(note the following is me explaining my interpretation, not explaining my beliefs)
I think its a criticism of utilitarianism via a criticism of our inability to take just good things seriously. The whole point of (at least certain kinds of) utilitarianism is that we are in triage every second of every day. The Ones Who Walk Away is a denial of actions and worlds that are just good, the assertion that every decision is a trolley problem, and every good you do comes at the expense of bad you neglected to avert.
Omelas seems more likely given a tortured child at its heart for the same reason we find the assertion that an action which has a horrible consequence is nevertheless good. This is the same implicit logic used to defend actions taken for “the greater good”, and an implicit claim about the psychology of people taking bad actions “for the greater good”. That people find it more likely they can have a positive impact if there’s an obvious negative consequence to their action, the bias which has caused the most horrible atrocities we know of.
Those who walk away therefore are those who try not to fall for this bias. Both metaphorically, the reader who says “no, I don’t think you need to torture a kid to get a perfect world”, and literally, those who live in Omelas and say “no, I don’t think we ought to live in a society which tortures a kid”.
Another interpretation of “those who walk away”: Those who walk away are those who are even able to live in a non-Omelas, those who are able to imagine even the possibility of not having a hidden evil at the heart of a perfect world. The reader who does not walk away from Omelas, lives in Omelas and has lived in Omelas for their whole life, in the sense of mentally inhibiting the world in which any Omelas must have the tortured child. Those who walk away are therefore the very few who are able to reject that mental world, leave it, and achieve all the good rather than just the good that comes at a tragic cost.
This fits both the literal people who walk away in the story—they walk away because they imagine there is a land that is nicer, that doesn’t have a tortured child at its heart—and the reader metaphorically—they also walk away because they imagine a nicer world and believe that can be achieved without sacrifice.
This feels really important to me, in a way that’s much less like ‘the good name of utilitarianism must be defended’ than like ‘zero-sum bias is a sneaky evil bastard, don’t ever let it get away with hiding behind other names’.
I agree, but also, like, I think its good to notice the skulls here. This bias isn’t equivalent to utilitarianism, but often justifies itself on utilitarian grounds, and utilitarians… don’t necessarily seem like they do all that much to try to stave off such biases when making their decisions or advocating for their moral frameworks. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me utilitiarians often revel in their ability to make hard moral tradeoffs rather than their ability to try to think of ways to get all of what they want without having to trade anything off (which is what the “steel utilitarian” would do).
(note the following is me explaining my interpretation, not explaining my beliefs)
I think its a criticism of utilitarianism via a criticism of our inability to take just good things seriously. The whole point of (at least certain kinds of) utilitarianism is that we are in triage every second of every day. The Ones Who Walk Away is a denial of actions and worlds that are just good, the assertion that every decision is a trolley problem, and every good you do comes at the expense of bad you neglected to avert.
Omelas seems more likely given a tortured child at its heart for the same reason we find the assertion that an action which has a horrible consequence is nevertheless good. This is the same implicit logic used to defend actions taken for “the greater good”, and an implicit claim about the psychology of people taking bad actions “for the greater good”. That people find it more likely they can have a positive impact if there’s an obvious negative consequence to their action, the bias which has caused the most horrible atrocities we know of.
Those who walk away therefore are those who try not to fall for this bias. Both metaphorically, the reader who says “no, I don’t think you need to torture a kid to get a perfect world”, and literally, those who live in Omelas and say “no, I don’t think we ought to live in a society which tortures a kid”.
Another interpretation of “those who walk away”: Those who walk away are those who are even able to live in a non-Omelas, those who are able to imagine even the possibility of not having a hidden evil at the heart of a perfect world. The reader who does not walk away from Omelas, lives in Omelas and has lived in Omelas for their whole life, in the sense of mentally inhibiting the world in which any Omelas must have the tortured child. Those who walk away are therefore the very few who are able to reject that mental world, leave it, and achieve all the good rather than just the good that comes at a tragic cost.
This fits both the literal people who walk away in the story—they walk away because they imagine there is a land that is nicer, that doesn’t have a tortured child at its heart—and the reader metaphorically—they also walk away because they imagine a nicer world and believe that can be achieved without sacrifice.
I like this interpretation, but ‘criticism of [something like zero-sum] bias rationalized as utilitarianism’ ≠ ‘criticism of utilitarianism’.[1]
This feels really important to me, in a way that’s much less like ‘the good name of utilitarianism must be defended’ than like ‘zero-sum bias is a sneaky evil bastard, don’t ever let it get away with hiding behind other names’.
I agree, but also, like, I think its good to notice the skulls here. This bias isn’t equivalent to utilitarianism, but often justifies itself on utilitarian grounds, and utilitarians… don’t necessarily seem like they do all that much to try to stave off such biases when making their decisions or advocating for their moral frameworks. Indeed, it sometimes seems to me utilitiarians often revel in their ability to make hard moral tradeoffs rather than their ability to try to think of ways to get all of what they want without having to trade anything off (which is what the “steel utilitarian” would do).