In Plato’s “Republic,” Book 2, Glaucon tells the tale of Gyges’ magic ring, a “precious” ring, if you will, that renders its bearer invisible. As Glaucon tells it, the “lord” of this ring, once immune from the societal repercussions of his misdeeds, would not remain a moral “tower.” Thus, Glaucon concludes, morality is something we follow only because we fear the reprisal of the “fellowships” to which we belong, and we will be unjust whenever we are out of their sight.

A couple of weeks ago, I found myself wearing Gyges’ Ring (which, contrary to popular belief, is not available through Plato’s memorabilia Web site). Through pure happenstance, I was granted access to a friend’s Stanford email account — a friend in whom I had more than a passing interest. (Note to all you Webmail users: remember to delete your single sign-on cookie before letting someone else use your computer!) After scanning the email subjects and senders, I quickly realized that I had to make an immediate decision: Do I read the emails or not?

One side of me pointed out that I hadn’t hacked into her account; it was basically presented to me. When this sort of enticing and highly relevant information was thrust in my face, how could I not look? (That was the lawyer speaking.) The other side of me, although speaking from my heart, didn’t have much of an argument. It just said, “This is wrong. This isn’t respecting her the way she ought to be respected.”

Well, for better or for worse, I didn’t read the emails. What surprised me afterward was that, although I felt like I made the “right” decision, I also felt like kind of an idiot. If I had read her emails, the potential benefits were innumerable: I could find out if she was seeing other people, I could get a better idea of how she felt about me, and I could even get to know her tastes so that I could buy her things that would “happen” to be her favorite flower/food/author. In essence, I could have made more informed decisions that could have resulted in more net happiness for both of us. How could that have been the wrong choice?

And what did I get for respecting her “privacy,” a right so vital to Americans, according to the Supreme Court, that we enshrined it in the penumbra of the Constitution if you look at it through a kaleidoscope? Did she feel a boost in morale the second I closed her inbox? Did the God that I probably don’t believe in take note of my righteous action, to be weighed against my loads of impiety when the day of reckoning arrives?

I doubt it. The most immediate result of my foolhardy foray into ethics was clumsier attempts at romance and less effective stabs at charm.

Granted, there might have been some negative repercussions to scouring her inbox. I might have been caught, or more likely, I might have misinterpreted some of her emails. The email, for instance, referring to “the great sex we had last night,” from that guy — I always see them spending time together, but she insists they’re “just friends” — might actually be referring to “primping our bangs.” What’s more, maybe I’d get so interested in a certain email thread (such as Re: Last Night’s Date: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) that I’d just have to hack into her account again to see how it played out.

If I could get my hands on that One Ring again, I’m not really sure what I would do. For what it’s worth, though, I still feel good about what I did, and things haven’t fallen apart with that woman. Maybe this suggests that, at the end of the day, Socrates was onto something when he said that justice belongs among the highest class of desirable values — those desired both for their essential worth and their practical consequences.