Michael J. Saks (1992) raised the question: “When is compliance bad and disobedience good and when the reverse?” What do you think? That question, as Saks noted, seems unavoidable in research and theory on obedience to rules.

Saks observed that an undertone of moral judgment accompanies most research on the topic. The work of Asch and Milgram suggests that conformity to group norms is wrong because it leads to error. Kelman and Hamilton’s (1989) Crimes of Obedience implies that, in some cases, disobedience would be the non-crime. But, asked Saks, can we imagine being in the position of one who thinks that Milgram’s subjects ought to have obeyed, perhaps because the short-term harm confers longer-term good? (That is both the law’s and most parents’ justification for punishment: We do harm when we punish, but do so in the service of a greater social good.)

Certainly, part of the dilemma in these situations is that people are presented with conflicting rules. The phrase “crime of obedience” implies that one violates one rule in the course of obeying another. In any given situation, how are we to know which rule to follow? Saks related how an administrator at a hospital once explained to him that whenever a conflict existed between federal law and an institutional law, the local rule controlled. Although that would seem ludicrous to lawyers and judges, Saks noted that it (1) makes good sense to those bound into the daily work of an organization whose task might be hampered by adherence to “government bureaucracy,” and (2) is, as a practical matter, more enforceable within the hospital organization even though it is illegal.

Kelman, H. C., & Hamilton, V. L. (1989). Crimes of obedience: Toward a social psychology of authority and responsibility. Yale University Press.

Saks, M. (1992). Commentary: Obedience versus Disobedience to Legitimate versus Illegitimate Authorities Issuing Good versus Evil Directives. Psychological Science, 3(4), 221-223.