Glaucon tells a story from Plato's The Republic about the Ring of Gyges. In the story, a shepherd finds a magic ring that makes the wearer invisible. Using the ring, the shepherd is able to seduce the queen, kill the king, and take over the kingdom. Glaucon argues that if anyone had such a ring, they would not remain just, as injustice appears more profitable. Plato responds that true happiness comes from living a virtuous life, as injustice leads to inner turmoil while justice leads to tranquility. The story is meant to show that people only act justly out of fear of punishment, not because justice is inherently good.

1. “The Ring Of Gyges”
by : Plato ch.23
Relief of Plato Thoemmes Press
HENDY FERDIAN
20190700042

2. ◦ About the author
Other than a few anecdotal accounts, not much
is known about Plato’s early life. The
association with his friend and mentor Socrates
was undoubtedly a major influence. Plato’s
founding of the Academy, a school formed for
scientific and mathematical investigation, not
only established the systematic beginning of
Western science but also influenced the
structure of higher education from medieval to
modern times.

3. About the work. . .
Glaucon, the main speaker of this reading from
Plato’s The Republic,1 expresses a widely and
deeply-held ethical point of view known as
egoism— a view taught by a Antiphon, a
sophistic contemporary of Socrates. Egoistic
theories are founded on the belief that
everyone acts only from the motive of self-
interest. For example, the egoist accounts for
the fact that people help people on the basis
of what the helpers might get in return from
those helped or others like them. This view,
neither representative of Plato’s nor of
Socrates’s philosophy, is presented here by
Glaucon. Although Socrates held that everyone
attempts to act from the motive of “self-

4.  And so when men have both done and suffered justice and
injustice and have had experience of both, and when they not
achieved justice and only obtain the other, they think that they
had better agree among themselves to have a system in order to
uphold justice,hence there arise laws and mutual covenants,and
that which is ordained by law is termed by them lawful and just.
They affirm this to be the origin and nature of justice.It is a mean
for compromise, choose between the best of all, which is they
make a compact in which they agree not to hurt each other.
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5.  Glaucon has a conversation about why we have laws? Why do we have a
state? Why do we have a social order? And Glaucon offers the idea that
some things are good in and of themself, and some things are good
because of their consequences. And Glaucon says: “Let’s think about what
we mean by justice. Justice is obeying the law, and the laws are created out
of a combination of self-interests in competition.” He says: “people can
either do no harm or they can harm each other.” and he says that harm, in
fact, has seriously negative consequences. And so individuals create laws
to keep each other from harming each other. And plato gives a parable that
express the meaning of this idea,the parable that’s called the Ring of
Gyges.
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6. According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of
the king of Lydia, there was a great storm, and an earthquake made
an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock.
Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among
other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at
which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as
appeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a
gold ring, then he took it from the finger of the dead and standup
again.
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7. Now the shepherds met together, according to custom,
that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king,
into
their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was
sitting
among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand,
when
instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they
began to
speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at
this,
and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and
reappeared,
he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result-
when
he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he
reappeared. Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the
messengers who were sent to the court,where as soon as he arrived
he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king
and slew him, and took the kingdom.

8.  Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and
the just put on one of them and the unjust the other. No
man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that
he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his
hands off what was not his own when he could safely
take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses
and lie with any one at his pleasure,or kill or release from
prison whom he would, or do anything he wants and in
all respects be like a God among men.
https://5.imimg.com/data5/MP/SD/MY-2167390/golden-diamond-ring-500x500.jpg

9. • Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust,
they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly
affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because
he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity,
for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is
unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more
profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have
been supposed, will say that i am apparently right. If you could
imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and
never doing any wrong or touching what was another’s, he would be
thought by someone else to be a most wretched idiot, although they
would praise him to one another’s faces, and keep up appearances
with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.
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10.  But plato tried to prove that we can never be truly happy unless we’re
living a virtous life. Plato argued that the purest and most secure form of
human happiness consists in tranquility or peace of mind or spiritual
harmony or perhaps a good conscience. This plato said is a joy that
cannot easily be taken away from us. Plato suggested that injustice
leads to a life of inner turmoil and chaos , while a just life leads to
tranquility of the soul and harmonious life.
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11. conclusion
 Glaucon’s story is meant to show that all people believe in their hearts that
injustice is more profitable than justice.
 Glaucon concludes that even a moral man will eventually become immoral
as long as he believes he cannot be punished for his actions.
 Glaucon believed that justice is something like an arrangement we come
to. It is only valuable because it keeps a certain order and security. The
reason why we have systems of justice is only because we want to keep
people who would commit injustice, and abuse the rules, out. Therefore, he
is claiming that justice itself is really a form of self-interested injustice.
 Like most other ancient philosophers, Plato maintains a virtue-based
eudaemonistic conception of ethics. That is to say, happiness or well-
being (eudaimonia) is the highest aim of moral thought and conduct, and
the virtues (aretê: 'excellence') are the requisite skills and dispositions
needed to attain it. The story Glaucon tells is a thought experiment in
which he attempts to demonstrate that people only act justly because they
are worried about their reputations. They worry that if they act unjustly,
other people will act unjustly to them.
 Individually "justice is a 'human virtue' that makes a man self consistent
and good: Socially, justice is a social consciousness that makes a society
internally harmonious and good." ... True justice to Plato, therefore,
consists in the principle of non-interference.

12. THANK YOU
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