Situational Factors and Evil Acts

This assignment delves into the impact of situational factors on determining whether an act is considered evil. It examines Albert Bandura's study where students exhibited increased anxiety when their peers were labeled as 'animals' compared to being called 'nice.' The discussion highlights how labeling and social pressure can contribute to aggressive behavior. Additionally, it encourages analysis of the Stanford Prison Experiment to further understand the influence of situational context on human actions.

Running head: PHIL 226
PHIL 226
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Milgram Obedience Experiment from the perspectives of competing theories of evil
There was a famous study that was being researched by a very famous person named
Milgram in the year, 1963. There were many experiments which were being performed in order
to see that there is conflict between factors that is obedience to the authority and personal
conscience. In order to prove this, Stanley Milgram carried out the experiment which was
focused mainly on the above statement on conflict between the obedience to authority and
personal conscience (Sampson 2015).
He has implemented a number of experiments which was from the World War II. In the
war there was an instance that the persons who was being tried in the criminal court of law, and
which gave a common excuse that they were following the orders of their superiors. In relation
to this, Stanley Milgram tried to look through in his experiment that how far a person will go in
order to follow instruction and what role does personal conscience play in this scenario.
The experiment started in July, 1961, the year in which the trial of Adolf Eichmann
Jerusalem was carried out. Milgram wanted to know that whether Eichmann was really following
orders or not. So he wanted to go through and realize from the experiment that how far a person
go to follow the orders from their superiors (Parmar 2017).
The Germans were known for their obedience towards their seniors or authority. Thus to
perform his experiment he took the Germans as they were very obedient towards their figures
that are in authority. In this regard he also gave a newspaper advertisement so as to get male
participants. The participants were chosen as the teacher so that they understand how far a person
will go to obey the order of the authority figures. He wanted to know the common people who

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can be influenced in such a way that they go to a very far extent so as to give pain to others for
obeying orders (Reicher, Haslam and Miller 2014).
The Stanford Prison experiment (SPE) from the perspectives of competing theories of evil
It is one of the most renowned or the most famous study which was being carried out by
Stanford in the years of the history in the field of psychology. Stanford Prison has experimented
on the human nature and human psychology in relation to evil. He studied that fact that if a
person faces an abusive situation then what will be the instant reaction of that person and does he
forget the manners and bindings in that particular situation (Gerrig et al. 2105).
Then Stanford Prison performed the experiment on the famous study on the history of the
subject psychology. The result of the above experiment was horrifying since it has drawn
sweeping conclusions about the human nature and the evolution on the concept of evil. He has
further experimented that the power that a bad or an abusive situation has, so that it is able to
induce or indulge the good people in committing or doing evil.
In particular, Phil Zimbarid performed the above study so that they are able to show that
there is a strong situational force which has an overriding effect on the personality of the moral
and ethical values therefore the latter will be of small or less count. He claimed that when a
person is put into a situation where he has the power to have control over others like that the
guards in the prison have on the prisoners, and this will be the Act which is abusive in a way
(Zimbardo, Breckenridge and Moghaddam 2015).
Further, the results of the experiment were applied to the prisoner. The limitations of the
study were that the size was very small and the improper way the experiment was conducted.
Closer examination was conducted and it revealed the fact that the adequate test was conducted

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and there was no satisfactory account where the differences in the individual behavior were
shown by the participants who have been offered (Adams and Balfour 2014).
According to Haney, this describes that the hypothesis defended the poor condition of the
prisoners in prisons to evil prisoners. The critics said that the system is poor in the prison due to
the poor condition given by the guards. This explanation is such that it will move us away from
the social, economic and political causes that are very difficult to change without the social
upheaval (Mastroianni, 2015.). A few years before the research paper influences the outcomes of
the experiment and the people who have to volunteer in the study on the life in the prison will
have distinctive personality traits which will make them act to be in an abusive behavior (Gulley
2015).
Whether the theory of Stanford or Milgram experiments the theory of evil which provides
the most convincing account of moral evil and the most plausible analysis
At the starting of the experiment by Stanford they were given and introduce to another
participant, who was working with the experiment.
There are two rooms which have been used by the learner and again by the teacher to
experiment with an electric shock generator. The learner was taken to be trapped into the chairs
with electrodes and the teacher tests given to him by naming a word and asking the learner to
recall its partner from the choices given. The theory explains that guards in the prison who acted
in a brutal way are due to the reason they are brutal evil person.
In the story of the life journey, Phil Zimbardo exposes in his famous Stanford Prison
Experiment (SPE) and the equally famous Milgram experiment on obedience to authority with
the scandalous events at the Abu Ghraib prison during the war in Iraq. The main point is that ll

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the people should be responsible for their own deed and also examine the situational code of
conduct. The persons or the situation should be able to categorize accordingly.The conclusion of
the book proposes to continue to study the power of Situational and Systemic forces that can
influence normal individuals to commit evil, inhumane acts, but also with the thought of turning
that influence in the direction of heroic, humane behavior.
The Psychology of evil
The situation transformational of the characters begins with the questions of “am I
capable of evil” Zimbardo then reflected on the truths that the world is filled with both good and
evil. The rules were used to express the harmonious setting where the guards, the guards asserted
their new authority with creative evil or inaction, whereas the prisoners became rather
submissive.
The SPE: Ethics and Extensions
In this experiment which involved that no deception for inspection by the outsiders and
the chapter covers the follow up stories of many people involved as well as the concepts which
will lead to further research.
Can ordinary motives lead to evil
In the few years the philosophers said that they believed the concept of evil. The scientist,
journalist and the politicians reviewed all the political, social, legal and philosophic concept of
being evil. They tried to respond to the atrocities of horror in eighty years and they were not able
to capture the moral significance of these action which distinguishes the wrong or evil
(Rosenbaum 2014).

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The motives to term evil has two meanings, firstly there is a broader concept and
secondly the narrow concept. The first concept of evil means that the bad or the wrongful state of
affairs. Evil is of two types firstly the natural evil and then the moral evil. Natural evil are
defined as those which results from the negligence of moral agents. The most significant
example of moral evil is murder or lying and hurricanes being an example of natural evil (Miller
2016).
When a person has an ordinary motive it might sometime lead him to evil. It is believed
that no persons have all the attributes of being good and neither it is possible that they have all
the attributes if being evil.
Distinction between evil actions and evil persons
It is seen that people are forced to obey things when they are forced. The psychologist
Stanley Milgram has researched on the effect of authority on obedience. Milgram has
experimented that during his main walks of life, the respondent was told to experiment the study
which leads to evil actions or evil persons (Godwyn 2017). They were given a token money for
participating in an award. Both the actions of being a teacher well as the student were given to
them, but at last they played the role of the student .
The main differences are that there is nothing so evil person, thus a person who performs
an evil action is said to be an evil person by one and all. No person is evil by birth, only the
person who performs evil action or their code of conduct is evil is said to be an evil person in the
society (Brannigan 2013).

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Influence of situational factors on evil conduct is generally more important than character
in explaining evil
It is true that the situational factors are much critical and relevant in determining the fact
that that whether the act is evil or not. In the year 1975, a psychologist Albert Bandura,
experimented that when during a case they were asked to work with the students of another
school. In one task the assistance called the group of students as animals and in another they
called the students in that group nice people. Albert Bandura found that all the students wanted
tp believe that there is a increase in the level of the anxiety in the level of the students and they
heard them called as animals. It is seen that the people are more aggressive when they were told
animals than when they were told nice (Baumeister, Ainsworth and Vohs, 2016).
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References
Adams, G. and Balfour, D., 2014. Unmasking administrative evil. Routledge.
Baumeister, R.F., Ainsworth, S.E. and Vohs, K.D., 2016. Are groups more or less than the sum
of their members? The moderating role of individual identification. Behavioral and Brain
Sciences, 39.
Brannigan, A., 2013. Beyond the banality of evil: Criminology and genocide. Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Gerrig, R.J., Zimbardo, P.G., Campbell, A.J., Cumming, S.R. and Wilkes, F.J., 2015. Psychology
and life. Pearson Higher Education AU.
Godwyn, M., 2017. The banality of good and evil: Ethics courses in business management
education. In Dimensional Corporate Governance (pp. 37-48). Springer International Publishing.
Gulley, J., 2015. Multitudes Gather: An Overview and Analysis of the Evolution of Research
Concerning Crowd Behavior. JCCC Honors Journal, 6(1), p.2.
Mastroianni, G.R., 2015. Obedience in perspective: Psychology and the Holocaust. Theory &
Psychology, 25(5), pp.657-669.
Miller, A.G. ed., 2016. The social psychology of good and evil. Guilford Publications.
Parmar, B.L., 2017. Disobedience of Immoral Orders from Authorities: An Issue Construction
Perspective. Organization Studies, p.0170840616670439.

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Reicher, S.D., Haslam, S.A. and Miller, A.G., 2014. What makes a person a perpetrator? The
intellectual, moral, and methodological arguments for revisiting Milgram's research on the
influence of authority. Journal of Social Issues, 70(3), pp.393-408.
Rosenbaum, R., 2014. Explaining Hitler: The search for the origins of his evil. Hachette UK.
Sampson, E.E., 2015. Dialogic Partners and the Shaping of Social Reality: Implications for Good
and Evil in Milgram’s Studies of Obedience. Pastoral Psychology, 64(1), pp.51-61.
Zimbardo, P.G., Breckenridge, J.N. and Moghaddam, F.M., 2015. Culture, militarism, and
America’s heroic future. Culture & Psychology, 21(4), pp.505-514.