If I were a citizen of the hypothetical town of Omelas described by Ursula Le Guin, I would certainly leave the city because it is populated by morally bankrupt and borderline evil people. I firmly oppose utilitarianism and support deontology in making ethical decisions. The main reason is that I believe the former is impractical because no person can know all the consequences of measures, and it enables populism and discrimination. However, in the case of Omelas, justifying the city’s structure and organization is impossible, even from a utilitarian perspective.
Firstly, utilitarianism is about minimizing suffering and increasing happiness for the most number of people, but the first part is to be prioritized before happiness maximization. Since all inhabitants are intelligent and cultured, they can manage to live together is moderate happiness and contentment without incurring any pain on a child. It is as immoral as allowing hundreds of pedophiles to impose suffering on a single child to maximize their happiness through child pornography. The fact that they came to terms with it shows they are actively involved in this evil.
Secondly, I will leave the city because it is my duty not to inflict perpetual filth, darkness, and misery upon a child. Omelas is built on immorality and evil because it is an obligation of any society to protect its children, the elderly, and the weak. This is why the strong members of the collective, such as men, go to war to die defending their homeland, and the latter is more about people rather than the land itself. The best course of action would be to save the child and dismantle the city through an uprising against the enablers of this structure. In this context, simply leaving the city is the ‘least evil’ path compared to the ‘most good’ option of revolution. There is a reason why the persecution and punishment of child pornography users or makers are harsh and vindictive in most societies. It is not objected against, nor is it analyzed through the utilitarian lens. A moral society does not tolerate poor treatment of its children, which is why I strongly oppose Omelas and any of its inhabitants.
Thirdly, in a sense, the story is an allegory to modern societies. Thousands of children are dying from hunger, wars, and diseases, while the fortunate ones throw away food, promote wars, and debate about cures. The phone I use daily or clothes I wear are made on the suffering, misery, and sweat of slave or child labor. My phone requires cobalt, which is mined through child labor by a Congolese boy in Africa, whereas my clothes are likely sewn by poor Bangladeshi girls in sweatshops. Despite these revelations showcasing my hypocrisy about duty, I still find Omelas’s case much worse because it requires collective action to change the social structure. They all realized the truth but decided to engage in this evil nonetheless. Unlike Omelas’s inhabitants, most people today are unaware of these facts, and they are not all intelligent or cultured. I firmly believe that if all people of this nation or the world became aware of child and slave labor in a modern global economy, they would be repulsed and take action.
In conclusion, not only leaving the city is imperative for a person with some sense of morality, but the ‘most good’ action is to dismantle the enablers and persecute them in the harshest terms. Revolution against the city and uprising of like-minded individuals is the most proper course of action. Therefore, leaving the city is the ‘least evil’ path forward, equivalent to the abandonment of a suffering child. Staying and being part of Omelas translates into a direct engagement in evil.