I know that during our discussion of free will we talked about the scenario – and others like it – where, for instance, a father wanted his son to jump into a lake and the child slips and falls in. The child did not choose to jump into the lake, so his father should not praise him for the action. We also discussed scenarios where someone was forced to do an action, indicating a lack of free will. This got me thinking about the Nuremberg Trials, in which the defense (many leaders in Nazi Germany) argued for lesser punishment by arguing “superior order.” They claimed that they only did what they did because they had to; it was what the higher-ups ordered. Our discussions have allowed me to see that what they were essentially saying was that they had no free will. They had to follow orders or they themselves would be harmed. While there is obviously no debating the monstrosity of their actions, it would be interesting to see what others, given that they believe in free will, think of this or simply the claim of “superior order” in general.
This is an interesting proposition. I wouldn’t necessarily say that the people that had received superior orders didn’t have free will, because I would be willing to bet that there were several, if not many men who used their free will to disobey the superior orders because they knew doing so was the right thing to do. However, I do think that the men receiving superior orders were extremely heavily influenced in making their decision. Many men do not have a strong enough preformed free will, and they in turn succumbed to the orders they received.
I agree with Carina, I think that there was definitely men who disobeyed the orders that were given to them. I also think that, yes, the shouldn’t be as heavily punished as their superiors, but regardless they still committed the actions and should of course be punished for it. If others were able to disobey and decide to not to listen to the “superiors” then the others could have as well, yet they chose not to.
I also agree with Carina! I remember watching Schindler’s List in high school which is based on a true story and is about Oskar Schindler who defied orders and saved the life of thousands of Jewish refugees after seeing a massacre happen in the beginning of the movie. So I think free will does exist in some scenarios but then again for this movie specifically Schindler was affected by his surroundings so I don’t think you can call that free will.
I think Schindler’s List is an interesting example, not completely related to free will but it relates to people understanding and acting on what is right, which can relate really well to Chang’s Hard Choices. I think the Nuremberg Trials were also based heavily on circumstance. For example, some kids were put to work and killed people and considered “Nazis” but they were raised with a gun in their hand and their fate was “determined” by the adults in their lives.