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.Here thirteen sub-jects stopped obeying by the end of the Strong Shock range, and onlya minority, sixteen, administered the full series of shocks (almost 40 per-cent less full compliance than in the initial setup).A fourth, and final, setup was identical to the third, except that thelearner received a shock only when his hand rested on a shock plate.Atthe 150-volt level, the learner demanded to be set free and refused toplace his hand on the shock plate, whereupon the experimenter orderedthe subject to force the victim s hand onto the plate so that he couldreceive the shocks the subject administered.Remarkably, in this setuptwelve subjects continued to the end, but even so this was less than halfof the number that did so in the first version.More importantly, twenty(or half the subjects) stopped in the Strong Shock range, long before,again, there was any disobedience in the first setup.Clearly, having protests addressed to them made a significant differencein the subjects behavior.There was no disobedience in the first setupbefore any audible protest, and almost 80 percent of the disobediencethat did occur took place during or just after the protest (eleven out ofthirteen).In the second, protest was audible earlier, and there was alsosignificantly greater disobedience earlier.In the third, protest (and itsgrounds) were both visibly and audibly evident, and this also significantlyincreased earlier disobedience.And in the fourth, in which subjects wereordered not just to administer shocks despite the protest but also toenforce a denial of learner s demands to be set free (and arguably topunish them for their demands), the disobedience was greatest of all.The conflicts that the Milgram subjects experienced were not just be-tween conflicting norms, but between conflicting second-personal normsthat grounded demands.Moreover, these demands were at some pointor other actually addressed by those the subjects took to have the au-thority to address them.Both their acceptance of the norms and theaddress of normatively grounded demands seemed to have psychic con-sequences.The norms were constant throughout the various setups, aswas the experimenter s addressing of orders.What was variable was theevidence and salience of the learners protests.But why focus on protest? What varied was not just that but alsoevidence and salience of pain and of causing pain.Why not say that itwas the increasing amount and vividness of the learners suffering that ex-Copyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College 166 The Psychology of the Second Personplained the increased disobedience? But consider: how was the poundingon the wall likely to have been experienced by subjects in the first setup?Presumably, the pain was now getting to be so bad that the learner wasasking the subject and the experimenter to stop.As one subject said, Ithink he s trying to communicate, he s knocking (Milgram 1974: 32).Think about it from the subject s perspective.The learner is, you be-lieve, someone like you who has volunteered to take part in the experi-ment.You might think that, like you, he feels obligated to take part.Youmight even think (if only as a rationalization) that it would be unfair tohim not to play your role so long as he does.At the least, you certainlywould think that whether he has consented to being caused pain is rel-evant to whether you should cause it to him.These are all second-personal matters.They concern your respective claims and how you andhe have the authority to interrelate as mutually accountable equals.The most significant change in the overall rate of disobedience camewhen the learner was moved into the same room with the subject.Thesubject could then see the effects of what he was doing.But also impor-tantly, he was aware, for the first time, of the learner s awareness of him.Even if audible protests were experienced as claims in the first two setups,the conditions made reciprocal recognition impossible.Bringing thelearner into the room gave him a presence as someone to whom thesubject was accountable a second-personal advantage the experimenterhad in all the setups.Milgram himself notes the possible relevance of thisfactor:Possibly, it is easier to harm a person when he is unable to observe ouractions than when he can see what we are doing.His surveillance of theaction directed against him may give rise to shame or guilt, which maythen serve to curtail the action.Many expressions of language refer tothe discomfort or inhibitions that arise in face-to-face attack.It is oftensaid that it is easier to criticize a man behind his back than to confronthim directly.(1974: 38 39)The other was present now not just as someone with the standing todemand compliance with a norm requiring that he not be harmed butalso as someone with some standing to judge one s compliance with it.2828.Another relevant study was conducted by John Thibaut and Laurens Walker, whowere interested in assessing psychological aspects of adversarial systems of criminal justice.Subjects were read a set of facts about an assault case, half incriminating, half exculpatory,and asked to assess guilt or innocence.In one setup, the facts were read to the subjects byCopyright © 2009 The President and Fellows of Harvard College The Psychology of the Second Person 167That second-personal aspects of the situation make a psychic differenceseems obvious enough.29 But how does this work? And how do the mech-anisms involved interact with norm acceptance? No doubt we are, tosome extent, moved by desires for others approval or esteem, or bydesires not to be in disagreement with them, even when we care nothingfor the standards they employ or have no inclination to share their views.But we are so moved only to some extent.Aristotle noted that we caremore about honor and esteem from those we honor and esteem ourselves,and he concluded that this must be because we care independently (andmore) about meriting the esteem of those whom we accord the authorityto judge us (1980: I.5).This seems clearly on the mark.When subjects in the Milgram exper-iments were troubled by the protests of those they were shocking in thesame room with them, it seems incredible that they were simply experi-encing the discomfort of being regarded in demanding ways.It seemsmuch more likely that, to varying degrees, empathy took them insidetheir victims perspectives and that at least some subjects experiencedemotions such as shame and guilt in which they empathically regardedthemselves as warranting disdain (shame) and/or blame or some otherone person.In another, they were read by two people, with one representing the accusedby reading only exculpatory facts, and the other representing the prosecution.Subjectswho were read the facts in the second setup were significantly likelier to think the defendantinnocent than in the first (1975: 42 53).29.In another Milgram experiment, subjects were subway riders who were asked togive up their seats without any reason that might justify such a request.When Milgramfirst asked his students to conduct this experiment, he was surprised by their reluctanceand the difficulty they reported in executing it.He decided to conduct some trials himself.A newspaper account reports his experience: But when he approached his first seatedpassenger, he found himself frozen. The words seemed lodged in my trachea and wouldsimply not emerge, he said in the interview.Retreating, he berated himself: What kindof craven coward are you? A few unsuccessful tries later, he managed to choke out arequest
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