The Ring of Gyges (Plato's Republic II, S359)
Gyges a poor shepherd is tending his flock when there is an earthquake. A hugh crack opens in the earth to expose a sarcopagus. Gyges reaches in and takes the ring that draws his attention. Later, when he is talking among friends, he notices that he becomes invisible when he turns the ring in toward himself. He tries this out a few times and then forms his plans. Invisible, he gains entry to the king's castle and rapes the queen. Drawing her into his nefarious plan, they kill the king and take over the kingdom. Gyges marries the queen and becomes ruler of a large and wealthy kingdom. Somehow it doesn't seem fit to say that he lives "happily ever after." But, since he is never caught, it doesn't follow that his ill-gotten gain has made him miserable.
Before finding his ring, Gyges was, at least outwardly, a well-behaved, just citizen. But the combination of vast power and no accountability drew Gyges over to the dark side. Does the human character, like that of Gyges, dissolve in the face of temptation and lack of accountability? Is the threat of punishment necessary to keep individuals moral? Is visibility and the threat of punishment all that stands between an individual and a life of injustice?
The Milgram Experiments
From 1960 until 1963, Stanley Milgram, a social psychologist, carried out a series of experiments on around 1000 subjects. Each experiment brought together three participants, a subject (or teacher), a learner, and an experimenter. In the initial orientation, the experimenter told the subject/teacher and the learner that they were about to participate in an experiment designed to measure the influence of punishment (in the form of electrical shocks) on learning. The learner was presented with information. The teacher then asked questions based on this information. If the learner answered correctly, then they went on to the next question. If the learner answered incorrectly, then he was given an electrical shock by the teacher. With each missed question the intensity of the shock increased. The experiment continued until all the questions were asked and answered.
However, these instructions constituted a deception brought upon the teacher/subject by the secret collaboration of the experimenter and the learner. The real purpose of the experiment was to determine how far individuals would go in turning against their moral views on the basis of an external authority. The learner feigned pain and suffering because there was no actual electrical shock. And the learner deliberately missed most of the questions in order to force the teacher to progress to higher and what appeared to be life-threatening levels of shock. While teachers were not physically forced to continue the experiment over the feigned protests of the learners, whenever they tried to stop it, they were told by the experimenter that they had to continue to the end.
Before the Milgram experiments were carried out, a group of psychogists were asked to predict how many teachers/subjects would go all the way to the end and give the learner what they thought were life-threatening and highly painful shocks. The consensus was that most would stop the experiment early on when the learner first began to protest. But the actual results were quite "shocking." Nearly 60 percent of the teachers went all the way and gave the learner the maximum shock. You can read more about these experiments and how they have been interpreted by reading Milgram 1974 and Flanagan 1991. You Tube has several video vignettes on the Milgram Experiments. Simply type "Milgram Experiments" in the search window and browse the results.
Can authority and environment override our everyday moral beliefs as well as the characters constructed from them? Is character robust and "trans-situational?" Or is it radically dependent on situation and environment? Can normally decent and well-behaved individuals turn into moral monsters given the right external conditions?
From Gyges and Milgram to Moral Ecology
Both of these thought experiments raise the question of the influence of environment on character. This module is designed to help increase the strength of moral character by identifying different organizational environments (called "moral ecologies") and having you developing strategies to resist their pressures and maintain integrity.
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