[RADIOLAB INTRO]

PAT WALTERS: Hello, David.

DAVID BUSS: Yes, hello.

PAT: This is Pat.

DAVID BUSS: Oh, hi Pat.

ROBERT KRULWICH: Let's begin with this story from our producer Pat Walters.

JAD ABUMRAD: Pat, go ahead.

PAT: Okay. So I heard this one from this guy named David.

DAVID BUSS: My name is David Buss.

PAT: Two Ss. He's a psychology professor.

DAVID BUSS: At the University of Texas at Austin.

PAT: And this particular story, it comes from a book that David wrote.

PAT: Could you just—just tell me the little story that you begin your book with?

DAVID BUSS: Okay. Yes. This is one of the things that's—this was one of the things that sparked my interest in the topic of murder.

PAT: The whole thing happened several years ago.

DAVID BUSS: I had a very good friend.

PAT: Another professor at the university.

DAVID BUSS: And I used to socialize with him and—and his wife. And one evening, they were throwing a party and invited me over. And so when I went to the party, the party was already in full swing when I got there. Walked in and asked his wife where this friend of mine was. And she had got a disgusted look on her face and said that he was up in the bedroom. And so I went up to the bedroom to find him and he was, you know, in a rage.

PAT: In a rage how? Like, you walked into the room, what do you find?

DAVID BUSS: Well, he started—he started fuming that his wife had dissed him. And ...

PAT: What did she do?

DAVID BUSS: She expressed disapproval about his clothing choices.

PAT: She made fun of his shirt or something.

DAVID BUSS: But did it publicly in front of her friends, so it was kind of a—e felt publicly humiliated.

PAT: And while David's sitting in the bedroom with this friend, the guy looks up at him and he says ...

DAVID BUSS: "I'm gonna kill her."

PAT: How—how did he say it? Like quietly, or ...?

DAVID BUSS: Like, through his teeth. You know, "I'm gonna kill her."

PAT: David had always known this guy to be pretty mild mannered.

DAVID BUSS: But he is a large, very strong man, with a black belt in karate. I knew what he was capable of, so I suggested that we go out for a walk. And I basically spent the next half hour walking around with him trying to cool him off.

PAT: And eventually he did.

DAVID BUSS: He just calmed down.

PAT: Hmm. And did you go back to the party then and, like, continue dinner partying for a while?

DAVID BUSS: Yeah, I did.

PAT: And he did too?

DAVID BUSS: Yes. And he did too. And then he seemed fine when I said goodbye to him. He seemed calm. And I left and went home. And then it was several hours later in the middle of the night that I got the call.

PAT: And it was his friend.

DAVID BUSS: And he says, "Can I come over and sleep on your couch? If I don't leave my house right now, I'm gonna kill her." He was in this state of fury, he said, and instead of hitting his wife, he smashed his fist into the bathroom mirror. And then realized that he had to leave the house or he was gonna do damage to her.

PAT: And then—and so he says that and you're like, "Okay. Yes. Come over now."

DAVID BUSS: Yeah. Exactly.

PAT: Meanwhile later that night, the other side of town.

DAVID BUSS: His wife went into hiding. Literally disappeared for six months and didn't tell anyone where she was because she was terrified that he was gonna kill her.

ROBERT: This story made us wonder: is David's friend ...

JAD: Is he unusual?

ROBERT: Or does everybody at some point have something dark in them that just tiptoes out, just from time to time?

JAD: Yeah. This is Radiolab, and today we're gonna get bad. So to speak.

ROBERT: We've done a good show.

JAD: And this is "The Bad Show."

ROBERT: So you ask, like, why do people do bad things?

JAD: What does it actually mean to be bad, anyways? Like, how do you tell the real baddies from the rest of us?

ROBERT: That's our hour.

JAD: I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab.

ROBERT: "The Bad Show."

JAD: Back to Pat.

PAT: Okay. So what happened to David that night with his friend got him really curious about murder and badness and all these things we're thinking about, but it wasn't until a few years later that he learned something that really put what happened that night into context. By this point, David's moved onto a new university and he's teaching an introductory psychology class.

DAVID BUSS: And I devoted one class session to the topic of homicide and why people kill. And I designed a little questionnaire where I simply ask the students, you know, "Have you ever thought about killing someone?" And they would circle yes or no.

PAT: Then he left some space at the bottom for them to elaborate if they said yes.

DAVID BUSS: And, you know, the class ended and I went back to my office. And I just sat at my desk and started reading these. And I was just astonished.

PAT: To find page after page of yesses. And not just yesses ...

DAVID BUSS: But these very vivid descriptions about ...

PAT: Who they would kill, where they'd do it, when.

DAVID BUSS: The precise method.

PAT: How many of them went into that kind of detail?

DAVID BUSS: I would say 75 or 80 percent.

PAT: Wow! Were you a little bit, like, horrified? Like, "Oh my God. My students are murderers!"

DAVID BUSS: Well, horrified is—I was pretty stunned. And so I expanded the sample where we asked about 5,000 people.

PAT: All over the world.

DAVID BUSS: Singapore, Peru, the UK.

PAT: That same question.

DAVID BUSS: Have you ever thought about killing someone? And 91 percent of the men said yes. And 84 percent of the women.

PAT: Said "Yes, I've thought about killing someone."

DAVID BUSS: Yes. If any sizable fraction actually acted on their homicidal fantasies, the streets would be running—running red.

ROBERT: Yeah. But that's just a—those are fantasies.

PAT: Some of them actually seem like ...

DAVID BUSS: Well, here's one.

PAT: ... something more than just fantasies.

DAVID BUSS: From a woman.

PAT: Sure.

DAVID BUSS: Okay. This is a 20-year-old female. We ask "Who do you think about killing?" And she said, "My ex-boyfriend. We lived together for a couple months. He was very aggressive. He started calling me a whore and told me he didn't love me anymore, so I broke up with him. Then a few months later, he started calling me, trying to get back together, but I didn't want to. He said that if I ever had a relationship with another man, he was going to send videos of us having sex to all the people in my university. The thing is that I do have a new boyfriend, but my ex-boyfriend doesn't know that yet, and I'm terrified that he'll do what he says. Then suddenly, the thought occurred to me that my life would be much happier without him in existence."

DAVID BUSS: And then she said, "I actually did this. I invited him for dinner. And as he was in the kitchen looking stupid, peeling the carrots to make salad, I came up to him laughingly, gently, so that he wouldn't suspect anything. I thought about grabbing a knife quickly and stabbing him in the chest repeatedly until he was dead. I actually did the first thing, but he saw my intentions and ran away." When asked how close she came to killing him, she estimated 60 percent.

ROBERT: Sixty. I don't think I've ever had a fantasy that—that anatomically specific where I would see the part of the other person that I was gonna stab or plan it like that.

JAD: Well, have you ever been blackmailed the way this woman was being blackmailed?

ROBERT: No. No one has ever said about a sex tape that I've ever—you know?

JAD: So you don't know. It is a fair question to ask what are the conditions under which you or me or any of us could do awful things?

ROBERT: I think they have to be extreme in the extreme.

JAD: Well ...

ROBERT: You know how mild-mannered I am.

JAD: No. No. And you know what? This actually brings us to the first topic of the hour, so let me—just to set it up, Robert, I'm gonna give you this piece of paper here.

ROBERT: What is this?

JAD: So these are some word pairs. So read these words that you see.

ROBERT: These words here?

JAD: Yep.

ROBERT: "Nice day."

JAD: Uh-huh.

ROBERT: "Fat neck."

JAD: Yes.

ROBERT: "Sad face." What is this? "Soft hair."

JAD: Yeah.

ROBERT: I don't know what this is.

JAD: They're just word pairs.

ROBERT: "Hard ..."

JAD: I want you to commit them to memory.

ROBERT: Commit them to memory? You know ...

JAD: And while you're doing that, just give me your finger. I'm gonna ...

ROBERT: "Fast bird."

JAD: ... connect it to this little electrode to your finger.

ROBERT: "Hard."

JAD: There you go. There.

ROBERT: Wait a second. "Clear air."

JAD: Okay. So give me the paper back.

ROBERT: Already?

JAD: Time's up. So I'm just gonna go into this other room over here. Can you hear me?

ROBERT: What? What?

JAD: Right. So I'm gonna talk to you over this intercom, okay?

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: I'm gonna give you a test.

ROBERT: I'm not ready for this!

JAD: Pay attention.

ROBERT: All right.

JAD: To the best of your memory, which word was matched with "nice?" Was it "nice day?" "Nice sky?" "Nice job?" Or "nice chair?"

ROBERT: "Nice ..."

JAD: Answer please.

ROBERT: I don't know. Wait a second.

JAD: Just push the button that corresponds to the right word. Go.

ROBERT: Okay. I'm choosing "job."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Wrong. Answer is "day."]

JAD: Sorry, man.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: 285 volts.]

JAD: I'm gonna give you a little ...

ROBERT: [laughs] What did you just do?

JAD: She just burst my eardrums. [laughs] God! Obviously no need to be alarmed. That was not a real shock. We were just enacting an old very famous experiment you may have heard about.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: It is May, 1962.]

JAD: Done by this guy.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: An experiment is being conducted in the Elegant Interaction Laboratory at Yale University.]

JAD: That's Stanley Milgram, talking about the experiment in a film. In case you've never heard of this—probably have, but in case you haven't, here's what he did. He recruited a bunch of subjects.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: The subjects are 40 males between the ages of 20 and 50.]

JAD: Just normal everyday dudes.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: The subjects range in occupation from corporation presidents to good humor men and plumbers.]

JAD: And he ran them through something like what you and I just did. He would have each subject sit down at a table.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Have a seat right here.]

JAD: In front of this really impressive-looking machine.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: This machine ...]

JAD: It had lots of switches on it.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: ... generates electric shocks. When you press one of the switches all the way down, the learner gets a shock.]

JAD: And in the other room, there was a guy who he called the learner who was supposed to have memorized some words. And every time that guy got the word wrong ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Wrong!]

JAD: ... like you just did.

ROBERT: Yep.

JAD: Which happened constantly.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: The answer is neck.]

JAD: The volunteer ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: 300 volts.]

JAD: ... was instructed to shock that guy.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

JAD: With higher and higher voltage. Now the volunteer couldn't see the guy he was shocking, but he could definitely hear him.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

JAD: Milgram staged the whole thing like it was some experiment about memory and punishment, but of course it wasn't about that.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Oh, man.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Continue please.]

JAD: It was about how far would these people go. How many times would they shock that sad ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

JAD: ... sap in the next room just because they were being told to?

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Let me out of here! Let me out of here!]

JAD: That guy yelling of course was an actor and the shocks weren't real, but the questions in the air at the time were very real.

[NEWS CLIP: Prosecution ...]

[NEWS CLIP: The Attorney General.]

JAD: This was a moment when human cruelty was on trial—quite literally.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: When I stand before you, judges of Israel, in this court to accuse Adolf Eichmann, I do not stand alone.]

BEN WALKER: So Stanley Milgram actually begins these experiments the same year that Adolf Eichmann goes on trial for Nazi war crimes.

JAD: That's radio producer Ben Walker. He'll be our guide for this segment.

BEN WALKER: And in the trial, when the prosecutors essentially ask him, "How you came to commit genocide?" He would say over and over again ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Adolf Eichmann: It was not my personal affair.]

BEN WALKER: I was just following orders.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Adolf Eichmann: I had to do what I was ordered.]

BEN WALKER: And it's this defense. This is basically what Stanley Milgram set out to test.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: 285 volts.]

BEN WALKER: In a lab at Yale University with a bunch of regular Americans.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

JAD: Like, is that something that's universal?

BEN WALKER: Yeah.

JAD: Or just an Eichmann thing?

BEN WALKER: Yeah. He figured maybe one percent of these men would keep flicking these switches up to the highest voltage, but that's not what he found. 65 percent ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Continue please.]

BEN WALKER: ... were willing ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

BEN WALKER: ... to shock their fellow citizens over and over again.

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]]

BEN WALKER: ... even past when they were screaming in pain.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Something's happened to that man there.]

JAD: Even when they stopped screaming?

BEN WALKER: Yeah. When they were maybe dead.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: You better check in on him, sir. He won't answer. We have nothing.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Please continue. Go on please.]

BEN WALKER: They continued shocking their corpses. His experiment remains one of the most famous experiments of the 20th century.

[NEWS CLIP: In 1962 Stanley Milgram shocked the world with his study on obedience.]

BEN WALKER: It is still trotted out to explain everything from hazing to war crimes.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: What is there in human nature ...]

BEN WALKER: To gang behavior.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: That allows an individual to act inhumanely?]

BEN WALKER: Genocide.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Harshly.]

BEN WALKER: It's like a downloadable-from-the-internet instant defense for doing wrong. But if you look at Milgram's work closely ...

ALEX HASLAM: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

BEN WALKER: ... like this guy did ...

ALEX HASLAM: Alex Haslam, professor of psychology at the University of Exeter.

BEN WALKER: ... then a different picture will emerge.

ALEX HASLAM: Really, that story has been told a million and one times for the last 50 years. We just got to get—get out of it where ...

BEN WALKER: Now what you need to understand about Alex Haslam is that he hates it when interviewers only want to talk about the baseline study.

ALEX HASLAM: The one that everybody knows, the so-called baseline.

BEN WALKER: The 65 percent one.

JAD: The one we just talked about.

BEN WALKER: Yeah.

JAD: So there's more? There's more to it?

ALEX HASLAM: Yeah, because actually, he studied between 20 and 40 different variants of this same paradigm.

BEN WALKER: Stanley Milgram took electric shock very seriously. He did this experiment a bunch of times in a bunch of different ways.

ALEX HASLAM: Had all sorts of different things.

BEN WALKER: He would change where the shocker and the shockee sat.

ALEX HASLAM: He had women participants. He had an experimenter who wasn't a scientist, but was a member of the general public.

BEN WALKER: And every scenario produced a different result.

JAD: Really?

BEN WALKER: Yup.

ALEX HASLAM: Let me—I mean, just—I've got in front of me, I've just got the data from the Milgram. So let me just get that out.

BEN WALKER: So again, the baseline study is the one where 65 percent of the volunteers ...

ALEX HASLAM: Go all the way.

BEN WALKER: Highest dose of electricity.

ALEX HASLAM: XXX.

BEN WALKER: But in experiment number three, if they put the shockee in the same room with the shocker so the shocker could actually see the person as a shockee ...

ALEX HASLAM: Obedience drops to about 40 percent.

BEN WALKER: And then in experiment number four, when the teacher has to hold the learner's hand down.

ALEX HASLAM: On a plate.

BEN WALKER: ... and order him to feel the shocks.

ALEX HASLAM: It drops to about 30 percent.

JAD: Wow!

BEN WALKER: Experiment 14.

ALEX HASLAM: If the experimenter is not a scientist, but is an ordinary man ...

BEN WALKER: Not wearing a white coat.

ALEX HASLAM: Obedience drops to 20 percent.

JAD: Oh!

ROBERT: Really?

JAD: Well, how low could we go?

ALEX HASLAM: Okay.

BEN WALKER: Here's another one.

ALEX HASLAM: This variant ...

BEN WALKER: Experiment 17.

ALEX HASLAM: There's you and there's two other participants.

BEN WALKER: Both actors.

ALEX HASLAM: If those two participants refuse to go on ...

BEN WALKER: Like, saying like, "I don't want to kill a guy."

ALEX HASLAM: Only 10 percent under those circumstances go on. And then, the final one ...

BEN WALKER: Experiment 15.

ALEX HASLAM: Of course normally, you just have one experimenter who's giving you these instructions.

BEN WALKER: But if you put two experimenters in the room, and ...

ALEX HASLAM: They start disagreeing with each other. And in this one you get zero percent going all the way.

BEN WALKER: Zero?

ALEX HASLAM: Zero in that condition.

BEN WALKER: You said zero.

ALEX HASLAM: None ...

BEN WALKER: That's absolute zero.

ALEX HASLAM: Not one person.

BEN WALKER: No one?

ALEX HASLAM: No.

BEN WALKER: Not a soul.

ALEX HASLAM: Exactly zero percent.

JAD: Well, all right. I'm starting to feel a little bit better about my fellow man.

BEN WALKER: One second. Hey, hey, hey, hey! Shhh. Okay.

ROBERT: Where is he?

BEN WALKER: I'm in a closet.

JAD: In a closet?

BEN WALKER: Because this room is echo-y and, you know, there's nothing like a closet full of clothes to, like, help balance that out.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: That's true. All right. So keep going.

BEN WALKER: So you see, it's just in that one experiment that 65 percent of people are willing to go all the way.

JAD: Yeah.

BEN WALKER: But in all of these other scenarios, they don't. And even when they do say yes, even when they go along with the experiment, as you can see in the film ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Woman.]

BEN WALKER: ... they struggle.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Continue using the last switch on the board, please.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: I'm not getting no answer.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Please continue. The next word is white.]

ALEX HASLAM: They have debates with themselves.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Don't you think you should look in on him, please?]

ALEX HASLAM: Debates with the experimenter.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Not once we've started the experiment.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: But what if something's happened to the man? He had an attack or something there?

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: The experiment requires that we continue. Go on please.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Don't the man's health mean anything?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Whether the learner likes it or not.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: But he might be dead in there!]

BEN WALKER: What's interesting is that how all of these struggles, all of them, play out the same way. It's the experimenter ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Go on, please.]

BEN WALKER: ... prodding the shockers along.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: You're gonna keep giving what, 450 volts every shock now?]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: That's correct.]

BEN WALKER: For me, it's all about the prods.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: The next word's 'white.']

BEN WALKER: This is what totally pulled me into this story.

JAD: The prods.

BEN WALKER: Stanley Milgram had four scripted prods that he wrote out for his experimenters.

JAD: For when the subjects didn't want to continue?

BEN WALKER: Yup. The first one was "Please go on."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Continue please.]

BEN WALKER: And if they didn't go on, if they resisted, the experimenter would break out prod number two. "The experiment requires that you continue."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Well, the experiment requires that you continue.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Well, I mean, I know it does, sir, but I mean, he's up to 195 volts!]

BEN WALKER: And if they still were resisting or struggling, they'd get prod number three.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: It's absolutely essential that you continue.]

JAD: It's absolutely essential.

BEN WALKER: It's a little bit more direct.

ALEX HASLAM: It's a bit stronger. It's not an order.

JAD: Not quite.

BEN WALKER: But the fourth prod ...

ALEX HASLAM: Really, the critical—the critical force prod.

BEN WALKER: Is an absolute order. The fourth prod is ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: You have no other choice, teacher.]

BEN WALKER: "You have no other choice, teacher."

ALEX HASLAM: You must continue.

BEN WALKER: That is definitely an order.

ALEX HASLAM: Exactly.

BEN WALKER: But every time the experimenter pulled out the fourth prod, and this was confirmed when the experiment was redone in 2006, total disobedience.

ROBERT: Total disobedience?

BEN WALKER: Any time the experimenter said, "You must continue," the shocker would say, "Hell no, I don't."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: You have no other choice, teacher.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: I do have a choice. I'm not gonna go ahead with it.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Well, we'll have to discontinue the experiment then.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: I'm sorry.]

BEN WALKER: Here's another one.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: You have no other choice. You must ...]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Yes, I have a choice.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Fact is if you don't continue, we're going to have to discontinue the experiment.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: We have to. He says cut it out. After all, he knows what he can stand. That's my thing and that's where I'm gonna stand on it.]

JAD: Wow! So the subject seemed willing to shock another human being, but as soon as you say it's an order ...

ALEX HASLAM: They don't do it.

JAD: Huh!

ALEX HASLAM: Now that's important. It's very important because if you ask university undergraduates what does the Milgram study show, they will invariably say something like "They show that people obey orders," okay? Well, actually the one thing that the study really doesn't show is that people obey orders. And it's a pretty big thing to miss. It's a pretty [bleep] big thing to miss. [laughs] Isn't it? Really?

JAD: So wait, if it doesn't show that people are just obeying orders ...

ALEX HASLAM: Yeah.

JAD: ... then what does it show?

ALEX HASLAM: Okay. I think it looks—it's like this.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: All right. Let's go on to our instructions. We will begin with this test ...]

ALEX HASLAM: The participants are there in the study ...

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Each pair of words ...]

ALEX HASLAM: They've got a very plausible, very credible high-status scientist at a high-status scientific institution.

JAD: Yale.

ALEX HASLAM: Who is going to do this powerful piece of science.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: Direct your voice to the microphone in the room.]

BEN WALKER: So they sit down in the chair thinking, "Wow. This is really important. I'm about to help this quest for knowledge. I really want to do a good job."

ALEX HASLAM: Now as we sort of know in life, lots of things that we do if they're worthwhile doing, are not always easy. And you find yourself in a situation where you've got to do something that's hard.

BEN WALKER: Like shocking an innocent stranger over and over.

ALEX HASLAM: But if you think that's the right thing, if you think that science is worth pursuing, you say, "Okay. I'll go along with this."

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screaming]]

JAD: So you're saying they were shocking these people because they thought it was worthwhile?

ALEX HASLAM: Look, the participants, you know, they're not—it's not just blind obedience. "Oh, you tell me, sir. Yes sir, no sir, three bags full, sir."

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Answer, please!]

ALEX HASLAM: They're engaged with the task. They're trying to be good participants.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, volunteer: Are you all right?]

ALEX HASLAM: They're trying to do the right thing. They're not doing something because they have to. They're doing it because they think they ought to. And that's all the difference in the world.

[ARCHIVE CLIP, Stanley Milgram: 220 volts.]

[ARCHIVE CLIP: [screams]

JAD: Suddenly I'm thinking this is actually a darker interpretation than the original.

BEN WALKER: It's absolutely darker.

JAD: Because they are doing it.

BEN WALKER: No question about it.

JAD: They have the agency.

BEN WALKER: Yup.

JAD: And they think it's right. Although clearly on some level they know it isn't.

ALEX HASLAM: This is a sort of chilling comparison, which is a speech that Himmler gave to the SS, some SS leaders, when they were about to commit a range of atrocities. He said, "Look, this is what you're gonna do is—of course you don't want to do this. Of course, nobody wants to be killing other people. We realize this is hard work, but what you are doing is for the good of Germany. And this is necessary in order to advance our noble cause."

JAD: Wow. So then ...

BEN WALKER: Hey, wait! I'm almost done, guys. Give me two more minutes. Two more minutes.

JAD: [laughs] So in the Milgram case ...

BEN WALKER: Uh-huh?

JAD: ... well, if the idea is that people would do bad if they think it's good, like if it's a good noble cause. Well, what's the noble cause in this case?

BEN WALKER: Science.

JAD: Science.

BEN WALKER: You can see this in the surveys that the men filled out after the experiments were over. "This was exactly what was on my mind. If the experiment—if the experiment had to be successful, it had to be carried on."

BEN WALKER: The questionnaires they filled out are part of the Milgram archive at Yale.

BEN WALKER: "I'm willing to help in a worthwhile experiment."

BEN WALKER: And it's kind of surprising. A lot of them are really positive, even though they've just been told that they were duped.

BEN WALKER: "Research in any field is a must, particularly in this day and age." "Do you think that more studies of this sort should be carried out?" "Definitely yes."

ALEX HASLAM: We—as onlookers to this study, we have this kind of god-like sort of vision of, like, "Well, of course what they're doing is wrong." But if looked at from another perspective, there is a sense in which you could celebrate what they're doing. You—I mean, I'm not suggesting one should, but I'm just saying there is a sense in which these people are prepared to do something that's very painful to them and to someone else because they want to promote science. Well, you know, you can see that's a good thing. You know ...

JAD: Oh my [bleep] God! Because it's like we started with this experiment that we all see as evidence of humans' latent capacity of evil.

ALEX HASLAM: Yeah.

JAD: And you tell us, "Actually, no. Under some circumstances we don't do the bad thing we're told to do because"—here's another flip—"we don't have to be told. In fact, we hate being told. But we will do it on our own if we think it's good."

ALEX HASLAM: Yeah.

JAD: Now you're saying actually that you could read that, that very dark fact, as being actually evidence of something quite—quite noble.

ALEX HASLAM: Well, if you dressed it up, and if you just had some minor variance in the paradigm, you could presumably, you know, make it sound like these are people who are incredibly noble. They are. I mean, it's a fact, of course, that they're administering pain to a stranger. That's what's horrifying about it, but imagine they were administering pain to themselves. Imagine they really were—had to administer shocks to themselves or something. But if they were prepared to do that, and I suspect a lot of them would, then we'd say these are people who really believe in science. And isn't this a good thing that we have people in our society who are willing to make sacrifices for the greater good?

JAD: Hmm. So in the end, where do you come down? Do you leave this experiment in a light mood or in a dark mood?

ALEX HASLAM: Uh, I ...

JAD: Overall.

ALEX HASLAM: I would say in a powerful mood. We're close to some really fundamental truths about human nature. And, you know, my views about human nature are that it affords infinite potential for lightness and dark. There's lots and lots of lessons here, but one is I think, you know, when you are enjoined to do something for the greater good, maybe ask yourself the question: what is greater and what is good?

JAD: Now that right there. Slap some quotations around that.

ALEX HASLAM: [laughs] Yeah.

ROBERT: Our thanks to Ben Walker whose podcast—he has a podcast, and it's a good one. It's called Too Much Information.

JAD: Yes, it's awesome. Thank you, Ben. And also, thank you to Alex Haslam, professor of psychology at the University of Exeter. We'll be right back.

[ANSWERING MACHINE: Start of message.]

[BEN WALKER: Okay, here goes. Take one. My name's Benjamin Walker and here are some Radiolab credits.]

[ALEX HASLAM: Radiolab is supported in part by the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.]

[BEN WALKER: Enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world.]

[ALEX HASLAM: More information about Sloan at www.sloan.org.]

[BEN WALKER: Radiolab is produced by WNYC.]

[ALEX HASLAM: And distributed by NPR.]

[BEN WALKER: Voila! And I'm hanging up.]

[ALEX HASLAM: Bye.]

 

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