Morality in the Making of Sense and Self

This book makes important contributions to both the sociology of morality and Milgram scholarship. The sociology of morality tends to treat the products of interaction—sense and self—as its antecedents, overlooking the social processes that constitute morality. Through close examination of interaction in Milgram's experiments, Hollander and Turowetz show that his experimental context similarly depends on collaborative orders of sensemaking that were left out of the analysis. Like the sociology of morality, Milgram's account of his experiments erased the practices that comprised them—making it seem as if participants willingly obeyed orders to hurt others when they had actually resisted and made appeals to morality. * Anne Warfield Rawls, Professor of Sociology, Bentley University and University of Siegen *
Milgram's obedience experiments juxtaposed the institutional dictates of science with the normal reciprocity of the interactional order. Analysis of numerous experimental transcripts demonstrated that subjects vigorously resisted this violation of expectations. Holland and Turowetz provide a compelling account of compliance and defiance based on the maneuvers that subjects improvised to navigate, repair, and overcome this fundamental dilemma. A seminal work! * Augustine Brannigan, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Calgary *
Please forget what you think you may know about the famous Milgram 'obedience' experiments, and especially what they have suggested about the phenomena of genocide and other atrocities understood as resulting from compliant populations bending to authority. This book revolutionizes our understanding of those issues and the more general matter of morality, suggesting that everyday actors may be more oriented to interaction and issues of reciprocity that sustain a sense of ethical selfhood than previously assumed. In superior-subordinate or other hierarchical relationships, such an orientation means that the potential for acts of resistance often becomes more paramount than does the probability for what Milgram called 'obedience.' Read this book and be encouraged! * Douglas W. Maynard, Emeritus Maureen T. Hallinan Professor of Sociology and Emeritus Conway-Bascom Professor of Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison *
This research is a significant contribution to the sociology of morality and will no doubt spark further interest in this enduring classic of social psychology. * Choice *