Assignment:
Read The Ring of Gyges from Platos Republic and answer questions
Please label each part PART 1 & PART2
Part1
100-275 words
In the allegory of “The Ring of Gyges,” Glaucon makes the case that morality is the lesser of two evils, that no one would practice morality if there were no instrumental or social benefit from doing so. Socrates’ response is that we turn ourselves over to our animal impulses if we fail to live the moral life, a paradoxical choice considering that in doing so we effectively undermine what we essentially are as rational beings and what we are uniquely capable of as human beings, namely being moral beings. This then would be the equivalent of nullifying our humanity and returning to a primal, beast-like, and ultimately dissatisfying form of existence.
Is being ethical (understood to entail altruism) intrinsically or only instrumentally valuable? Is it required for our inner well-being and happiness, as Plato contends, or is moral behavior merely a means to an end that people should engage in only because of the benefits it produces and the negative consequences we avoid?