How to Live · ages 8–12
Who would you be if nobody could see you?
A ring makes you invisible. Nobody would ever find out what you did with it. What would you do?
Plato tells this story in the Republic. A shepherd is looking after his flock when the ground shakes, a crack opens in the hillside, and he climbs down. Inside he finds a bronze horse, and in the horse a body wearing a gold ring. He takes it.
Later, at a meeting, he turns the ring round on his finger — and the others carry on talking as if he has left the room. Turn it back, and they can see him again. He has found a ring that makes him invisible.
So what does he do? He gets himself sent to the palace as a messenger. He uses the ring to get into the queen’s rooms, to win her over, and together they kill the king, and the shepherd becomes king himself.
Glaucon, who tells the story, then asks Socrates the real question. Suppose there were two such rings, and you gave one to a good person and one to a bad one. Would the good person behave any differently? Glaucon says no — nobody is that solid, and anyone who could get away with anything would take what they wanted and be thought a fool for not doing it.
Socrates does not say the story is wrong. He says look at what the shepherd actually got. He thinks the person who grabs everything is not free; he is run by his appetites, and dragged around by them. The person who could take something and does not is the one actually in charge of himself.
Notice that nobody in this argument produces proof. You cannot test it. All you can test is yourself: what you do in the small invisible moments — the money you find, the test you could copy from, the thing you could say about someone who is not there to hear it.
Try it
Do one small good thing this week and tell nobody at all. Then notice how it feels compared with a good thing you get thanked for. Write one sentence about the difference.
What do you think?
Do you think there is a right answer to this question?
Talk about it
- If nobody would ever find out, would it still be wrong?
- Would you want to wear the ring?
- Is it worse to do something bad, or to want to?
Yes, but… — the arguments people actually make
If nobody is hurt and nobody knows, no harm done.
Try it on yourself: who do you become while doing it? The character you build in secret is the one you have to live in.
Socrates never proved his answer.
Correct, and nobody has since. It is still the most useful question in the book: what would you actually do?
Everyone would use the ring, so I would be a fool not to.
That is Glaucon's argument and it is a strong one. Notice it depends on a claim about everyone — which you might test with the people you know.
What other philosophers think
- GlauconIn the Republic he argues that anyone given the ring would behave unjustly, and that the just life is only praised because people fear getting caught.
- SocratesReplied that the person who takes everything is not free but enslaved to wanting more, while the one who can take and does not is in charge of himself.
- Immanuel KantThought morality does not depend on anyone finding out: an action is right if you could will it as a rule for everyone, no exceptions for you.
If you want to go further
- The Republic — PlatoBook II for the ring, Book IV for the answer. The oldest version of 'why be good if it costs you?'
- Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals — Immanuel Kant1785. Duty without reward, worked out in detail.
- Leviathan — Thomas HobbesFor the opposing view: that without being watched, we do not hold back.
Most of these were written for adults, which is why it is worth reading them with someone older.