Ordinarily if we see someone doing something bad we immediately assume that they are a bad person. There is a certainty plausibility behind thinking this, why else would someone do something bad if they were not themselves a bad person. This assumption, like any assumption is one we should be very careful of. The Stanford prison experiment showed that there are a set of social psychological variables that can make ordinary people do things they never could have imagined doing.
The experiment was comprised of 24 ordinary people who were split up into two groups, one group were to be prisoners and the other group were to be guards. The results of the study were telling and chilling. Over the week or so in which the experiment ran there was an incremental move towards increasingly brutal and inhumane behavior perpetrated by the guards even though the guards were fully aware that the prisoners under they control had done nothing wrong. Incrementally the guards were subjecting the prisoners to incrementally worse and more demeaning and de-humanising treatment to the extent that a number of the prisoners experienced genuine psychological breakdowns. The experiment was stopped before it had run its course because it was agreed that things had gotten out of hand and in fact the guards were inflicting serious and genuine psychological trauma on the prisoners.
This chilling experiment seems to show that when ordinary people are in a cruel environment in which flagrantly immoral and inhumane acts are seen as acceptable we see a marked shift in their moral consciousness. Incrementally they start to loose sight of the fact that what they doing is absolutely unacceptable, they become de-sensitized to the horrific nature of their own actions. The combination of a cruel environment, authority and no consequences for ones actions seem to cultivate the alarming capacity to do the most shocking things without feeling a sense of guilt for it.
So what is the point of taking note of this apparent fact about our weaknesses with regards to upholding what is right? The point is this; we need to be very careful about the kind of environment we cultivate in the institutions which form the bedrock of our society.
Our society is plagued by many ills which are rooted in immoral practices in our most important institutions. Corruption in our government, and the practice of giving out unsecured loan we see in our money lending establishments are some examples of these. Corruption has been so pervasive that it has in fact come to form part of the culture of our state structures. As is shown by the Stanford prison experiment, when immersed in an environment with such a culture even well intentioned individuals can see themselves slipping into the mould of corruption. Corruption breads corruption by becoming part of the culture of an organization or institution.
Not just corruption, any of the plethora of horrifying acts carried out by corporations, governments institutions, financial institutions, can be seen to be the actions of individuals who have lost sight of the despicable character of their own actions because they have become immersed in a cruel environment in which such actions are not questioned or frowned upon. Te people carrying out such acts most likely feel absolutely no guilt for the transgression of morality, this is because they have lost touch with moral reality.
With this in mind we have to recognise the fundamental importance of breeding a moral culture in the institutions and organisations that form the bedrock of our society. People entering these institutions and organisations should not be entering a cruel environment which sanctions flagrantly immoral acts. They should be enter a benign environment which values and promotes ethical conduct. This shift in the culture of these institutions and organisations will do much to improve the respectability of the behavior of the individuals acting within them.