Deeds are judged by authority origin, not content
Evidence
What we do know for sure, thanks to Milgram, is that the subjects of his experiments went on committing deeds which they recognized as cruel solely because they were commanded to do so by the authority they accepted and vested with the ultimate responsibility for their actions. ‘These studies confirm an essential fact: the decisive factor is the response to authority, rather than the response to the particular order to administer shock. Orders originating outside of authority lose all force… It is not what subjects do but for whom they are doing it that counts. Milgram’s experiments revealed the mechanism of shifting responsibility in its pure, pristine and elementary form. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 460
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Authority is a constructed, analyzable mechanism rather than a natural given; Legal rules resting only on past authority deserve condemnation when their rationale has lapsed — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1067; Authority builds from accumulated past compliance without requiring ongoing justification (+3 more)
Related
Broader Connections
- Authority builds from accumulated past compliance without requiring ongoing justification
#expands(0.85) - Legal rules resting only on past authority deserve condemnation when their rationale has lapsed
#complicates(0.80) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1067 - Citing sources rhetorically when they lack dispositive effect constitutes an appeal to authority
#expands(0.80) — Ruggero J. Aldisert, Agatha D. Aldisert, Logic for Lawyers- A Guide to Clear…, 1045 - Scriptural reinterpretation is useless against caste; authority itself must be denied
#contradicts(0.80) - Obeying rules, precedent, and authority means deciding against one’s own best judgment.
#expands(0.75) — Frederick Schauer, Thinking Like a Lawyer, 15