Justice and The Ring

For the past week in class, we have been discussing justice and morality. There are lots of different opinions about justice in Plato’s Republic, and each of them offer interesting points of view to consider. However, the story that stood out to me the most was the story about the ring. The idea is that if you were given a ring which could turn you invisible, you would be more likely to do immoral, unjust things. You would act in an immoral way because you wouldn’t have to suffer the consequences. It presents the possibility that humans only act in a just way because, if they did not, they would have to suffer consequences. It says that people do good things to avoid getting in trouble, not because it is the right thing to do. Plato disagrees and says that one might act unjustly when they first get the ring, but after time they would feel guilty. He proposes that people act just towards others because if they did not, they would suffer from guilt. I agree with Plato wholeheartedly. If I were given the ring, I would probably use it to travel at first and do fun things at first, but I could never do anything like hurt another person because I would feel very guilty. I would probably even feel upset for traveling without earning the money to do so. I will admit however, that I tend to feel guilty easily, so I may be acting too sensitive. I feel like if people were given a ring that made them invisible, the public may act unjust at first, but after time, most people’s conscience would catch up with them and they would feel compelled to stop doing unjust things. All in all, I enjoyed this story and the discussions it presented in class. It really had me thinking about the basis of justice and morality.