UCB Phil 160: Ring of Gyges Presentation

the freedom to act unjustly without fear of retribution would be most easily realized if both people had the power they say the ancestor of guy Gees of Lydia possessed the story goes that he was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia there was a bargain divider and an earthquake broke open the ground and created a chasm around the place where he is tending sheep seeing this he was filled with amazement and went down into it and there in addition to many other wonders of which we were told he saw a hollow bronze horse there were window like openings in it and peeping in he saw a corpse which seemed to be of more than human size wearing nothing but a gold ring on his finger he took the ring and came out of the chasm he wore the ring at the usual monthly meeting that reported to the king on the state of the flocks and as he was sitting among the others he happened to turn the setting of the ring towards himself to the inside of his hand when he did this he became invisible to those sitting near him and they went on talking as if he had gone he wondered at this and fingering the ring he turned the setting outwards again and became visible so he experimented with the ring to test whether indeed had this power and it did if he turned the setting inward he became invisible if he turned it outward he became visible again when he realized this he had once arranged to become one of the messengers sent to report to the king and when he arrived there he seduced the Kings wife attacked the King with her help killed him and took over the kingdom this story known as the myth of guy Gees comes from the second book and Plato's Republic it is introduced in a dialogue between Socrates and a character named Glaucon Socrates and Glaucon had previously been exploring questions about the nature of justice Socrates claimed that justice is among the highest Goods since it is valued both because of itself and because of what comes from it Glaucon argues against this view and claims that to do justice without paying the penalty is actually better than acting justly however the worst situation is one in which someone suffers injustice without being able to take revenge as such Glaucon says that people value justice not as a good because they are too weak to do just injustice with impunity therefore justice is not both intrinsically and extensively valuable as Socrates Clint it is onerous but beneficial to us so that we wouldn't choose it for its own sake but for the sake of rewards and other things that come from acting justly by way of example Glaucon presents the myth of guy juice Glaucon thinks that if there were two magical rings and we were to give one to a just person and the other to an unjust person both people would end up acting in the same way that is in an unjust manner Glaucon believes that this myth is a great proof that one is never just willingly but only when compelled to be furthermore he anticipates a possible objection by arguing that if a person were given such a ring and failed to act unjustly we would secretly consider them to be foolish in passing up such an opportunity though he might still publicly praise this person's actions the myth of guy Gees is significant because it raises the question of whether justice can truly be valued in and of itself and if it is better to act justly than it is to act unjustly these are questions that Plato attempts to answer in the remaining 200 pages of the Republic the myth of guide use also forces Socrates to defend his claim that the just person is happier than the unjust person since glaucon's story seems to suggest that actually in your own self-interest to act in an unjust manner as such the myth of guy G's plays a significant role in posing some important questions in the Republic about the nature and value of justice there has been some interesting secondary literature on the myth of guy G's that raises thought-provoking questions about Glaucon story one striking example can be found in a chapter titled manliness and tyranny from michael s coaching book gender and rhetoric and plato's political thought this chapter essentially asks the following question why did guy G's make himself king of the land coach and writes the protagonists motives in glaucon's myth seem oddly mixed his first desire is to sleep with the Queen and only after he has plotted with her does he seek to usurp the Kings power in addition to his wife yet why would someone who in virtue of his invisibility was equal to a God seek to rule among men for the man possessing the ring of guy G's it is possible to take what he wishes from the market without fear and going into other's houses to have intercourse with whomever he wishes and to kill and free from bonds whomever he wishes an invisible man could take whatever he pleases without putting on the yoke of office if the hero of glaucon still wanted to be king ruling itself must satisfy some desire of his that simple taking could not glaucon's anthropology bus includes some sort of desire for recognition for being visibly honored that is different from the merrily material lust that their Simic is has described in conclusion the mythic ids seems to be summarized most efficiently and a quotation from john Dahlberg Acton who says that power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely great men are almost always bad men

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Length: 6min 11sec (371 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 01 2015