Jeremy Bentham Case

When Jeremy Bentham, an English moral philosopher and legal reformer, founded the doctrine of utilitarianism in the 18th century, the principle of maximizing social utility became popular immediately. In Bentham's opinion, "the highest principle of morality is to maximize happiness (which he calls utility in general), the overall balance of pleasure over pain" (Michael Sandel 23). The principle, though appealing at the first glance, implicates a controversial notion that the sufferings of minority can be justified by the happiness of majority.

In the successive years, many objected the idea by pointing to the most glaring flaw that "it fails to respect individual right" (Michael Sandel 24). Among them, Ursula Le Guin made her point quite strong by describing the dehumanizing aspect of utilitarianism. In her short story The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas, she depicts a utopian city which embodies the idea of ensuring the happiness of the majority with an exception of a lost soul. In this story, Le Guin uses symbolism to explore the moral dilemma of the utilitarian principle of justice.

Le Guin begins her story with a joyous picture of the Festival of Summer in Omelas, which represents the happiness of the mass majority. "Boys and girls, naked in the bright air" is an allusion to the Eden in the Bible, which is a holy garden featured with freedom and happiness. (Vincent McGee 27). The city is also bestowed with religious freedom but free from corruptive priests and priestesses, as Le Guin puts it, "religion yes, clergy no". But beautiful nudes can still walk around and indulge themselves in physical ecstasy, for the "glory of desire" is appreciated in Omelas. What else? "The sense of victory", of course, is honored in a most decent way with the victory of life being the theme. Among all the delightful scenes, a boy playing the flute serves as a general symbol of the most blissful life in Omelas that one can possibly imagine.

With all the joy the city beholds, Le Guin tries to accord her utopian model with the abstract utilitarian notion of happiness. And in order to do that, she bases the definition of pleasure on "a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive". The discrimination, with which readers can add in specific characteristics according to their various favors, allows the author to put aside the trivial details about what is good for the city and focus on the symbolic image of happiness of the majority.

But the splendid picture fades away when, with a dramatic shift in the tone, Le Guin reveals a dark secret of the utopian city, a symbol of the suffering minority. A child, who is innocent in nature and imbecile as a result of long-time imprisonment, is kept in the basement under a beautiful building in Omelas. The foul setting, the fear of the mops and the endless darkness symbolize all the terrible experiences that the oppressed minority might go through.

Though with full knowledge of the child's existence, people never respond to the child's begging for help. The child is even referred to as an "it" for it doesn't really matter what its gender is. It is only a tool based on which the joyous city is built. The symbolic meaning of people's indifference to the child, therefore, is the exploitation of and negligence to the lower class. So as the child implores day and night without even "a kind word spoken to" it, it withers to such an extent as it "only makes a kind of whining, 'eh-haa, eh-haa,' and it speaks less and less often". The symbolism applied here is meant to reveal the deteriorating condition of the oppressed minority.

Now a moral dilemma falls upon the people of Omelas: to save the child and throw away all the happiness they are blessed with, or to leave it there and consider it as a necessary sacrifice for pleasure of the majority? Le Guin explores the common response in the following paragraphs. Children are usually told of its existence when they are between eight and twelve. Most of them, after seeing the pathetic being, "go home in tears, or in a tearless rage". Obviously, the moral dilemma tortures their conscience