions. However, the Holocaust perpetrators were fully aware of their hands-on killing and maiming of the victims;
• The laboratory subjects themselves did not know their victims and were not motivated by racism or other biases. On the other hand, the Holocaust perpetrators displayed an intense devaluation of the victims through a lifetime of personal development;
• Those serving punishment at the lab were not sadists, nor hate-mongers, and often exhibited great anguish and conflict in the experiment, unlike the designers and executioners of the Final Solution (see Holocaust trials), who had a clear "goal" on their hands, set beforehand;
• The experiment lasted for an hour, with no time for the subjects to contemplate the implications of their behavior. Meanwhile, the Holocaust lasted for years with ample time for a moral assessment of all individuals and organizations involved.

In the opinion of Thomas Blass—who is the author of a scholarly monograph on the experiment (The Man Who Shocked The World) published in 2004—the historical evidence pertaining to actions of the Holocaust perpetrators speaks louder than words:

My own view is that Milgram's approach does not provide a fully adequate explanation of the Holocaust. While it may well account for the dutiful destructiveness of the dispassionate bureaucrat who may have shipped Jews to Auschwitz with the same degree of routinization as potatoes to Bremerhaven, it falls short when one tries to apply it to the more zealous, inventive, and hate-driven atrocities that also characterized the Holocaust.

Validity

In a 2004 issue of the journal Jewish Currents, Joseph Dimow, a participant in the 1961 experiment at Yale University, wrote about his early withdrawal as a "teacher", suspicious "that the whole experiment was designed to see if ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period."

In 2012 Australian psychologist Gina Perry investigated Milgram's data and writings and concluded that Milgram had manipulated the results, and that there was "troubling mismatch between (published) descriptions of the experiment and evidence of what actually transpired." She wrote that "only half of the people who undertook the experiment fully believed it was real and of those, 66% disobeyed the experimenter". She described her findings as "an unexpected outcome" that "leaves social psychology in a difficult situation."

Interpretations

Milgram elaborated two theories:

1. The first is the theory of conformism, based on Solomon Asch conformity experiments, describing the fundamental relationship between the group of reference and the individual person. A subject who has neither ability nor expertise to make decisions, especially in a crisis, will leave decision making to the group and its hierarchy. The group is the person's behavioral model;
2. The second is the agentic state theory, wherein, per Milgram, "the essence of obedience consists in the fact that a person comes to view themselves as the instrument for carrying out another person's wishes, and they therefore no longer see themselves as responsible for their actions. Once this critical shift of viewpoint has occurred in the person, all of the essential features of obedience follow".

Alternative interpretations

In his book Irrational Exuberance, Yale finance professor Robert J. Shiller argues that other factors might be partially able to explain the Milgram Experiments:

[People] have learned that when experts tell them something is all right, it probably is, even if it does not seem so. (In fact, the experimenter was indeed correct: it was all right to continue giving the "shocks"—even though most of the subjects did not suspect the reason.)

In a 2006 experiment, a computerized avatar was used in place of the learner receiving electrical shocks. Although the participants administering the shocks were aware that the learner was unreal, the experimenters reported that participants responded to the situation physiologically "as if it were real".

Another explanation of Milgram's results invokes belief perseverance as the underlying cause. What "people cannot be counted on is to realize that a seemingly benevolent authority is in fact malevolent, even when they are faced with overwhelming evidence which suggests that this authority is indeed malevolent. Hence, the underlying cause for the subjects' striking conduct could well be conceptual, and not the alleged 'capacity of man to abandon his humanity ... as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures."'

This last explanation receives some support from a 2009 episode of the BBC science documentary series Horizon, which involved replication of the Milgram experiment. Of the twelve participants, only three refused to continue to the end of the experiment. Speaking during the episode, social psychologist Clifford Stott discussed the influence that the idealism of scientific inquiry had on the volunteers. He remarked: "The influence is ideological. It's about what they believe science to be, that science is a positive product, it produces beneficial findings and knowledge to society that are helpful for society. So there's that sense of science is providing some kind of system for good."

Building on the importance of idealism, some recent researchers suggest the 'engaged followership' perspective. Based on an examination of Milgram's archive, in a recent study, social psychologists Alexander Haslam, Stephen Reicher and Megan Birney, at the University of Queensland, discovered that people are less likely to follow the prods of an experimental leader when the prod resembles an order. However, when the prod stresses the importance of the experiment for science (i.e. 'The experiment requires you to continue'), people are more likely to obey. The researchers suggest the perspective of 'engaged followership': that people are not simply obeying the orders of a leader, but instead are willing to continue the experiment because of their desire to support the scientific goals of the leader and because of a lack of identification with the learner. Also a neuroscientific study supports this perspective, namely watching the learner receive electric shocks, does not activate brain regions involving empathic concerns.

Replications and variations

Milgram's variations

In Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View (1974), Milgram describes nineteen variations of his experiment, some of which had not been previously reported.

Several experiments varied the distance between the participant (teacher) and the learner. Generally, when the participant was physically closer to the learner, the participant's compliance decreased. In the variation where the learner's physical immediacy was closest, where the participant had to hold the learner's arm onto a shock plate, 30 percent of participants completed the experiment. The participant's compliance also decreased if the experimenter was physically further away (Experiments 1–4). For example, in Experiment 2, where participants received telephonic instructions from the experimenter, compliance decreased to 21 percent. Some participants deceived the experimenter by pretending to continue the experiment.

In Experiment 8, an all-female contingent was used; previously, all participants had been men. Obedience did not significantly differ, though the women communicated experiencing higher levels of stress.

Experiment 10 took place in a modest office in Bridgeport, Connecticut, purporting to be the commercial entity "Research Associates of Bridgeport" without apparent connection to Yale University, to eliminate the university's prestige as a possible factor influencing the participants' behavior. In those conditions, obedience dropped to 47.5 percent, though the difference was not statistically significant.

Milgram also combined the effect of authority with that of conformity. In those experiments, the participant was joined by one or two additional "teachers" (also actors, like the "learner"). The behavior of the participants' peers strongly affected the results. In Experiment 17, when two additional teachers refused to comply, only 4 of 40 participants continued in the experiment. In Experiment 18, the participant performed a subsidiary task (reading the questions via microphone or recording the learner's answers) with another "teacher" who complied fully. In that variation, 37 of 40 continued with the experiment.

Replications

Play media

A virtual replication of the experiment, with an avatar serving as the learner

Around the time of the release of Obedience to Authority in 1973–1974, a version of the experiment was conducted at La Trobe University in Australia. As reported by Perry in her 2012 book Behind the Shock Machine, some of the participants experienced long-lasting psychological effects, possibly due to the lack of proper debriefing by the experimenter.

In 2002, the British artist Rod Dickinson created The Milgram Re-enactment, an exact reconstruction of parts of the original experiment, including the uniforms, lighting, and rooms used. An audience watched the four-hour performance through one-way glass windows. A video of this performance was first shown at the CCA Gallery in Glasgow in 2002.

A partial replication of the experiment was staged by British illusionist Derren Brown and broadcast on UK's Channel 4 in The Heist (2006).

Another partial replication of the experiment was conducted by Jerry M. Burger in 2006 and broadcast on the Primetime series Basic Instincts. Burger noted that "current standards for the ethical treatment of participants clearly place Milgram's studies out of bounds." In 2009, Burger was able to receive approval from the institutional review board by modifying several of the experimental protocols. Burger found obedience rates virtually identical to those reported by Milgram in 1961–62, even while meeting current ethical regulations of informing participants. In addition, half the replication participants were female, and their rate of obedience was virtually identical to that of the male participants. Burger also included a condition in which participants first saw another participant refuse to continue. However, participants in this condition obeyed at the same rate as participants in the base condition.

In the 2010 French documentary Le Jeu de la Mort (The Game of Death), researchers recreated the Milgram experiment with an added critique of reality television by presenting the scenario as a game show pilot. Volunteers were given €40 and told they would not win any money from the game, as this was only a trial. Only 16 of 80 "contestants" (teachers) chose to end the game before delivering the highest-voltage punishment.

The experiment was performed on Dateline NBC on an episode airing April 25, 2010.

The Discovery Channel aired the "How Evil are You" segment of Curiosity on October 30, 2011. The episode was hosted by Eli Roth, who produced results similar to the original Milgram experiment, though the highest-voltage punishment used was 165 volts, rather than 450 volts.

Due to increasingly widespread knowledge of the experiment, recent replications of the procedure have had to ensure that participants were not previously aware of it.

Other variations

Charles Sheridan and Richard King (at the University of Missouri and the University of California, Berkeley, respectively) hypothesized that some of Milgram's subjects may have suspected that the victim was faking, so they repeated the experiment with a real victim: a "cute, fluffy puppy" who was given real, albeit apparently harmless, electric shocks. Their findings were similar to those of Milgram: half of the male subjects and all of the females obeyed throughout. Many subjects showed high levels of distress during the experiment, and some openly wept. In addition, Sheridan and King found that the duration for which the shock button was pressed decreased as the shocks got higher, meaning that for higher shock levels, subjects were more hesitant.

Media depictions

• Obedience is a black-and-white film of the experiment, shot by Milgram himself. It is distributed by Alexander Street Press;
• The Tenth Level was a fictionalized 1975 CBS television drama about the experiment, featuring William Shatner and Ossie Davis;
• I as in Icarus is a 1979 French conspiracy thriller with Yves Montand as a lawyer investigating the assassination of the President. The movie is inspired by the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent Warren Commission investigation. Digging into the psychology of the Lee Harvey Oswald type character, the attorney finds out the "decoy shooter" participated in the Milgram experiment. The ongoing experiment is presented to the unsuspecting lawyer;
• Foolin' Around is a 1980 movie starring Gary Busey and Annette O'Toole, which uses a Milgram experiment parody in a comedic scene;
• Vaguely referenced at the start of the 1984 film Ghostbusters, character Doctor Peter Venkman gives electric shocks to a male subject while flirting with a female subject. Prior to the shocks both subjects show increased stress, but the male subject ends the experiment early, saying it's "Pissing me off. You can keep the five bucks";
• The track "We Do What We're Told (Milgram's 37)" on Peter Gabriel's 1986 album So is a reference to Milgram's Experiment 18, in which 37 of 40 people were prepared to administer the highest level of shock;
• Referenced in Alan Moore's graphic novel V for Vendetta (1988-1989) as a reason why Dr. Surridge has lost faith in humanity;
• Atrocity is a 2005 film re-enactment of the Milgram Experiment;
• The Human Behavior Experiments is a 2006 documentary by Alex Gibney about major experiments in social psychology, shown along with modern incidents highlighting the principles discussed. Along with Stanley Milgram's study in obedience, the documentary shows the diffusion of responsibility study of John Darley and Bibb Latané and the Stanford Prison Experiment of Philip Zimbardo;
• A 2006 Derren Brown special named The Heist repeated the Milgram experiment to test whether the participants will take part in a staged heist afterwards;
• The 2003 Malcolm in the Middle episode "Malcolm Films Reese" features the main character being forced to extract personal secrets from his brother Reese while secretly filming them in a project Malcolm's teacher compares to the Milgram Experiment;
• Chip Kidd's 2008 novel The Learners is about the Milgram experiment and features Stanley Milgram as a character;
• The Milgram Experiment is a 2009 film by the Brothers Gibbs that chronicles the story of Stanley Milgram's experiments;
• The 2008 Dar Williams song "Buzzer" is about the experiment. "I'm feeling sorry for this guy that I pressed to shock / He gets the answers wrong I have to up the watts / And he begged me to stop but they told me to go / I pressed the buzzer";
• "Authority", a 2008 episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, features Merrit Rook, a suspect played by Robin Williams, who employs the strip search prank call scam, identifying himself as "Detective Milgram". He later reenacts a version of the Milgram experiment on Det. Elliot Stabler by ordering him to administer electric shocks to Det. Olivia Benson, whom Rook has bound and is thus helpless;
• Episode 114 of the 2009 Howie Mandel show Howie Do It repeated the experiment with a single pair of subjects using the premise of a Japanese game show;
• Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Season 9 Episode 6, April 5, 2010, "Abel & Willing," features Dr. Abel Hazard (Dallas Roberts) who explains the Milgram experiment to a $5000 prostitute he hired for the evening. The original Milgrim documentary film, Obedience, is playing on the TV in the scene;
• The 2010 film Zenith references and dramatically depicts the Milgram experiment;
• The 2010 video game Fallout: New Vegas featured a place called "Vault 11,' inspired by the Milgram experiment, which demanded the residents to sacrifice one of their own once a year and told them they would be exterminated if they failed to comply. In addition, lines spoken by the vault's computer are near-verbatim lines from the experiment urging the player's compliance;
• The Discovery Channel's Curiosity TV series October 30, 2011 episode, "How Evil Are You?" features Eli Roth recreating the experiment asking the question, "Fifty years later, have we changed?";
• The 2012 film Compliance, written and directed by Craig Zobel, shows a group of employees assisting in the interrogation of a young counter assistant at the commands of a person who claims to be a police officer over the phone, demonstrating the willingness of subjects to follow orders from authority figures;
• The Fox TV series Bones featured a December 4, 2014 episode titled "The Mutilation of the Master Manipulator," where the murder victim, a college psychology professor, is shown administering the Milgram experiment;
• Experimenter, a 2015 film about Milgram, by Michael Almereyda, was screened to favorable reactions at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival;