Authority In A Few Good Men

To what degree should people follow orders of superiors due to their authority? A Few Good Men is a movie where the moral difference between right and wrong is very unclear in the name of following authority. Professors of sociology, Kelman and Hamilton worked together on “The My Lai Massacre: A Military Crime of Obedience” where they tried to apply reason to the soldiers who committed a massacre of unarmed women and children during the Vietnam War. Theodore Dalrymple is a physician who wrote “Just Do What the Pilot Tells You” by analyzing Milgram’s electric shock torture experiment to shine light on when is right to obey to authority, while he emphasizes not to follow authority blindly. These pieces can be used to understand how Marines were able to kill a fellow Marine in Rob Reiner’s A Few Good Men.
Harold W. Dawson and Pfc. Louden Downey are Marines in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. William Santiago was also a private in the Marines, Santiago had been suffering from his poor physical condition. Santiago witnessed a fenceline shooting where other Marines shot over the border as a bargaining chip to get off of the base. Col. Jessup learned of the fenceline shooting and instead officially gave him a transfer when he actually ordered Dawson and Downey to commit a code red on Santiago. Dawson had given Santiago food when his was confiscated, showing that Dawson cared about Santiago. Dawson and Downey did kill Santiago but they didn’t do it for any reason other than that they were ordered to and they blindly obey orders from authority due to their military