Omelas

“The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” presents a familiar ethical dilemma. This utilitarian dilemma asks if perfect happiness and freedom from suffering for many is worth the maximal suffering of one. According to utilitarian philosophy, the answer is usually yes. The author, Ursula K. Le Guin, is challenging that philosophy through this short story. I’m finding difficulty deciding on the question she presents.

Utilitarianism takes a mathematical approach to ethics. In comparing the ethical merit of multiple choices, each choice is scored by the happiness it causes minus the suffering it causes. A choice with a higher score is considered more favorable in utilitarian philosophy. As a hypothetical example, suppose a student has the choice to use a rare free hour to either write a response paper assigned in her Data Ethics class or play Minecraft. The choice to write the paper causes suffering due to low stimulation for a period of one hour, but it also leads to happiness in the pride and relief she feels later for having turned it in before it’s due and now being able to dedicate her afternoon to more enjoyable things. Subtracting moderate, short-lived suffering from moderate, longer-lived happiness yields a positive subjective score. The choice to instead play Minecraft causes an hour of happiness due to Minecraft being very fun and stimulating, but it causes the long-term stress of still having the task on her to-do list, missing the deadline, and increasing later work loads when she’s assigned additional homework. Subtracting intense, longer-lived suffering from intense, short-lived happiness yields a negative subjective score. The obvious choice here is to write the paper. However, not every ethical decision has a utilitarian solution that aligns with its solutions from other ways of thinking. These examples can bring into question how universally applicable utilitarian judgment actually is.

Le Guine presents one such example. The story of the city of Omelas operates under the assumption of some unexplained magic that allows minimal suffering and maximal happiness to the entire population of Omelas, excepting one, in exchange for the maximal suffering and minimal happiness of that one. Omelas is illustrated as an ideal sort of utopia until the reader learns that this perfection is magically thanks to a unanimous agreement to lock one child in solitary confinement. This is about all the information we have from which to calculate a utilitarian ethical merit score for the scenario.

Suppose Omelas has a population of $n$ citizens (a natural number). The exact population of Omelas is not specified. Since it’s implied in the story, let’s assume the population is significantly greater than some small natural number like ten. Suppose $n-1$ citizens of Omelas have a happiness score $h_{citizens}$, which we assume is very high, and a suffering score $d_{citizens}$, which we assume is very low. Suppose one child has a happiness score $h_{child}$, which we assume is very low, and a suffering score $d_{child}$ which we assume is very high. The net ethical merit score is therefore:

$$ (n-1) \cdot ( h_{citizens} - d_{citizens} ) + 1 \cdot ( h_{child} - d_{child} ) $$ We can substitute some of the variables for arbitrary high and low numbers to get: $$ (n-1) \cdot ( 100 - 0 ) + 1 \cdot ( 0 - 100 ) $$ This simplifies to: $$ 100n - 100 $$ Since $n$ is always greater than two, the expressions above will always be positive. Therefore, under utilitarianism, this scenario is a moral net positive.

Unlike in the writing assignment example, the ethical answers in this example might not be as cut and clear as the math demonstrates. It intuitively feels very wrong to me that a population of people should be benefitting from the full sacrifice of another’s well-being. However, I’m skeptical of my emotionally based conclusions, as they may be logically fallacious. It’s because I care about these hypothetical people’s well-being that I challenge my instincts. My empathic instinct was the desire to sneak the child away and give them a bath and a meal and a great, big hug. But what would become of everyone else in Omelas then?

With the magical spell no longer cast over the city, nobody would be perfectly happy every day anymore. Some folks would stay well off, but others would likely fall into sickness, homelessness, and abusive relationships. Given some time, there may even end up being one or many more situations quite similar to the one the now rescued child once lived. As opposed to the earlier scenario, when everyone was on extreme ends of the happiness and suffering spectra, this one may be trickier to calculate. Let’s assume that the mean scores for happiness and suffering out of the citizens of New Omelas is $25$ and $25$. The net ethical merit score I give is therefore:

$$ n(h_{citizens} - d_{citizens}) $$ $$ 25n-25n $$ $$ 0 $$

What feels most wrong in the original scenario is the notion of people benefitting from a child’s perfect suffering by receiving perfect happiness. Perhaps this feeling comes from a fallacious instinct toward loss aversion, and perhaps not. But if you ignore whatever pleasures the free citizens may be complacently indulging in and instead frame their benefits as protection from suffering (to any degree), New Omelas still isn’t looking so good mathematically. With lower scores still denoting greater suffering, the suffering score of Old Omelas is as follows:

$$ (n-1) \cdot (- d_{citizens}) + 1 \cdot (- d_{child}) $$ $$ (n-1) \cdot (-0) + 1 \cdot (- 100) $$ $$ -100 $$ As for new Omelas: $$ n(- d_{citizens}) $$ $$ -25n $$ The population of Omelas does not need to be very large in order for $-25n$ (even if the arbitrary $25$ is replaced with something else) to exceed $-100$ in absolute value.

With a less mathematical approach, what persuades me the most is that in New Omelas, the magic no longer protects anyone from being forced into abuse as bad as what the child lived through. I have heard the argument that New Omelas is the right choice because an individual’s extreme suffering is guaranteed if you choose Old Omelas. However, I am skeptical that such a world as New Omelas doesn’t also guarantee some individuals’ extreme suffering. If such a world were possible, my decision may change. Maybe there’s some philosophical perspective I’m missing that would justify why Old Omelas feels so wrong. For now, I think that if I lived in Omelas, I would reluctantly choose the status quo.