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 the teacher/subject would go in turning against his or her moral views at the urging of an external authority. The learner feigned pain and suffering because there was no actual electrical shock. The learner also 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 went contrary to these predictions. Over 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.
Milgram argued that his research demonstrated a propensity to delegate moral authority for one's immoral actions to those in positions of power and authority. Others have pushed these results further to assert situationalism, i.e., the claim that forces arising in situations can overpower and annul the expression in action of self, character, and character traits. In addition to what Milgram claims, opponents of virtue theory would claim that Milgram's experiments offer conclusive proof that moral exemplars, i.e.,individuals who exhibit sustained moral careers through the strength of their characters and moral virtues, do not exist and cannot exist (See Gilbert Harmon). And setting forth these so-called moral exemplars as models imposes on students moral standards that are not minimally, psychologically realistic.
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