“It is naked. Its buttocks and thighs are a mass of festered sores, as it sits in its own excrement continually. “
“"I will be good, " it says. "Please let me out. I will be good!" They never answer.”
The city of Omelas is a paradise. It has no soldiers, war, crime or sickness. The citizens are perfectly happy. Any problem or grievance imaginable in society has been eradicated in Omelas. However, the continuation of paradise relies on one thing: the suffering of a child. In their short story, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas”, Ursula K LeGuin proposes an interesting thought experiment, which leads us to reexamine how we think about ethics and morality in society. If everyone’s perfect happiness is caused by one person’s suffering, is it worth it? It’s easy to see how this problem is applicable in many ways to today’s world. Our society is clearly not perfect: can we say we are “doing well” as a society if people are still suffering? The answer is unclear. I propose that the answer is no, because it’s not moral to justify happiness at the expense of others’ suffering.
This paradox in thought is caused in part by a common moral philosophy known as utilitarianism. It states that the best moral action to take is one that creates the most happiness possible while creating the least suffering. Utilitarian thinking is a rational-looking philosophy, and is clearly rampant in all society’s avenues. It's easy to understand why: from an unbiased standpoint, it often reaches the solution that “feels” morally right. For example, if you gave a thousand people the choice to save one person or two people, there’s clearly a “right” answer: save two. Saving two over one minimizes suffering while maximizing happiness. However, utilitarianism breaks down once personal attachments get involved: for example, if the situation becomes choosing between saving your child or two stranger’s children. Clearly, the answer is nontrivial. In the Omelas case, utilitarianism would say the society is doing very well: there is quite a lot of happiness, and only one person is suffering. This society is doing very well for itself. However, it's not that simple. Many people who put themselves in an Omelasian citizen’s shoes would be very uncomfortable with the child’s suffering, regardless of how many people are happy because of it. We are naturally empathetic creatures: once we understand that someone is suffering, we naturally empathize. Additionally, responsibility heightens this empathy. We suffer more when we are responsible for other’s suffering. Once this is understood, Omelas is no longer a paradise: each person feels guilt for the suffering of the child. It doesn’t matter how much happiness is created: Omelesian citizens feel guilty, and therefore Omelas can’t be morally right.
Sadly, Omelas isn’t a theoretical example. Many real-life situations align with the moral conundrum presented in Omelas. The chocolate industry is famously filled with inhumane examples of slavery; colonialism trades the livelihoods of indigenous people for those of colonizers. While these situations may or may not result in “net-positive happiness” for everyone involved, these situations are immoral and should not be allowed to continue. The characters realize this - in “The ones who walk away from Omelas”, some Omelasian citizens end up walking away from their paradise, unwilling to stomach the injustice it causes. As LeGuin writes:
“The place they go towards is a place even less imaginable to most of us than the city of happiness. I cannot describe it at all. It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.”