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© Darrell Arnold Ph.D.– (Reprinted with Permission.)
https://darrellarnold.com/2018/ten/06/plato-on-gyges-ring-3/

One of the most famous discussions of justice occurs in Book two of Plato's The Republic
where Socrates' interlocutor in the dialogue, Glaucon, argues that there is no intrinsic reason to exist just. The merely reason to be merely is to avoid the consequences of unjust actions. In making this betoken, Glaucon as well highlights an anthropological underpinning for this view, namely the idea that people are largely selfishly motivated. He raises the issues of justice (from a perspective that Plato will reject) against the backdrop of a story that was well-known in Greece, the story of Gyges' ring.

Co-ordinate to the story, Gyges, a young shepherd in the service of the King of Lydia was out with his flock one mean solar day when a slap-up tempest occurred. Near to where he was tending sheep, at that place was an earthquake, opening a fissure into the footing. Gyges descended into the crevice where he found, among other things, a bronze horse, with doors. Opening the doors, Gyges saw a human being skeletal grade possessing a gilt ring. Gyges took the ring and ascended from the opening. Later in the month at a gathering of the shepherds of the King, Gyges noticed that twisting the ring on his finger, he disappeared. Those around him began speaking of him as if he weren't there. Repeating this trial, it worked each time. Now, having acquired this new ability to become invisible, Gyges arranged to go a messenger sent to court. Once in court, Gyges used his magic ring to gain the graces of the queen, who he seduced. With the power to get undetected, he then managed to conspire with the queen to kill the king and to take over the kingdom.

Any man with similar power, Gyges maintains, would do the same. If we could get abroad with crimes that advanced our interest, we would all practice then. The simply reason that we are but is that we practise non possess such magical rings and we thus would endure negative consequences for acts of injustice. The implication of the story is that being only is not fundamentally in our involvement. It is something we do as a compromise considering nosotros cannot get away with injustice. In short, no one is merely for intrinsic reasons.

Across merely request whether there is an intrinsic reason to exist only, Glaucon as well sets upwardly the discussion with a clear hurdle. He asks: Is information technology e'er better to suffer injustice than to be unjust? Wouldn't information technology, in fact, be better to have a reputation for justice while being unjust (at to the lowest degree in some instances) than to be just while suffering the negative repercussions of having a reputation for injustice?

We can all imagine situations where a just person is unjustly killed or imprisoned. Plato would certainly have been able to think of Socrates equally i such example. But as bad as Socrates' fate was, he was an aged man, who had lived a full life. What of someone, immature and innocent, falsely defendant of an injustice who might spend an entire life in prison? How does his life, simply though it may exist, stack upwards against the life of someone unjust but who goes undetected?

The view that Glaucon puts forward is a basis for a social contract view of justice such as we will see adult later in the history of philosophy past Hobbes and others. Glaucon'southward proposal implies that we are essentially cocky-interested and amoral. We act morally non because morality fulfills our natures just because nosotros have no other alternative.

In responding to Glaucon's contractarian view Plato proposes an alternative view of human nature to that of the contractarians. We are, Plato will maintain, ultimately but fulfilled every bit human beings by being virtuous. Justice is thus intrinsically preferable to injustice. Indeed, Plato seems in general to underline Socrates' view that care for the soul is our fundamental expert. The only real damage is harm to the soul.

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