In this session, we are going to talk about two things. The first is Jeremy Bentham, and the second is Le Guin’s unsettling story, ‘The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas.’ Let’s start with Bentham.
On Bentham and Calculating Pleasures / Pains
In groups, compare the calculations you did for your homework. Did you all calculate in the same way? Or did you have different approaches? How did you calculate? What were your results?
- What does Bentham tell us to take into account? Did you take these things into account? If not, how would taking these things into account change the calculation?
- How easy did you find the calculation?
- Were you satisfied with the results?
- When you thought thorugh the results, did they speak for themselves, or did you use any other ethical theories or approaches to “validate” them?
- How promising is this as a way of resolving the questions raised in the Euthyphro?\
Break
Omelas
Now, let’s turn to Le Guin’s story to finish off the session. First, we’re going to do a writing exercise. Write for 10 minutes from the point of view of either:
- A young person in Omelas who first finds out about the child in the basement
- The child
- Somebody who walks away
- Somebody who stays
Discussion
- How is your own society like Omelas? How is it different?
- Are those who stay in Omelas complicit in the suffering of the child? To what extent can we all be considered to be complicit in the moral flaws of the political system we live under?
- Have you had moments where you have “seen into the basement” to see the underside?
- From a utilitarian perspective, if Omelas was the happiest place possible anywhere, would that mean this this arragement was the most ethical arrangement possible (despite the suffering of the child)? Or are there are ethical questions we need to ask.
- Does Le Guin’s story tell us anything useful about ethics? If so, what?
- Le Guin writes “we have a bad habit… of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual.” What does she mean, and do you agree?
Homework
We’re going to take another approach to utilitarianism now, from JS Mill! Here’s the reading. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/classicreadings/chapter/john-stuart-mill-on-utilitarianism/
As usual, I’ll post a participation / reading task on Canvas.