Philosophy Universe

I like to ask my students, “If you had a ring, a magical ring, that had the power to make you invisible, how would you use it? What would you use it for?” It’s a good way to start a conversation about ethics. What would we do if no one could see us?
The answers can be surprising. Many students would use it to sneak into concerts, or get ahead in a line. Bolder ones would try to get into a plane, and see the world without paying. Honestly, I’m not sure they’ve thought it through, given the size of a regular plane seat. Are they hoping to stand in a corner during the entire flight?
An interesting amount would use it to play pranks on their friends and family, like move stuff around and pretend they are ghosts. A friend of mine said he’d spy on people to see what they do when they think they are not being seen – which is an ironic way of using it, and also kind of creepy.
Meanwhile, an unfortunate number of students confessed that they’d use it to shoplift. Which is not just unethical, but also, I feel, a little underwhelming. Is that what you’d use such a powerful artifact for? At least one student said right away he’d rob a bank. Which is surprising honest for a potential bank robber. One said he’d use it to find out what’s really going on in Area 51 and places like this, but he did not volunteer to share the knowledge.
All in all it does make you a little disappointed about humanity. Only a few have ever said they’d use their powers for good, like fighting crime (which is, for the record, what I would totally use it for), or, in one inventive and very specific case, to steal all the Egyptian artifacts from the British Museum and return it to the Egyptians. (I’m not sure she knew how much Egyptian stuff you can find in the British Museum).
So what’s going on here? Do we only do good deeds because we’re afraid of what people will say? Or worse, just to avoid going to jail? Or are there more important reasons, self-motivating reasons to do good, to be honest, to be just?
Welcome back to Philosophy Universe, a podcast about science fiction, philosophy and fantasy, and everything in-between! I am Alfredo, and this is episode 6, Plato and the First Ring of Power.
This is, by the way, the beginning of a mini series called “The Ethics Tutorial.” It would be, of course, impossible to try and cover every possible philosophical topic in this podcast, and also impossible to cover every single fantasy or sci-fy story with philosophical importance. So what I propose to do is to tackle different topics in sequences of five to ten episodes each; so we’ll talk about ethics, philosophy of knowledge, political philosophy and so on, and hopefully this will help to give you, my friends and listeners, a bit of an overview of some important areas of philosophy. (And maybe some less important areas, but that I like to talk about. My hope is that this will keep us focused, and develop a bit of a learning curve.
And so, the ring. Yes, the scenario is not very original. I think mostly everyone who’s interested in fantasy will immediately recognize this power of invisibility as something that Sauron’s ring could do. Tolkien knew enough to give it a certain moral ambivalence: the more that Bilbo and Frodo use its power, the quicker the evil effects of the ring take place. There is a moral danger in using the ring.
But those of you with some previous interest in philosophy, will hopefully recognize here a much older story! It was told by Plato, again, in The Republic, which is the same dialogue in which he gave us the “allegory of the cave” from episode two!!! There’s so much stuff in this dialogue! It’s all in Plato. It’s all in Plato.
So here’s the story as Plato tells it, in book 2 of the Republic: There’s this shepherd call Gyges [spell it].
According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the service of the kind of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquake made an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding his flock. Amazed at the sight, he descended into the opening, where, among other marvels, he beheld a hollow brazen horse, having doors, at which he stooping and looking in saw a dead body of stature, as appeared to him, more than human
(I like to imagine this as the scene in Alien, when they are investigating the derelict spaceship).
and having nothing on but a gold ring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended.
Now the shepherds met together, according to custom, that they might send their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into their assembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he was sitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring inside his hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of the company and they began to speak of him as if he were no longer present. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring he turned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trials of the ring, and always with the same result—when he turned the collet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.
(The rest of the story is told kind of quickly and matter of factly)
Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who were sent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced the queen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him, and took the kingdom.
This is the story, but the context is important. In the dialogue, Socrates is talking with some of his friends about what may be the basic question about ethics: why is it better to be good than evil, just rather than unjust? In the first book, Socrates just made a very good case for showing that there are good reasons to be just; and they are good enough arguments to defeat his first opponent, an angry guy named Thrasymachus, who makes some good points, but not good enough, and ends up a bit embarrassed about being proved wrong.
But before Socrates can get a break, two brothers, Glaucon and Adeimantus, tell Socrates that they are not satisfied. That Thrasymachus let him off too easily. Socrates says “fine then, I have nothing better to do than to talk about Justice for nine books more.” So his friend Glaucon tells the story of Gyges, and how once he finds he can get away with whatever, he goes straight for seduction and murder and becomes a tyrant. And Glaucon presses the issue. This is also from the Republic.
Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just man 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 man 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.
This is what philosophers call a “mental experiment.” Mental experiments basically present you with a scenario, usually a bit fantastic or farfetched, as a way of making you think or rethink common preassumptions. One thing I don’t quite like about mental experiments, is that often they bring in the author’s own assumptions about what the listeners will do. Here Glaucon (who is, to be fair, acting as devil’s advocate; he does not believe this, but he wants to make the strongest possible case) seems to bring in, together with this interesting scenario, his own conclusion: no one will be able to resist this power and use it for great justice.
But what do you think? How would you use it?
What Glaucon gets right is that this scenario does make you think about regular things in new depth. Some people are more cynical, maybe. They will agree with Thrasymachus and with Glaucon that people only act honestly, decently, justly or in a selfless manner because they are afraid of the backlash if they didn’t – What are people going to think? What if I get caught? And so forth. But that at heart the smartest and happiest people are those who found out how to do all sorts of dishonest things without getting caught.
In short, what this view is proposing is that being a moral person (or “ethical”) means sacrificing our potential happiness. And being immoral or unethical means having the brains and the courage to go straight for it.
Some philosophers take this even further. For some of them, God is basically a fiction put up there just to make sure that we all behave when we are not being watched. If this is the case, getting rid of the idea of God would mean we don’t have to behave well anymore. For others, God does exist, but they find God to be an aggravating presence that is always watching and making sure we don’t get what we want without some degree of guilt.
But is that the case? Is morality essentially opposed to our happiness? Would we be better off without it?
Historically, philosophy has been for the most part on the side of Socrates here. Most philosophers that left some mark in history have argued, in different ways, that being moral is actually the path to a greater and deeper happiness than being immoral. That ethics and moral standards have, in other ways, an intrinsic value, that is, reasons why they are worth living by in and of themselves, and not just some kind of societal constraint or arbitrary imposition by people who are envious and want no one to be happy.
There have been many ways of approaching this subject, though. There have been also philosophers defending the opposite view, that it is ultimately dumb and counterproductive to the individual to let themselves be ruled by moral standards. Or, at least, that there are no such moral standards, so just do whatever you want, whether it makes you happy or not.
So we need to look at these in turn. We’ll start with one of the most popular moral theories, which you’ve probably heard of: it’s called “utilitarianism.” It’s one of those theories that people usually regard with suspicion, as something more evil than good, that looks at the big numbers and throws the individual under the bus. I hope, though, to show you that there’s more to this theory than meets the eye.
But before we get there, we are going to dig a bit deeper into the story of the ring. To be honest, the story at the end moves a little fast for me. I’m still not sure how being invisible helped Gyges seduce the queen, and how simply getting the king dead was enough to take the kingdom and not get hanged for treason. It seems a bit hurried in the end.
There is a recent novel that explores this story in a bit more detail, and it does it, interestingly, in the context of a contemporary business man, who finds this ring. The story digs deeper into the psychology of a man who doesn’t start being evil, but slowly falls prey to the temptation of the power that the ring represents. It was actually written by one of my colleagues, professor Randy Richards, and he will join us next time for our very first interview: a discussion on The Unseen Hand of Peter Gyges.
I hope you’ll join us too, for this special episode of Philosophy Universe.