Materialism and Morality: A Society's Dilemma

In today's materialistic societies, materialistic things and desires drive people’s behaviors. The means doesn’t matter, it’s all about showing off and bragging about it. It’s all about reaching the top without considering any moral values or standards. Individuals throughout society have different perspectives and have their own distinctive explanation of wright and wrong, just and unjust in order to achieve their dreams. During the long path to reach their dreams, people can experience different situations when they need to decide if they want to be just or unjust. A person who is loaded with morals, values, and ethics can take into consideration not to build his success into other people’s interests, but another who doesn’t care can do

When he turns the ring in a certain direction, he becomes invisible. Gyges quickly uses this ring to his advantage serving his own interests without any fear of discovery. From this legend, Glaucon argues that if anyone had a ring that would make him invisible, then this person would be an idiot not to use this magic power for his personal advantage. He agues that whether this person is just or unjust, with such a ring, he could do almost anything he wanted without fear of being caught. “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.” From his speech, Glaucon means that because individuals are at heart, are purely self-interested and concerned only with personal gain, people would abuse their power, act unjustly if they knew that their actions would go unpunished, and not suffer the consequences of their actions. In addition, Glaucon use the legend “ the Ring of Gyges “ to reinforce his perspective, that people are worried about how to maintain their reputation for honesty and virtue and that shame and social pressure forces individuals to act in a just manner in order to avoid the harm that would come to them in case they disobey the laws. When these sanctions (positive or negative) are removed, moral character would