Here is the prompt for the following essay:1. Does the story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” successfully defeat utilitarianism? In answering this, you should discuss (a) whether the utilitarian is committed to holding that it is morally right to keep the child in those conditions, and (b) whether there is a plausible utilitarian response.
Here is the sample essay:
Thesis: Ursula Leguin's story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, fails to successfully defeat utilitarianism because the scenario proposed has little relevance to any real world situation, and has the counterproductive effect of exposing moral weaknesses within our own society.
In the story, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, Ursula Leguin presents a scenario in which an entire city's population can experience an extremely pure form of happiness, so long as one child lives in a constant state of wretched misery (229). The specific reasons and mechanisms that led to the creation and maintenance of this situation are left deliberately vague, allowing the reader to focus on the emotional states of the parties involved. Leguin does this in order to paint a picture of a utilitarian utopia – a world in which the well-being of the vast majority can be guaranteed through the suffering of a very few. The reader is then invited to evaluate the ethical nature of this society, thus testing the validity of a strictly utilitarian morality.
However, before using Leguin's vision as a test of utilitarian morality, we must first ensure that it accurately conforms to the ideals of this philosophy. Utilitarianism is based on the principle of utility: that moral rightness is determined by whatever course of action produces the greatest amount of good in combination with the minimum amount of suffering (Tiffany 2). Leguin illustrates this concept with Omelas – a city in which the universal happiness of the populace is dependent on the abject suffering of a nine year old child (229). The mechanism that allows this feat to be achieved is deliberately left unexplained, and many aspects of the society are left open to the interpretation of the reader. These ambiguities force the reader to make a moral evaluation based solely on emotional intuition, eliminating the possible use of technical loopholes to avoid the tough ethical question. For example, Leguin invites us to interpret the happiness of the Omelas citizens in whatever way we feel is most pure and wholesome (227), and is careful to stress that these people understand both the nature and source of their contentment (229). This careful definition forestalls any argument that the happiness of the people of Omelas is somehow devalued by their situation, which might attempt to circumvent the question at hand.
While Omelas can be accepted as an example of a morally just utilitarian society, one point should be clarified before moving on. It must be understood that in this scenario, all aspects of the child’s suffering are absolutely necessary. Leguin states this explicitly – “the terms are strict and absolute; there may not even be a kind word spoken to the child” (230) – however the child’s plight is of such a seemingly senseless and horrific nature, that utilitarianism may still appear intuitively sadistic by association. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, since utilitarianism desires to minimize suffering as much as possible, provided there is not a greater cost to the good of others. In this respect, Leguin’s scenario puts the utilitarian in a difficult position. Since she does not explain the mechanism behind Omelas’ happiness, a true utilitarian is bound to condone the situation as is, even though it seems to have little relevance to the real world.
Having established that Omelas approximates the utilitarian ideal of a morally just society, we can evaluate whether it demonstrates obvious ethical flaws in this philosophy. At the end of the story, Leguin describes how, despite Omelas’ utopian qualities, its citizens occasionally abandon the city and never return. Although they understand that the greater good is being served, they nevertheless intuitively feel that a moral wrong is being done, and do not wish to be associated with it. This aspect of the story establishes the author's stand on utilitarianism, however the story itself does not provide a convincing argument for this position.
The major reason for this failure is Leguin’s overuse of ambiguity, and her choice to leave specifics of the situation open to the interpretation of the reader. This approach allows for a dramatic illustration of a theoretical consequence of utilitarian ideology, however the scenario is so far-fetched that it is very difficult to evaluate intuitively on moral grounds. The reader is asked whether it is worth forcing a child to live in its own feces (229), so that one can live in a society in which “... beautiful nudes can just wander about, offering themselves like divine soufflés to the hunger of the needy and the rapture of the flesh” (227). The former sounds horrible, but the latter sounds pretty good, but since the reader has probably never experienced either, he/she is not a competent judge and cannot take a stand with any strong conviction.
A second element of Leguin's story, which weakens her attack on utilitarianism, is that Omelas seems substantially better than the world we currently live in. People in other countries undergo an immense amount of suffering, so that we can have cheap oil, tight-fitting Gap T-shirts and other luxuries of Western society. The cumulative suffering brought about by this exploitation appears much greater than the misery of the one child in Omelas. Furthermore, despite our frequent abuse of the less fortunate, we are substantially less happy than the people of Omelas. Our fleeting experiences with store-bought or drug-induced joy, pale in comparison with the pure contentment described by Leguin. She asks us to condemn the Omelas society as morally wrong, however to do so would be to admit that we ourselves are moral deviants of a much worse degree. Whether or not this is true, the human psyche is naturally resistant to such self-flagellation, and so the reader will be reluctant to take Leguin's position.
Thus we have seen that although Leguin's Omelas is an effective illustration of a theoretical consequence of the utilitarian viewpoint, it does not succeed in exposing ethical failures in the philosophy. From a utilitarian viewpoint, Omelas is a morally just society, however the ambiguities in its description limit its usefulness in any kind of real world ethical discussion. Furthermore, an undecided reader may be unwilling to condemn Leguin's utilitarian paradise, since it seems superior in many respects, to the world we currently live in.
Works Cited
Leguin, Ursula. "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas". The Winds Twelve
Quarters. US: Harper & Row Publishers, 1975, pp 224 - 231.
Tiffany, Evan. “Slides for the unit on Utilitarianism”. http://www.sfu.ca/~etiffany/teaching/phil120/120.html.
2003.