As you watch the video under the topic of Ethical Egoism, Law and Justice - Plato’s Republic - 7.6 Ring of Gyges (6:09 mins) -https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BlT5SdLeXtM
- Summarize the debate between Plato and Glaucon. What does Plato conclude about doing the right thing, even when we can do the wrong thing without being discovered?
- What does the story of Gyges tell us about human nature? Are people naturally good or naturally bad?
- Discuss one example of a situation that involves the temptation to do something wrong without being found out. What reasons can you give for doing the right thing anyway?
Glaucon, like many of the conversants in Plato’s writings, takes the opportunity to provide an illustrative parable in order to properly explain his position. In an attempt to expand and detail Thrasymachus’ argument against Socrates, the argument that there is no true morality and that justice is a man-made concept, he invokes the Ring of Gyges parable. This is also known as the ‘ring of invisibility’ story. In it, a shepherd chances to find a ring that he later realizes gives him the power to turn invisible, and he ends up utilizing this newfound power to act free of consequence in order to further his own self-interests and ultimately take control of the kingdom he resides in. Glaucon’s point with this story is to show how humans are inherently selfish beings, and he contends that given two of these rings, one to be provided to a man who tends to act unjustly, and one to be provided to a man who tends to act justly, the just man will ultimately begin to act the same as the unjust man once free of the restraints of society. Essentially, Glaucon concludes that humans, as inherently selfish beings, formulate and acknowledge justice as a necessary component of the compact that society is. Justice is a good because of its consequences, because it prevents humans from doing one another harm in a society by providing punishments for actions that would destabilize society. Without justice, the contract of society will ultimately be broken by everyone acting in self-interest. Plato, however, continues to hold that humans are naturally rational, sane beings, and that considered sanely, any act that harms others does more harm to oneself by debilitating society (a good for the individual) as a whole. As such, Plato considered humans to be naturally good, committing harm when free of consequences only because they didn't know any better.
What must be concluded from the Ring of Gyges parable is that humans, as inherently selfish beings are selfish. Any act that furthers the interest of a human will be taken if possible. This can be construed to mark the species as naturally bad, for if furtherance of self-interest includes committing harm to others, that would be a bad thing for the species, and therefore a bad act. What is ‘good’ is either good because of consequences or good in and of itself; the latter is a much more controversial concept because it requires passing absolute judgement about the quality of certain acts. ‘Goods’ that are good because of consequences, such as justice, are arrived at because of the tangible, empirical benefit they provide to humanity. As humans would naturally act solely for the benefit of themselves and not for the species, they may be considered to tend towards bad, operating against the ‘good’ that justice is. Only when we are too lazy to do the wrong thing or too egotistic to ‘stoop to a lower level of behavior’ would we do the right thing when faced with no consequences for doing the wrong thing. Plato, however, contends that humans are only 'naturally bad' insofar as they don't realize that the sane thing to do is the right thing, and concludes that humans, if naturally rational, are basically good. Humans, by this reasoning, would do the right thing even when given the opportunity to do wrong, consequence-free, because it is the sane decision that brings about the greatest collective and individual benefit in the long run.
For myself, I consider a situation as a child, one many of those with siblings may be familiar with. The last slice of birthday cake of my brother, squirreled away in the back of the fridge with a note indicating it was not to be eaten by any other, proved tantalizing. Now, the thing to do in my self-interest, the wrong thing, would have been to eat the cake anyways. After all, it very well could have been my other brother or my dad who had eaten it; if questioned, I could deny it, and they would deny it as well, and no better case could be made against me than any of them. There would not be any consequences for doing the wrong thing, in the end. I did, however, do the right thing, which was to leave it well alone, not for any reasons of high-mindedness, but purely out of laziness; having to navigate through all the other items to retrieve the cake, washing the dish and utensils afterwards to eliminate evidence, et cetera proved too much of a hassle that outweighed how much I cared about the cake.