A Few Good Men Comparative Critique

In the film “A Few Good Men,” two marines named Dawson and Downey are ordered by their superior officer to give another marine, private Santiago, a disciplinary act called a code red. In doing so, Dawson and Downey accidentally kill Santiago. Dawson and Downey are subsequently arrested and brought to military court in Washington D.C. When questioned by his defense attorney Lt. Daniel Kaffee, Dawson claims he was ordered to give the code red by a superior officer. The court finds Dawson not guilty of murder, but do find him guilty of conduct unbecoming a U.S. Marine and is consequently stripped of his rank and dishonorably discharged from the Marine Corps. In carrying out the code red, Dawson disregards his own moral code and ends up killing Santiago as a result. Dawson mistakenly believes that because he was following his orders his actions were justified.

After being transferred to Washington D.C. from Guantanamo Bay, Dawson has a meeting with his defense attorney Lt. Daniel Kaffee. During the meeting, Dawson claims that although he did carry out the code red, he did nothing wrong because he was only carrying out the orders of his superior officer. “The Perils of Obedience” by Stanley Milgram describes Dawson’s point of view about his role in Santiago’s death. “The essence of obedience is that a person comes to view himself as the instrument for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for his actions… the most far reaching consequence is that the person feels no responsibility for the content of the actions the authority prescribes” (193). Milgram claims that people stop taking responsibility for their actions when they begin to follow the will of an authority.

Dawson sees himself as this “instrument” because he is just an officer in the chain of command that is the Marine Corps. Dawson disregards his own moral code and instead follows his superior’s orders in order to please his commanding officer. From...