Friday, January 18, 2013

The Ones who walk away from Omelas

I found this story troublesome as many of you also did.  When confronted with the question of what to do in this situation, how is it best to weigh one's options?  Calculate them with Bentham's methods or talk about quality with Mill?  Would I want to do a "greater good" by keeping the child locked up, thus keeping the whole town of people as they are, happy in their utopia?  Or shall I give the child a (hopefully) better quality of life if it were to be freed at the cost of the whole city's suffering?  Can one not teach the child in secret so that it learns the ways of the world and comfort again, in a neutral way such that kindness is not shown but that the child can come to understand this kindness somehow?  Is it better to sacrifice one for the many?  How do you plead?  What will sit better with one's conscience, the dissatisfaction and unhappiness of one to save many or the satisfaction of that one at the cost of the dissatisfaction of many?  Is there a way to have both parties satisfied?  If you walk away from the city of Omelas, you have made the choice that you are per say, washing your hand of it as you cannot do anything for the child, but you are still faced with the fact that the child is still there suffering and its suffering has not changed.  Is it better to walk away and plan to come back later to lead a revolution against such things?  If you think of this in terms of good and bad, can bad exist without good or good exist without bad?  Are these parts of the story so dependent on one another that you cannot have one without the other?  When it was said that the utopia would no longer be a utopia if the child was shown kindness, how bad could this be?  Could it be possible to "learn from your mistakes"?  Lets say for instance, that many people cannot hold their heads upright and their inner voice cannot keep quiet; their conscience gets the best of them and they wish to help the poor child.  If the child is helped then all, including the child will now live no longer in a utopia, but a place not so great as it once was.  Can it then be a time to rebuild and rethink, anew, with flourishing to begin again, and all consciences clean with the feeling of doing a sort of right and of what is just?  If what is just is the most good, should it not be pursued at all costs even after counting the consequences?  Does not justice prevail over immorality?

3 comments:

  1. Very good questions. Remember, though, that the Omelas piece is a story meant to shine a bright light on a particular ethical tangle. It is unrealistic in myriad ways; but, it seeks to show us something about our choices that might also illuminate our actions and motivations in the real world. Generally, it isn't very productive to offer counterfactuals within a fictitious context.

    ReplyDelete
  2. While you ask a lot of questions in this post, I think that the main question that is addressed in the Omelas piece is that of whether or not it is moral to sacrifice the happiness and well-being of an unwilling and innocent person for the good of an entire society. While it is impossible to truly know how I would act in the hypothetical situation established in Omelas, I do not think that once I had been made aware of the circumstances surrounding the utopia, that I would be able to remain there. While it was brought up in class that leaving Omelas does not really accomplish anything, I would have to disagree on the grounds that leaving Omelas would be a public rejection of the treatment of the child and would be setting a precedent for change.

    ReplyDelete
  3. If I found myself in the Omelas situation, I would leave the utopian city, because I could not live a flourishing life while knowing that an innocent child was suffering because of it. In my personal opinion, enjoying life at the expense of one innocent child suffering is wrong. What if all of the people in Omelas decided to leave because they did not want the child to suffer? What would be the outcome then? Would the child's situation be worse because they are suffering for no purpose? Or is the child's situation "accept" because of the good that results from this one action? By no means am I perfect, and by no means to I claim or pretend to live a moral or righteous life. Of course we all reap the benefits of child labor and people being mistreated or suffering in terrible work conditions. But there is something about this excerpt that touches a specific place in me that makes me feel as though this is wrong.

    ReplyDelete