L02: The Ones Who Walk

Away from Omelas

HSH1000 The Human Condition
A/P Loy Hui Chieh
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Agenda
• 1. Introduction to the issue and the story
• 2. A speed run through the story, point to how the story is conveyed
• 3. Morality: A Preparatory Detour (1)
• 4. Utilitarianism: A Preparatory Detour (2)
• 5. Two Moral Dilemmas Posed by Omelas
• 6. The Human Condition between Is and Ought

• Using Le Guin’s story to help ourselves think about and confront the
distance between how things ought to be and how things are… and in
the process, sensitize ourselves to how words can be used to encourage
emotions and thought.
• The lecture isn’t meant to clear up every possible detail about the story, https://pollev.com/
nor do you need to worry about that for the purposes of the course. loyhuichiehl068
Remember These?

Descriptive Claims/
Statements/accounts Prescriptive Claims/
Predictive Claims/
Statements/accounts
• A claim/statement/account Statements/accounts
• A claim/statement/account
about how things are.
about how things ought to be • A claim/statement/account
• They describe.
• They prescribe. about how things will be.
• They make predictions.

• The interest here isn’t mainly something about language, but the Descriptive, Prescriptive
different kinds of thinking and different ways in which we relate-to- and Predictive Analytics
self-and-world expressed by language. Today’s class will need you to in Data Science?
be sensitive these differences.
Introduction
The Trolley Problem
• Question: Is it ever ok to
sacrifice some for the
wellbeing of the rest?
Omelas as a Literary Trolley Problem?
• Ursula Le Guin: American author of speculative fiction,
recipient of multiple awards, best known for her Earthsea
series of novels.

• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas (1973); nominated

for the Locus Award for Best Short Fiction in 1974; won the
Hugo Award for Best Short Story in 1974.

• Often included in philosophy anthologies on ethics for Ursula Le Guin

discussions of Utilitarianism as a moral doctrine. (1929-2018)

• Le Guin credits William James for inspiring her. (See Bellot.)

William James
(1842-1910)
A relatively simple story with <3,000 words
• Part 1: The happy city Omelas (i-vii).
• Part 2: The child in the basement (xi-xii).
• Part 3: Two roads diverge… (xiii-xv).

• The whole thing told to us by an unnamed narrator.

• Q: Do we have any clues as to the identity of the
narrator? (I’ll assume that it’s a “she”.) Ursula Le
Guin herself? An unnamed inhabitant of Omelas?
One of those who walk away?
A Speed-run through the Story
Pay attention to how the story is conveyed
Part 1: The Happy City Omelas (1)
Paragraph (i):
• A happy city described
• Everything is stated matter-of-fact, and with such details that it’s as
if the narrator knows the place intimately even as she remains
invisible to the reader; fairy-tale-like setting.

Not Omelas, but also

a beautiful city…
Part 1: The Happy City Omelas (2)
Paragraphs (ii-iii):
• The narrator talks to the readers directly, including them in “we” (i.e., “you and I”):
• “The trouble is that we have a bad habit… of considering happiness as something rather
stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting….”
• The narrator assures the reader that the citizens of Omelas are “not less complex than
us… not naive and happy children—though their children were, in fact, happy. They were
mature, intelligent, passionate adults whose lives were not wretched.”
• (https://blog.nus.edu.sg/humancondition/2022/02/11/comments-on-omelas-iii/)

• Still worried that she is not convincing:

• “O miracle! but I wish I could describe it better. I wish I could convince you. Perhaps it
would be best if you imagined it as your own fancy bids, assuming it will rise to the
occasion, for certainly I cannot suit you all.”
A pause before we move on
• The narrator invites the reader to fill in the gaps for themselves!
• An “activist” narrator who gets us to think along with her and invites
us to be conscious of our own thinking and complicit in the co-
creation of Omelas!
• Q: Did she really give the reader a completely free hand? Q: Did the
narrator ever reveal some of her own prescriptive thoughts?
• Hint: Read the top of p. 2 carefully.

• The power of words to encourage an audience towards thinking

without directly saying that we ought to think a certain way…
• Getting us into the impending trolley problem.
• Transition in Paragraph viii: “Do you believe? Do you accept the
festival, the city, the joy? No? Then let me describe one more thing.”
Part 2: The Child in the Basement
Paragraphs (x-xi): The terms are strict and absolute—it’s exactly one of these options:

Omelas Continued: The city Omelas Destroyed: All the

Omelas continues to be prosperity and beauty and
happy as described in Part I, delight of Omelas destroyed,
the child remains in the there is (at best) a little bit
basement and badly treated of happiness for the child.

• Both the collective happiness of the city and the individual happiness of the citizens are at stake:
“…their happiness, the beauty of their city, the tenderness of their friendships, the health of their
children, the wisdom of their scholars, the skill of their makers, even the abundance of their
harvest and the kindly weathers of their skies, depend wholly on this child’s abominable misery.”

(Fanfic written by one of the past students of HSH1000:

https://blog.nus.edu.sg/humancondition/2021/09/03/omelas-fanfiction-by-one-of-our-students/)
Part 3: Two roads diverge (1)
Paragraph xi:
• “This is usually explained to children when they are between eight and twelve, whenever they
seem capable of understanding… these young spectators are always shocked and sickened at the
sight. They feel disgust, which they had thought themselves superior to. They feel anger, outrage,
impotence, despite all the explanations. …”

Paragraph xiii (the ones who stay on in Omelas):

• “Their tears at the bitter injustice dry when they begin to perceive the terrible justice of reality,
and to accept it. Yet it is their tears and anger, the trying of their generosity and the acceptance
of their helplessness, which are perhaps the true source of the splendor of their lives. Theirs is
no vapid, irresponsible happiness. They know that they, like the child, are not free. They know
compassion. It is the existence of the child, and their knowledge of its existence, that makes
possible the nobility of their architecture, the poignancy of their music, the profundity of their
science. It is because of the child that they are so gentle with children. They know that if the
wretched one were not there sniveling in the dark, the other one, the flute-player, could make no
joyful music as the young riders line up in their beauty for the race in the sunlight of the first
morning of summer…”
Part 3: Two roads diverge (2)
• Paragraph xv (the ones who walk away from Omelas):

• “At times one of the adolescent girls or boys who go to see the child does not
go home to weep or rage, does not, in fact, go home at all. Sometimes also a
man or woman much older falls silent for a day or two, and then leaves home.
These people go out into the street, and walk down the street alone. They
keep walking, and walk straight out of the city of Omelas, through the
beautiful gates. They keep walking across the farmlands of Omelas. Each one
goes alone, youth or girl, man or woman. Night falls; the traveler must pass
down village streets, between the houses with yellow-lit windows, and on out
into the darkness of the fields. Each alone, they go west or north, towards the
mountains. They go on. They leave Omelas, they walk ahead into the
darkness, and they do not come back. 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.”
Morality: A Preparatory Detour
Let’s make sure we have some concepts down before going back to The Ones Who
Walk Away From Omelas
The Challenge Posed by the Omelas Story
David Brooks:
• In theory, most of us subscribe to a set of values based on the idea that a human
being is an end not a means. You can’t justifiably use a human being as an object.
It is wrong to enslave a person, even if that slavery might produce a large good. It
is wrong to kill a person for his organs, even if many lives might be saved.
• And yet we don’t actually live according to that moral imperative. Life is filled
with tragic trade-offs. In many different venues, the suffering of the few is justified
by those trying to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number.
• Companies succeed because they fire people, even if a whole family depends on
them. Schools become prestigious because they reject people — even if they put a
lifetime of work into their application. Leaders fighting a war on terror accidentally
kill innocents. These are children in the basement of our survival and happiness.
• [Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas] compels readers to ask if
they are willing to live according to those contracts.
Individual morality
• Gene and the Wallet: Gene found someone’s lost wallet at the
bus stop, containing his contact information. There are clues
that the person who lost the wallet needs the money to buy
medicine for a critically ill child, who will die without the
medication. It would have been very easy for Gene (who has not
urgent financial needs) to return the wallet and its contents.
Social justice
• Anti-Sinister Statute: With the backing of an overwhelming majority of
the electorate, the government pushed through a law (the “Anti-Sinister
Statute”) stipulating that left-handed people are not eligible to hold
political office, take up government jobs or significant executive positions
at private corporations, or vote at national elections, and they need to
pay an extra tax (to cover the additional cost involved in making public
equipment usable by them).
Inescapability of the moral
Some obvious questions:
• Who/what determines whether a moral judgement is
correct or incorrect? How do we know if a particular
answer as to whether Gene morally ought to return the
wallet, etc., is correct?
• Is it all subjective? Or relative? Or “it depends”?
• Aren’t some things ok either way?
• Is it a matter of religion?
If you want to go deeper, you can do some philosophy; but
we don’t need to do that here…

But notice something?

Being human and living among humans
Utilitarianism: A Preparatory Detour (2)
Let’s make sure we have some concepts down before going back to The Ones Who
Walk Away From Omelas (Part 2)
The Challenge Posed by the Omelas Story
David Brooks:
• In theory, most of us subscribe to a set of values based on the idea that a human
being is an end not a means. You can’t justifiably use a human being as an object.
It is wrong to enslave a person, even if that slavery might produce a large good. It
is wrong to kill a person for his organs, even if many lives might be saved.
• And yet we don’t actually live according to that moral imperative. Life is filled
with tragic trade-offs. In many different venues, the suffering of the few is justified
by those trying to deliver the greatest good for the greatest number.
• Companies succeed because they fire people, even if a whole family depends on
them. Schools become prestigious because they reject people — even if they put a
lifetime of work into their application. Leaders fighting a war on terror accidentally
kill innocents. These are children in the basement of our survival and happiness.
• [Le Guin’s The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas] compels readers to ask if
they are willing to live according to those contracts.
Brooks’ Two Contrasting Points of View
• “A human being is an end not a means. • A different perspective:
You can’t justifiably use a human being as • “The suffering of the few is justified by
an object.” those trying to deliver the greatest good
for the greatest number.”
• Basic idea: It is always wrong to treat a
person merely as a means to our own • Implication: It is sometimes not wrong to
pursuits like a tool we use, and not as treat a person as only an object, if doing
having his or her own goals and interests so delivers the greatest good for the
that we need to respect. greatest number.

• Poll: How many of you agree with this? • The (apparent) view of Utilitarianism.
The Moral Doctrine of Utilitarianism
• Utilitarianism as a moral doctrine: “It is the greatest happiness of
the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.”
(Jeremy Bentham)

• Utilitarian Standard for morally evaluating a social arrangement:

• A social arrangement (e.g., the Anti-Sinister Statue; Omelas) is just
= it brings about the greatest total overall amount of happiness
(among the alternatives); otherwise, it is unjust. Jeremy Bentham
Philosopher (1748-1832)
• Utilitarian Standard for morally evaluating an action: Mozi (c. 400-
300 BC) from
• An action is morally right = it brings about the greatest total ancient China
is the first
overall amount of happiness (among the alternatives); otherwise, #first
recorded
it is morally wrong. “utilitarian-
style” moral
There’s a satellite thinker in
named after me! history.
Utilitarianism, a bit more
What is being compared?
• The action vs. the alternatives; the social arrangement vs. the alternatives—how much total
overall happiness does each option bring about?

The implicit impartiality

• Total overall happiness—your own happiness and unhappiness is also counted in, but just as
everyone else’s, in the same overall pot! No particular person’s happiness or unhappiness is
special for being that person’s happiness.

Descriptive, Prescriptive, Predictive aspects

• The Utilitarian Standards (prescriptive, general)
• The verdict regarding a specific action or social arrangement (prescriptive, particular)
• How much happiness is there here, or there, and everywhere, etc. (descriptive)
• How much happiness would be produced given one option or another (predictive)
Are you a Utilitarian? Really?
A Modest Proposal: Harvest
Status Quo Harvest
Total overall Total overall
Problem: There are more patients waiting happiness level X happiness level Y
for organ transplants than donors.
• The descriptive/predictive parameter of
Solution: identify healthy individuals with the scenario: Y > X
weak social connections and harvest all
their organs. There will, of course, be some
unhappy people—the individuals being
harvested, some squeamish people, etc.,
but let’s say that the total overall happiness
will still be higher than status quo.
Two Moral Dilemmas Posed by Omelas
Now that we’ve been prepared by the detours, let’s go back to Omelas and
confront the challenges presented
Dilemma #1: What Kind of Society?
Outcomes for everyone (Omelas, the Child, etc.)
Keep the child in Continued collective and individual The periodic initial feeling of shock,
the basement: happiness of Omelas, the nobility disgust, anger, outrage, impotence,
Omelas Continued of their architecture, the poignancy etc., people experience when made
(Higher total overall of their music, the profundity of aware of the child, and any bad
happiness) their science, etc.; compassion of feeling they have in remembering
the citizens build upon knowledge the child’s existence.
of the child’s existence.

Release the child The collective and individual The child enjoys a little vague
from the basement: happiness of Omelas destroyed in pleasure of warmth and food, some
Omelas Destroyed that day and hour. small release from fear, etc.
(Lower total overall
happiness)
Dilemma #2: To Stay or to Leave?
Outcome for the person Outcome for the rest
Stay on in Omelas The person gains (probability of) Omelas gains the individual…
(Higher total overall happiness participating in the life
happiness) of Omelas… The city continues; the child in the
basement continues to suffer…
That happiness depends upon the
child’s suffering…

Walk away from Loneliness… (happiness?) Omelas loses the individual…

Omelas Whatever happens to the person,
(Lower total overall his/her happiness no longer The city continues; the child in the
happiness) depends on the child’s suffering… basement continues to suffer…
The boundaries of a thought experiment
• Previous students’ reactions: Why are the terms so “strict and
absolute”? How did that come about in the first place? How did the child
end up in the room? Couldn’t the child run away? I would have gone
bust the child out of the room!

• In one sense, these questions are besides the point.

• Rejecting the set up of the story is just the same as refusing to entertain
the story and the challenge it presents, that’s all.
• (For the physics students among you, they are like asking: How did
Schrödinger’s cat end up in the box in the first place?!)
• Also: If you thought that Harvest is morally unjust, would it really matter
“how it happened” that it was implemented?

• Another set of reactions: Is this meant to be about the real world, the
world we live in? (Brooks seems to present it that way.)
The Human Condition
Between Is and Ought
Some reflection points for us, mostly
Some reflections on what we discussed
• The human condition seems inescapably a moral one
• All of us have moral opinions and are often willing and able to act on them
• Most get upset when badly treated by others, or when we witness injustice, etc.
• Part of the human condition is our recognition of inconsistency, in ourselves
• We are torn between different possible moral principles
• We sometimes sincerely recognize that there are things that ought to be, but if we
are honest, we also know we don’t and won’t pay the personal cost to act
• We are also more than ready to let our own happiness and the happiness of those
we care about count more than that of others, especially those we don’t know

• Things to reflect on for yourselves, given your own situation and experience…
• Reminder about the contrast between objective abilities that upskill your
thinking vs. you having your own thinking, which can vary from person to person
Having attended this session…
• Can you describe the overall narrative of The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas?
• Can you discuss the role the narrator plays in the working of the story?
• Can you give a basic definition of Utilitarianism as a moral doctrine?
• Can you use the concept of Utilitarianism as a foil for engaging the story?

How does this text change your mind about the human condition?
• Are there “children” in the basement of our own survival and happiness?
• If the social arrangements that support our own survival and happiness depend upon
such “children”, what should/would you do?
• Is Brooks right that while most think slavery is wrong, and it’s not ok to kill a person for
his organs, even if many lives might be saved, yet, the way we live says otherwise?
Next Week
Read/watch:
• The Epic of Gilgamesh
• AM McClennan - A Warning from the Dawn of History
(https://timesofsandiego.com/opinion/2021/10/09/a-warning-from-the-dawn-of-
history-echoes-in-todays-debate-over-climate-change/)
• The Pre-Recorded videos for Lecture L03 will be published over the weekend (no live
lecture as coming Monday is Chinese New Year holiday)*

• Monday-Tuesday Tutorials affected. Look out for general announcement emails and
instructions from your tutors!