Abstract

The actions of the average participant in Milgram’s experimental system (1963) in continuing to administer electric shocks to the subject may seem incomprehensible as regards the reasons for this obedient behaviour, given the moral reasons which conversely would justify disobedience. Milgram invokes the “climate of authority” among other explanatory factors for this behavior and I propose to investigate this line of thought. An affective atmosphere or mood recruits and favors the manifestation of a specific network of beliefs and desires. The formation of beliefs, via the formation of conscious or unconscious judgments, may have generated this affective climate in the first place. These beliefs in turn cause actions (conduct), along with the desires also recruited by the affective climate. Beliefs also cause specific mental states to occur (emotions and judgments in particular) which explains why the latter are congruent with the affective climate. Obedient behavior therefore follows specific reasons stemming from the beliefs that are recruited and prompted to manifest themselves by the “climate of authority”. The decision to disobey can then be explained by a change in affective climate, following the formation of new beliefs that are not part of the specific obedience network. The formation of these beliefs in the face of new contextual elements like the subject expressing pain generates a new affective climate. The initial climate of complete obedience, of “submission to authority", becomes a tense climate engendered by the formation of opposing beliefs. Enough of these beliefs that are opposed to obedient behavior are recruited and driven to manifest themselves by the affective climate, leading to disobedience. The aim of this article is to make the dynamics of obedience and disobedience in this experimental protocol more intelligible, and perhaps also in the institutions it mimics by taking into account the affective climate as suggested by Milgram.