Utilitarianism In The People Of Omelas

Utilitarianism is a moral principle that holds that the morally right course of action in any situation is the one that produces the greatest balance of benefits over harms for everyone affected. We might not notice it but most of us use this kind of morality every day in our lives. For the most part, utilitarianism is a very straightforward process to help us decide whether our moral reasons are correct or incorrect. In utilitarianism, we must always first determine all our possible outcomes of our decision. Secondly, we determine the harms and benefits for each possible outcomes and the people affected by it. Lastly, we choose the action that brings the most benefits after everything has been taken into account (Garcia, 4). There are two …show more content…
The title of this short story represents the small percentage of people who don’t believe in utilitarianism since they literally walk away from it. In this story, utilitarianism applies because they sacrifice a child’s happiness for the whole city of Omelas. In the city of Omelas they are using act utilitarianism. As mentioned before, act utilitarianism is supposed to increase overall happiness which in Omelas, sacrificing a child for happiness of mostly all of the citizens is the perfect example. People are aware of what they have to do in order to keep their happiness. All of the citizens have visited the child at least once. Some never go back while others visit very often. In Omelas, you never have to worry about your happiness or others happiness. Everyone is always happy and stress-free. Although mostly all of the citizens are happy, some still don’t agree with what is done in the town. The young people of the town are disgusted. It is hard for them to understand why the kid is there since they were born into act utilitarianism and don’t know any other way of living. Some adults still don’t agree with this act because they can relate if it was their son or daughter in that …show more content…
I wouldn’t be able to live my life in happiness knowing that a kid is suffering for me. How can someone not care about a child? The child did nothing wrong to deserve that place. If you were to put a grown adult in there that has done many wrongs throughout his life, he will suffer as well but I would understand why he was put in the room. Our life shouldn’t revolve around happiness. There a are other important values in life. Our world today has similar patterns as those from Omelas. Although the government might hide information from us, jails and prisons are similar to the room the child is kept in because our purpose for putting them in there is related to Omelas. Although the people that go to jail did something bad, we put them in there to be more safe and happy in our life. Another thing our world loves is cheap labor. Many of us may benefit from it as the prices might be cheaper, but those that are victims of cheap labor are very unsatisfied. Why does society avoid this issue so much? Because their cheap labor provides the greatest good for the greater number of