Introduction
It is possible to harm others in various ways, and active behavior is not always necessary. Sometimes, a lack of desire to act against evil is enough to let the atrocities happen. When people lack truthfulness, have weak social abilities, and lack religious and moral upbringing, they commit acts of omission (Kaufmann, 2018). At the same time, acts of commission happen when a person prioritizes themself over others, exhibits selfishness or conceit, or chooses to be narrow-minded (Kaufmann, 2018). In some situations, inaction can be worse than active evil decisions from an ethical point of view.
Acts of Commission vs. Omission in Zimbardo’s Experiment
The investigation reveals that circumstances can exacerbate an individual’s character. Zimbardo (2007) acknowledged that he engaged in inaction by failing to offer proper monitoring during the Stanford Prison Experiment. He knew that the students serving time in prison were everyday people with no character flaws.
Before taking on the role of the experiment’s prisoners, the students had no mental issues and were regular people, and the environment had accentuated their excessive conduct. He made it clear that he held himself personally accountable for the sin of inaction, for failing to intervene on numerous occasions throughout the experiment when the mistreatment was extremely severe. Zimbardo (2007) believed that while he had tried to control physical violence, he had fallen short in his attempts to control the humiliation the guards inflicted on the captives. As a result, he committed both the fault of omission and the inaction.
The discussed experiment presents both sides of the moral issue. For instance, Zimbardo ( 2007) continued by explaining how his combined position as a jail official and PI generated a conflict of interest that hindered his ability to request an immediate end to the test when necessary. When prisoner 8612 had to be released due to a mental collapse after just 36 hours in the experiment, Zimbardo (2007) received advice from his colleagues to end the test.
Given his involvement in the experiment, Zimbardo declined to answer this demand. As a result of their emotional anguish, additional prisoners needed to be released over a relatively brief amount of time. The remaining inmates might have been spared their psychologically terrible experiences if Zimbardo had halted the test after prisoner 8612 had suffered his mental discomfort.
It may not be easy to decide whether to participate in or avoid controversial social situations. Zimbardo’s case shows people different instances of commission, the decision to act, and omission, or the decision to do nothing. In the prison experiment, there are several instances where omission is made knowingly and when it is made unconsciously (Gushee, 2018). Readers can examine Zimbardo’s experiment to see how the absence of involvement caused damage to the subjects, illustrating the concept of subconscious omission. Until a third party pointed out the dangerous circumstances the captives were in, he did not wholly comprehend the state in which they were and persisted with the testing.
Conclusion
The above example illustrates that inaction allows the ethically controversial social situation to become the norm and continue to aggravate. As a result, more people are involved in the evil, and more individuals suffer as a consequence. The circle of violence and humiliation does not end instantly because all people become used to aggression. At the same time, it is not right to blame people who commit the act of omission as wrongdoers. They may have reasons that make them hesitate to oppose evil, even though they clearly understand that there is nothing good in the existing situation.
References
Gushee, D. P. (2018). Christian ethics: Retrospect and prospect. Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, 38(2), 3–20.
Kaufmann, L. (2018). Can ethics be taught? Journal for the Study of Religion, 31(1), 207–223.
Zimbardo, P. G. (2007). The Lucifer effect: Understanding how good people turn evil. Random House.