Stanley Milgram’s discussion of the Perils of Obedience Custom Essay

Important Paper:Answer either:

1. two of the four questions in part I in approximately 750-1,000 words each, OR

2. answer question 5in part II alone.
Answers are due Thursday, November 7 at 5 pm.

PART I

1. How does Stanley Milgram’s discussion of the “Perils of Obedience” bear on conceptions of professional ethics? What does Milgram believe is the relationship between the obedience and individual morality? Is individual morality the biggest determinant in how people behave in situations where they are being influenced by authority to act in ways that violate their own moral norms? Explain.

2. Regarding the usefulness and value of ethical codes, who is on firmer ground, John Ladd or Michael Davis? Why? Explain as clearly as you can.

3. Using Macintyre’s theoretical framework (that is, by reference to terms like “internal goods,” and “external goods”), explain why someone who loves the child depicted in MacIntyre’s “chess” example might offer her some candy to play chess when she doesn’t want to play? And why might one offer her twice as much candy if she plays well? Refer directly to the paragraph in “The Nature of the Virtues” where this is discussed, making sure to explain all its relevant aspects.

4. What is an engineer? Specifically, is an engineer anyone possessed of the deontic powers and responsibilities of an engineer, or is being an engineer essentially a matter of being possessed of the “substantive functional capacities” as Seumas Miller would suggest? Explain as clearly as you can.

Seumas Miller on Searle’s discussion of deontic powers:

Consider an incompetent surgeon who is incapable of performing a successful operation on anybody. . . By virtue of being a fully accredited surgeon this person has a set of deontic properties, including the right to perform surgery, and others have deontic properties in relation to him . . .Moreover, these deontic properties are maintained in part by, say, the Royal College of Surgeons, his colleagues and the community. However, the surgeon simply does not possess the substantive functional capacities of a surgeon. The deontology is there but the underlying functional capacities are not. Accordingly, it is arguably false to claim that he is a surgeon. If someone cannot perform, and knows nothing about, surgery he is surely not a surgeon, irrespective of whether he is the possessor of the highest professional qualification available, is treated as if he were a surgeon, and indeed is widely believed to be the finest surgeon in the land . . .

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-institutions/

PART II
5. On page 426 of Steven Epstein’s essay, in discussing Gieryn’s “boundary work” thesis he argues that the “recent reconfiguration of the boundaries (Gieryn 1983) between the “inside” and the “outside” of biomedicine has been the outcome of struggle.” Can the same be said for the “inside” and “outside” of engineering and its subfields?

Your task here is to do an analysis of a moment of “struggle” over norms within engineering, and questions of relevant expertise. Examine the discourse around the official NIST investigation of the collapse WTC Building 7, and determine:

1. whether that investigation was conducted in a way that conformed to the norms of engineering investigations of this sort. Determine whether the investigation sought to, and did successfully, answer the relevant questions raised about the fate of the building, or whether legitimate questions remain; and

2. how organizations critical of the NIST narrative have fared in making a case for their own expertise as a basis for rejecting the official narrative (an example of such a group would be Architects & Engineers for 9/11 truth, www.ae911truth.org). In your view, is this an organization whose voice should be considered an expert one?

Some possible resources (there are many others):

http://www.nist.gov/el/disasterstudies/wtc/

http://www.nist.gov/manuscript-publication-search.cfm?pub_id=861610

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.cfm

http://www.wtc7.net/collapsecause.html

http://www.phillymag.com/news/2013/09/11/cbs-philly-giving-uncritical-coverage-911-truthers/

www.ae911truth.org