Read this excerpt from Plato's Republic and thenconsider this question:

Glaucon argues that people will always act unethicallyif there is no chance of being caught. Do you agree ordisagree?

Note: Gyges' ring is like the ring that Frodo carried in TheLord of the Rings. It gives invisibility.

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The Ring of Gyges, from Book II of Plato’sRepublic.

Instructor’s note: This is part of a dialogue betweenSocrates (who represents Plato’s view) and Glaucon (Plato’s olderbrother). Earlier in the dialogue, Socrates has given an argumentabout the nature and importance of justice. The character Glaucondisagrees with Socrates, and this excerpt is Glaucon’s speechregarding the nature of justice.

Now that those who practice justice do so involuntarily andbecause they have not the power to be unjust, will best appear ifwe imagine something of this kind: having given both to the justand the unjust power to do what they will, let us watch and seewhither desire will lead them; then we shall discover in the veryact the just and unjust man to be proceeding along the same road,following their interest, which all natures deem to be their good,and are only diverted into the path of justice by the force of law.The liberty which we are supposing may be most completely given tothem in the form of such a power as is said to have been possessedby Gyges the ancestor of Croesus the Lydian.

According to the tradition, Gyges was a shepherd in the serviceof the king of Lydia; there was a great storm, and an earthquakemade an opening in the earth at the place where he was feeding hisflock. 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, asappeared to him, more than human, and having nothing on but a goldring; this he took from the finger of the dead and reascended. Nowthe shepherds met together, according to custom, that they mightsend their monthly report about the flocks to the king; into theirassembly he came having the ring on his finger, and as he wassitting among them he chanced to turn the collet of the ring insidehis hand, when instantly he became invisible to the rest of thecompany and they began to speak of him as if he were no longerpresent. He was astonished at this, and again touching the ring heturned the collet outwards and reappeared; he made several trialsof the ring, and always with the same result-when he turned thecollet inwards he became invisible, when outwards he reappeared.Whereupon he contrived to be chosen one of the messengers who weresent to the court; where as soon as he arrived he seduced thequeen, and with her help conspired against the king and slew him,and took the kingdom.

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the justput on one of them and the unjust the other; no man can be imaginedto 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 couldsafely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses andlie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prisonwhom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Thenthe actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; theywould both come at last to the same point. And this we may trulyaffirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly orbecause he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, butof necessity, for wherever anyone thinks that he can safely beunjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their heartsthat injustice is far more profitable to the individual thanjustice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say thatthey are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this powerof becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching whatwas another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a mostwretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another'sfaces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear thatthey too might suffer injustice.