In Plato’s Republic,
he discusses his definition of justice. He believes that justice is how one
behaves when no one is watching. He gives an example of a man, a shepherd for
the king, who finds a ring. The man, named Gyges, begins to wear the ring and
soon discovers that when the ring is facing inward, he becomes invisible, and
is so able to perform any action without being caught. This reminds me of the
posters defining “character” that were hung on the walls when I was in
elementary and middle school. “Character is how you act when no one is
watching.” Because Gyges had the power to be invisible, he could do anything
without facing punishment from others. He took advantage of this power, demonstrating
his poor character through his actions when no one could see him.
I think this relates to the problem of cyber bullying.
Although I have never experienced it directly, it is a big problem for children
and teens, and there are reports of suicides caused by this new form of
bullying. Because people can hide behind a computer screen, never revealing
their true identity if they choose not to, they feel as if they are invisible.
They lash out violently, criticizing and putting others down. They do this
without ever facing direct repercussions for their actions, as they are too
cowardly to tell others who they are; instead, they hide behind (sometimes
multiple) screen names and fake accounts, hurting others through this form of
injustice.
I heard on the news this past week that some schools have
considered requiring students to allow the school access to the students’ social
media accounts. However, I do not think this will solve the problem, as
students will then continue to create new accounts under fake names and
continue bullying others. While I do agree that solutions need to be found to
prevent this bullying, I do not think giving schools access to social media
accounts will solve this problem.
I agree with your quote on "Character is how you act when no one is watching," but I do not believe that it is directly related to justice. Justice stands on its own, and is separate from character. In the case of Gyges ring, I believe that all thoughts of justice or definitions of justice that Gyges had before he put the ring on is shot to hell and goes out of the window. His character is revealed through his actions in which I do agree with you. But "just" is not how he acts when no one is watching. Justice and character aren't related in that way. Justice in Plato's words is defined as the "intermediate between the best and the worst. The best is to do injustice without paying the penalty; the worst is to suffer it without being able to take revenge. Justice is a mean between these two extremes." (page 11). The fact of an action being just whether it is seen or unseen is separate from character. Character influences your definition of justice but justice is not how you act when no one is watching. Someone could just be plain out selfish when no one is watching and do unjust things, where the idea of unjust is highly perspective.
ReplyDeleteBut on another note, I do highly agree with you on the whole cyber bullying thing. It is something where those who are cyber bullying need direct repercussions but there aren't a means of doing so. Fake profiles are an issue and someone could always say that it wasn't them. Having a fake profile is sort of like Gyges ring. It allows bullies to hide and do something that they won't get caught doing. In that case they are doing the "best" part of Plato's definition of justice because they won't get caught. If social media didn't exist then I assume the problems wouldn't exist either. In order to solve the issue we need to take away what is causing the problem and that would be modern technology and the different social media networks that are available to everyone these days.