The Ring of Gyges and the Internet - Reflections

I guess all of you can relate with this subject. The ring of Gyges was a story mentioned in Plato's Republic that tells the story of a shepherd who discovered a magical ring in a cave. This ring gave him the ability to become invisible. Using it, he was able to seduce the queen, and with her help he murdered the king, and became king of Lydia himself. Now Glaucon, Plato's brother, states his opinion on the matter in the Republic and says:

"Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.

Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust.

For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice."

Socrates argues that justice does not derive from this social construct: the man who abused the power of the ring has in fact enslaved himself to his appetites, while the man who chose not to use it remains rationally in control of himself and is therefore happy.

While I considered Socrates' remark to be quite reasonable and spot on, I remembered a saying by Oscar Wilde about how a man is least himself when he talks in his own person, and that if you give him a mask he will tell you the truth. Now a mask doesn't quite give you invisibility but it sure does give you anonymity. This anonymity is most sensed on the web nowadays. Now take Socrates' words and reflect on what he said in the light of this. Are we in fact enslaving ourselves to our appetites by abusing our online anonymity? By using anonymity "with moderation" do we remain in control of ourselves? Your thoughts on this are much appreciated.

That ring reminds me of Tolkien.

Anonymity provides a way to protect oneself from harm. It doesn't provide someone with complete invisibility so he or she could be unjust without risk of being caught.

Glaucon's view of justice is an objective criteria: what others think of us. It does not include the subjective criteria of what we think of ourselves. That is where Glaucon makes his mistake. He believes that a subjective reality can be completely objectified in some way. It is a common mistake.

By "subjective", I don't mean something solipsistic that only pertains to myself as an individual. The idea of an individual may be illusory and subjectivity may spread across a community. It would be something we participate in with others. Here I am thinking of entangled quantum "particles" or agents as a guide. They seem to make individual choices when asked about things like spin or position or momentum, but behave as a group when they generate wave-like patterns on detector screens even when sent through double slits to that screen one after the other. The pattern is not random as one would expect to see if they were individuals. We may be similar.

Yes it does remind me of Tolkien.

Interesting idea with the entangled quantum particles. Never took the notion of subjectivity in a kind of "spreadable" approach.

Subjectivity is often tied with individuality, but I don't it should be given our ability to empathize with others, our ability to communicate through language and the various form of psi evidence which suggest our intuition is not completely isolated from others. A zombie or an artificially intelligent machine could be identified as an individual needing objective communication ports but lacking subjectivity.

I always found a lot in the thoughts of Socrates to admire. You have made a great analogy to online anonymity. Glaucon has nailed it. The argument of Socrates does not sway me in this case but sounds noble. Why would the invisible man even care if he is a slave of his appetites when he can have all with impunity? He can abuse the power without abusing it excessively.