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Utilitarianism In The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas

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Utilitarianism is a theory that places the condition of right or wrong for an action or policy solely based on the outcome or consequences that result from it. A distinction between this theory and others is that it moves beyond the scope of one’s own interests and takes into account the interests of others. Contrary to popular belief, utilitarianism is not about providing the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people, but rather providing the greatest ratio of happiness to unhappiness in a society. In Ursula Le Guin’s story, “The Ones Who Walked Away From Omelas” she describes a place where most people are happy, a utilitarian’s dream. However, the catch is, that there is a child who is locked up and must endure suffering and …show more content…
She portrays that although these people are happy, they realize that violating one’s unalienable rights to achieve this is morally wrong, therefore making them unhappy. If one could measure happiness in units and put that on a scale from one to ten, then utilitarians would argue that it is best to maximize the overall utility or happiness of a society. In other words, if there were five people in the society and all five of them were at a six, they would rather have four of those people rise to a ten while one of the members drops down to a one. This means that in order to increase the total utility they had to harm one person and violate their …show more content…
If everyone acted in a way to achieve the greatest possible amount of happiness for everyone then we would be living in a utopian society. A problem that I found with the story of Omelas was that while the people wanted to have a society with the highest amount of utility possible, they found a way to achieve it that was too easy. Rather than making governmental policy changes to ensure that everyone lived a happy life, the rulers of that society thought it would be easiest to inflict a great amount of pain on one person so that others would seem happier by

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