The Republic
Plato (circa 428-347 BCE)
The Republic is written as a dialogue between Socrates and various citizens of Athens. In this exerpt the discussion is centered on the origin and nature of justice. Glaucon, challenging Socrates to defend his view that justice is always preferable to injustice, offers the following argument.
Those who practice justice do so involuntarily because they do not have the power to be unjust. Imagine that we can give the just man and the unjust man the ability to do whatever they will. Let us watch them and see where desire will lead them. Then we will discover that they walk along the same road, follow their own interest which all men naturally deem to be their greatest good, and are only diverted onto the path of justice by fear of the law. This is a story about a man who had such freedom.
According to tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the king of Lydia. Following a great storm, an earthquake made an opening in the ground near where he was feeding his flock. Amazed, he climbed down the opening where he discovered, among other marvels, a hollow horse made of bronze and within it a dead giant wearing only a golden ring. He took the ring from the giant’s finger and climbed back out of the opening.
The shepherds met monthly to report to the king about their flocks. As he was sitting among them, the shepherd chanced to turn the ring on his finger inward toward his palm whereby he became invisible to the rest of the company. They began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this and turned the ring out to its usual position. He reappeared. He made several trials of the ring with always the same result: when he turned it inward, he disappeared, and upon turning it out, he became visible again. A short time after, Gyges arranged to become a messenger to the court. As soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help, slew the king and took the kingdom.
Suppose now there are two rings and we give one to the just man and the other to the unjust man. No man can be imagined who would be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast to justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point.