The Ring Of Gyges Socrates Analysis

Glaucon proposes that Socrates must provide him with a better conclusion than the one he reached in his challenge against Thrasymachus, illustrating how living a just life is always more profitable than living an unjust life. To accomplish this task in the method that will satisfy Glaucon, Socrates must prove that justice is desirable in of itself. In this essay, I criticize the fundamental failures of the thought experiment: the ring of Gyges, the unnecessary extremities that Galucon, with the aid of Adeimantus, pushes the contemplation of the question onto relations with the divine, and finally, I will outline the strategy employed by Socrates to answer Glaucon in terms of an analogy between the state and the soul. In order to inquire further

35). This agreement was created because suffering injustice far exceeds in negative what positive comes from implementing it onto someone else. Glaucon’s counterargument against justice then is that no one who practices justice does so willingly, but only acts justly because they lack the ability to get away with injustice (RP 358e, pp. 34). He proposes the validity of his argument with the ring of Gyges story, using it as the basis of a thought experiment. The story of the ring of Gyges tells of a shepherd who finds a magical ring in a bronze horse, and after finding out that the ring could turn him invisible, he immediately sets out to commit a number of atrocities that results in the shepherd becoming the usurper king (RP 359c-360b, pp. 35-36). Following the story, Glaucon proposes a thought experiment where there are two rings of Gyges, and one is given to an unjust man while the other is given to a just man. Glaucon determines that with such a power, the just man would act out in exactly the same manner as the unjust man and use the ring to suit his evil purposes (RP 360b-c, pp. 36). In order further validate

Each individual just man would feel that the benefits of complete justice is truly greater than that of injustice and find justice to be desirable for its own sake, for doing justice onto others not only benefits themselves but also benefits all, so then wouldn’t it be only rational to act justly for the sake of justice as it both is desirable in itself and of what it brings? This story is equally ridiculous as the ring of Gyges is on accurately depicting the thoughts and actions of the just and unjust man. Adeimantus does not aid in any manner on validating Glaucon’s introduction of the unjust man pleasing divine gods more than the just man, continuing to further the implications of the experiment by predicting the actions and thoughts of the divine, a task even more preposterous than of Glaucon’s assumption of human action and