"Put a Ring on it" An Analysis of Plato's Ring of Gyges Allegory Daniel Jerz College

“Socrates is an annoying, egotistical braggart, who uses cynicism to masquerade as wisdom. He can’t craft arguments of his own, and must resort to creating superficial holes in the arguments of others in order to satisfy the condescending nature of his falsely superior status. Well, let’s see him do anything but admit defeat to an unbeatable argument!” Something to this effect likely passed through the mind of Glaucon before posing to Socrates the famed Ring of Gyges Thought Experiment in Plato’s The Republic. This thought experiment poses the question of whether a conventionally good man who is excused from punishment would eventually see his morality deteriorate completely due to the tempting nature of injustice (Plato). This question is the focal point of The Republic, as a majority of the text is dedicated to indirectly defeating this seemingly infallible argument, which even Socrates could not find flaw in without extensive argument by analogy. This question however, is not infallible, as a few key definition clarifications and perspective changes drastically redefine the implications of the argument in light of modern human understanding.

Glaucon’s thought experiment implies that, by nature, humanity is selfishly driven...