d imagine anyone obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong . . . he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot" (257). Be cause Gyges had no fear of punishment, he did evil rather than good.
The chief weakness of this argument is that it interprets justice, human motivation, and behavior solely in material terms. Glaucon's references to what can be gained suggest a structure of thought that is entirely an attribute of material gain, as if there were no such thing in human experience as the capacity for reflection on the consequences of unjust action. This does not mean the practical consequence of legal punishment but instead the damage that unjust behavior might do to the individual's sense of self-worth. In other words, no consideration is given to the possibility that human reason can engage with the world without continually seeking advantage in it.
The rejoinder of weakness discerned in Glaucon's third argument that the life of the unjust is better than the life of the just proceeds from the weakness just identified with regard to the second argument. If a good or bad life is defined in material terms, then of course it makes sense that the unjust life reaps material reward, whereas the just life may do no such thing. Even the just man, adds Glaucon's brother Adeimantus, is urged by parents and teachers to be just not for the sake of justice but for the sake of reputation (260). This explains why Glaucon notes that for the just man to "seem" as well as "be" just is a material reward of a kind (258). Meanwhile, the unjust man takes pains to seem just while being unjust, and the rewards are many for such an effort, so
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