alt Hacker NewsI do not believe the Ring of Gyges preceded Plato making it up for The Republic... Where are you getting 4000 years?
Also maybe not seeing the message or connection here... That myth isn't really about who has power or not, right? It's kind of just a trite little "why you should do good even when no one is watching" thing. It just serves Socrates for his argument with Thrasymachus, and leads us into book 2 where it really gets going with Glaucon and all that. This is from memory so I might be a little off.
I got it from Tamar Gendlers philosophy and human nature course on open yale courses. She says it was a popular folk story passed down orally much before it was written in a book. Plato used it because people grew up hearing the story.
The story is asking whats the source of morality? Who decides where the lines are? And its not scientists. Science produces the Ring.