Question

The ring of Gyges

If you came to possess the "ring of Gyges" described by Plato in the assigned reading, how would your behavior change? What reason (if any) would you have to continue to obey moral rules such "do not commit murder", "do not steal", and "do not break your promises"?

Answer 1

• Glaucon told the story of The Ring of Gyges to illustrate his point that justice is always self-interested.Gyges used this power of invisibility to commit unjust acts; he seduced the queen and then worked with her to create a plan to kill the king, and take over the kingdom. Because the ring made him invisible, Gyges was protected from the consequences of his actions.
• Glaucon argued that, by nature, doing injustice is good but the law can force you to act against that. According to Glaucon, justice is naturally bad and injustice is naturally good. No one willingly is just; therefore if you gave people the power to be unjust without suffering any penalty then they would all do it.
• He then went on to say that by nature we all have these selfish desires; we all want what is best for us. Consequently we will want to commit injustices and not worry about what is good for other people but simply to pursue our own natural good.
• He argued that we only do the right thing because we have to; anybody with the power to do otherwise would in fact do otherwise-in other words, they would eventually act unjustly.
• Glaucon then went on to propose a thought experiment; he said if two of these rings existed and we gave one ring to a just man and the other ring to an unjust man, then they would both proceed to do unjust things.
• If the just man also did become unjust when given the ring, then it would prove Glaucon’s point that people are not just out of choice; justice does not serve us personally and we would always do the wrong thing if we had the chance. Glaucon was challenging the intrinsic value of justice.
• If you had the power to do whatever you wanted with no consequences and without punishment, everybody would choose to be unjust and gratify their own desires, no one would worry about whether they are being just or unjust.
• The story of The Ring of Gyges tells us that if we had this sort of power no one would be able to be trusted and therefore, it shows us that justice is always self-interested and thus really not justice but a form of injustice.
• If you gave a just person a ring, which made you invisible, they would instantly go out and be unjust because although the law can coerce them to act according to the law out of fear of punishment, it cannot convince them that what is natural is unnatural.
  
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