s, doing what were told from above. We can easily be brought to view ourselves as an instrument for carrying out another persons wishes, and so we no longer feel responsible for our actions. Unfortunately, that can make us feel responsible to the authority, instead of the content of the orders the authority is giving. Morality is still there, but the focus is changed. We feel the need to perform well, out of obligation or duty, to those who are in authority.This does not necessarily mean that all disobedience is good and all obedience is bad. That would ignore the relationship between obedience and disobedience. An act of obedience to one principle is usually and act of disobedience to another. Many martyrs of religion, science, and freedom have had to disobey those who wanted to stop them in order to obey their own consciences, the laws of humanity and reason (Fromm 379). If a man can only obey, he is a slave and will accomplish very little. But, if a man can only disobey, he is a rebel and does not act in the name of a conviction or principle. ...
