An Analysis of Gyges and the Cave. Part III.

In contrast to the philosopher-king, who is the example of the perfectly just man, we have Gyges the Lydian, an example of the perfectly unjust man—a man who is unjust in every way possible, but appears to be perfectly just in every way possible. The telling of this story comes about when Glaucon and Adeimantus, being very unsatisfied with Socrates’ treatment of Thrasymachus’ argument—namely, that injustice is better to have than justice—in their dialogue in Book I, ask Socrates to really persuade them that justice is better to have in itself than injustice. They then proceed to make the absolute best case that they can for injustice, hoping that Socrates will be able to knock it down, proving that justice is truly better than injustice. In this defense of injustice, Glaucon says that those who hold the view that injustice is better to have than justice would claim that justice is merely a concession for those people who are too weak both to do wrong and to keep others from wronging them—“a compromise…” he says,

"... between the best, which is to do wrong with impunity, and the worst, which is to be wronged and be impotent to get one’s revenge. Justice, they tell us, being midway between the two, is accepted and approved, not as a real good, but as a thing honored in the lack of vigor to do injustice, since anyone who had the power to do it and was in reality ‘a man’ would never make a compact with anybody neither to wrong nor to be wronged, for he would be mad."

Therefore, Glaucon says that if one has the power to commit injustice freely and without having to worry about being wronged in return, there is no man who would remain just, because he could get away with anything he wanted.

To give evidence for this claim, Glaucon offers the story of Gyges, a shepherd in service to the king of Lydia, who, when after a large rainstorm and earthquake, found a chasm that had opened up due to those events. In this chasm, Gyges found, among “other marvels,” a hollow bronze horse. Inside this horse, he saw “a corpse within, as it seemed, of more than mortal stature, and that there was nothing else but a gold ring on its hand, which he took off, and so went forth.” After some experimentation, Gyges found that this ring, when turned a certain way on his finger, turned him invisible, and using this ring, he seduced the king’s wife, and with her help, killed the king and took over the kingdom. Given this option, Glaucon—in proxy for those who favor injustice over justice—says that no man would continue to choose to be just rather than unjust.

Given that this story was told from the perspective of one who believes that injustice is better than justice, we probably cannot expect to see anything within this myth that explicitly says the exact inverse, but what appears to be really worrisome about this tale is the fact that, in the end, Gyges seems to turn out very well, and even better in histories and other tellings of the story. He bribed the Oracle at Delphi into confirming him as the rightful Lydian king, thereby stopping a civil war, and then proceeded to successfully conquer several other nations, including several Greek cities. He gained a kingdom and a queen, and was the founder of an entire Lydian dynasty, which prospered into its fifth generation—it seems that this unjust man, this tyrant, did very well for himself.

I am unsure what to think of this story, especially in light of our class discussions on the natures of the unjust man and the tyrant—they would be the most unhappy men because their souls are the most disordered of all men. But who are we to say that Gyges was unhappy, that he did not flourish? Perhaps, in gaining the power and glory of the kingship, his soul was satisfied and found its place; perhaps Gyges had a very correctly ordered soul, with his nous ruling his erotic nature by way of his chest, but perhaps his nous—his “little man”—was bent toward evil. Thus he would only act unjustly, and use his ordered soul for his own selfish purposes—to me, this does not seem improbable. But if this is true, if Gyges really was happy, or even if he could have been happy, then what are we to make of the perfectly just man—the philosopher-king—who, after reaching as far toward the Good as is humanly possible, is made to give it up in the name of justice and go back down into the darkness and ignorance of the cave, only to rule over the people of the city—a job he does not want over a people he can only pity? Is his happiness, his flourishing, if he indeed has it, really worth the hard work that justice requires of him, when it seems there is a much easier route to happiness available? Is it possible that some men flourish as—were meant to be—tyrants?