The Disappearance Of A Sense Of Responsibility

It Is Easy To Ignore Responsibility When One Is Only An Intermediate Link In A Chain Of Action.

Ordinary People, Simply Doing Their Jobs, And Without Any Particular Hostility On Their Part, Can Become Agents In A Terrible Destructive Process.

Obedience Is The Psychological Mechanism That Links Individual Action To Political Purpose. It Is The Dispositional Cement That Binds Men To Systems Of Authority.

Ordinary People, Simply Doing Their Jobs, And Without Any Particular Hostility On Their Part, Can Become Agents In A Terrible Destructive Process. Moreover, Even When The Destructive Effects Of Their Work Become Patently Clear, And They Are Asked To Carry Out Actions Incompatible With Fundamental Standards Of Morality, Relatively Few People Have The Resources Needed To Resist Authority.

The Essence In Obedience Consists In The Fact That A Person Comes To View Himself As An Instrument For Carrying Out Another Person's Wishes And He Therefore No Longer Regards Himself As Responsible For His Actions.