2015/12/08 by Jack Martin · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Psychology · #Psychology of Social Influence #Death Anxiety and Social Exclusion #Emotions and Moral Behavior #Milgram experiment #The Holocaust #Scholarship #Exegesis #Theodicy #Discipline #Psychoanalysis #History of psychology #Sociology #Epistemology #Philosophy #Psychology #Social psychology #Social science #Theology #Obedience #Law #Political science
paper · doi:10.1037/hop0000016
openalex publication_date 2015/12/08 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/01/13
Both Stanley Milgram and Ernest Becker studied and theorized human evil and offered explanations for evil acts, such as those constituting the Holocaust. Yet the explanations offered by Becker and Milgram are strikingly different. In this essay, brief biographical records of their lives are provided. Differences in their research methods and theories are then examined and traced to relevant differences in their lives, education, and careers. Especially important in this regard were their personal experiences of evil and the scholarly practices and traditions of social scientific and humanities scholarship that characterized their graduate education and scholarly work. The final parts of the essay are devoted to a comparative and integrative analysis of their respective approaches to the question of evil, especially as manifest during the Holocaust, and a brief exegesis of their disciplinary commitments.