But The Culture Has Failed, Almost Entirely,

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

I Started With The Belief That Every Person Who Came To The Laboratory Was Free To Accept Or To Reject The Dictates Of Authority. This View Sustains A Conception Of Human Dignity Insofar As It Sees In Each Man A Capacity For Choosing His Own Behavior. And As It Turned Out, Many Subjects Did, Indeed, Choose To Reject The Experimenter's Commands, Providing A Powerful Affirmation Of Human Ideals.

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

Some System Of Authority Is A Requirement Of All Communal Living, And It Is Only The Man Dwelling In Isolation Who Is Not Forced To Respond, Through Defiance Or Submission, To The Commands Of Others.

Each Individual Possesses A Conscience Which To A Greater Or Lesser Degree Serves To Restrain The Unimpeded Flow Of Impulses Destructive To Others. But When He Merges His Person Into An Organizational Structure, A New Creature Replaces Autonomous Man, Unhindered By The Limitations Of Individual Morality, Freed Of Humane Inhibition, Mindful Only Of The Sanctions Of Authority.