Morality of Our Actions

Every person has a personal code that they use to determine if their actions are appropriate and just. This code differs among individuals and societies. Some people use the law of the land to guide them, some use their religious teachings while others devise their own moral philosophy. Most of the time it is very easy for us to decide if our actions are ethical or not using our personal moral code. Everyone would agree that stealing something from a person who needs that thing more than us is not ethically right. But there are some situations where applying the moral code becomes much more difficult. This can be the result of the moral code not being strictly defined or our inability to properly apply it to make the decision. Sometimes our emotions can cloud our judgment and make us unwilling to apply our own moral code. This emotion can be the fear of consequences to us and the ones we love. It can also be a desire for something that we want but do not possess. Some people would say stealing something from someone who does not need that thing as much as us is not ethically wrong. Others feel that stealing something is always the ethically wrong decision irrespective of how much we need it. These ambiguous situations are the real measure of a person’s moral code and thus their integrity. A well defined moral code will allow a person to make these decisions with clarity and remove all self-doubt. It will ensure that the person is consistent in their decisions. Even if this person  has to suffer consequences because of their decision they will not feel any guilt. They trust their moral code and since they stayed true to it, they will not hold themselves responsible for the consequences even if they feel bad about it.

In the story, the author describes a place called Omelas where everyone is happy and content. There are no evils and the society appears to be perfect and without any flaws. Then the author reveals that the source of the prosperity of Omelas is the misery of a child. This child has been living alone in a dark and filthy room for a very long time. He gets only a small amount of food and water to sustain himself. He gets almost no human contact except for the times when the children of Omelas come to see him when they are told of his existence. The author tells us that most of the children feel sorry for him. They feel anger towards the society that is making the child suffer but no one can do anything for him. They are told that this child’s suffering is necessary for Omela’s good. With the passage of time, most of these children come to terms with their reality and accept the child’s fate. But some of the children who visit the suffering child decide to leave Omelas as their conscience does not allow them to be a part of such a society. Sometimes an adult who had accepted the child’s fate earlier feel that they cannot live with this injustice anymore and decide to leave Omelas. These people leave their joyous and peaceful life in Omelas for an uncertain future in an unknown place (LeGuin 1-2). This story shows us the two types of people based on their decision of staying or leaving. The former accept the suffering of one for the good of the many members of society while the latter’s moral code does not allow them to do it. The story makes us question if the suffering of one child is ethically justified if it ensures the prosperity of the whole city.

I do not approve of the people of Omelas who chose to stay and thus bend their moral code for their convenience. I do not agree with the inhabitants of Omelas in that the child’s suffering should be allowed for the greater good. Taking away someone’s freedom and torturing them cannot be morally justified even if the circumstances require it. Ideally, the morality of an action should be universally agreed upon and not be dependent on any circumstantial factors. What makes practical sense in the present context should have no bearing on determining what is morally correct. If the morality of an action can be influenced by the situation of the actor, then the purpose of defining a moral code is lost. Because the circumstances and their effect on an individual are relative and dependent on the particular individual. Furthermore, an individual can never perfectly gauge the exact effects of their circumstances as no one is truly omniscient. One can exaggerate or trivialize their circumstances and thus can justify any action if they have a flexible moral code. So, if harming one person to save another is immoral, it implies that harming one person to save many people is also immoral on account of the person who is causing the harm. By condemning the child to the horrible fate to ensure their own happiness the people of Omelas have corrupted their moral code. The future of the people who leave the city of Omelas is dark and uncertain, but they still have their moral integrity.

In our day to day lives, we have to make many decisions where we prioritize our own interests against other people’s interests. Some of these decisions cause harm to others. We rationalize it by telling ourselves that the harm caused to them is much smaller compared to the benefit to us. At other times we simply ignore the damage caused to others as a direct result of our actions and continue on with our lives. Most of us living in developed countries use products that are produced in underdeveloped countries at very low costs. The people from these underdeveloped countries that are involved in the production of some of these products are minimally paid and have to work in harsh and sometimes unsafe environments because of desperation. The dearth of employment opportunities force these people to work in conditionsand for wages that would be considered unacceptable in most of the modern world. Ismail Ferdous says “People do not want to pay more. So if you do not want to pay more how would the producer pay more to the worker. So, it is like a chain that starts at the consumer” (in Fitch and Ismail). Yet even after knowing that, we continue to use these products. When using these products we are taking advantage of these people and sometimes even putting their lives in danger. We do this because these products are cheaper, and we would like to get the most out of the money that we have. While doing so, in a way we are stealing from these desperate people. Just because we do not know them personally and have never directly interacted with them, we think of ourselves as absolved of all the responsibility of their distress. Sometimes we justify it by telling ourselves that since everyone is doing it, we as a particular individual are insignificant and thus are not guilty. We blame our society for the wrongs while not realizing that we are what constitutes the society.

A good society can be described as “a social contract into which people freely enter to work toward the benefit of all” (Crain). It advocates for basic rights such as liberty and life for every member of the society above all other things. The ideal society would never take away these rights from its members even though it may fail in preventing other agents from doing so. Thus, it is never acceptable from a moral standpoint to sacrifice one or few for the benefit of many, irrespective of how large or significant the many are. When a person does something that causes harm to our society or a member of our society in any way, we try to hold them responsible for it and our justice system punishes them for it. Most of the time, an action that is damaging to any one member of the society is only beneficial to the individual causing the action and would thus be considered ethically inappropriate on the part of the acting individual. But there can be situations where the action is beneficial to multiple individuals or even to society as a whole. There can also be situations where there is no, one particular person responsible for the action. The only one that can be held responsible for the action is the society as a whole. When such a situation arises, the society itself has failed to fulfill its purpose of protecting an individual’s right and instead has become detrimental to that purpose. Such a society may seem more practical at first glance but over the long term, it is doomed. It paves the way for the creation of different classes in the society where interests and rights some of these classes are prioritized over the others. The shortcomings of such a society are not limited to idealistic in nature. Even a practical person who puts his own interests foremost but has a long-term approach should condemn such a society.

We as human beings are limited in the understanding of our circumstances and cannot accurately predict the outcomes of our actions. We are not all knowing, so when we chose to harm an individual in order to protect another individual or a group of individuals from harm, we are using this limited understanding and thus are prone to make an error. When such a lapse in judgment occurs, then we are directly responsible for the harm that we caused while not knowing with absolute certainty if our action was necessary to protect the other individuals. On the other hand, if we do not take such an action and many individuals are harmed then we cannot be held responsible for that harm. We are bound to feel sorry for the harm caused to those individuals but all the responsibility for such harm lies with the circumstances. Our conscience remains clear. Only an all-knowing entity can truly choose which course of action is for the overall betterment of the society. So, it is never wise even from a practical point of view to make such a decision. It is better to let nature decide their fate than to take matters in our own hand while aiming for the greater good.

The moral dilemma of sacrificing one for the good of many is something that almost all the societies come to face at one time or another. At an individual level also, sometimes we have to choose between personally causing harm or inaction leading to bigger harm. Whether we approach it from an idealistic point of view or from a more practical point of view, trading one person’s suffering for another is not ethically appropriate. The degree of suffering and the number of people involved in the two ends of the trade should play no role in the making of this decision. From the idealistic point of view, the requirement of the moral code to be universal prevents it from allowing the trade to be justified, no matter how good it seems. From a practical point of view, it puts every individual at risk of being at the receiving end of the bad side of the trade. Furthermore, the lack of the ability to predict the outcome of the trade accurately results in the person making the decision become liable if the trade does not go as expected. It puts too  much, undeserved trust in the judgment of the people making this decision. If we look at our history we can see countless examples of people who have used the greater good as an excuse to harm various sections of people with impunity. While later it is revealed that they had ulterior motives to cause the harm. The only scenario where such a trade should be tolerated is if a person voluntarily offers to make the sacrifice for the good of others.

Works Cited

Crain, William C. “Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development.” Theories of

Development, Prentice-Hall, 1985, pp. 118–136,

web.archive.org/web/20111004152005

/http://faculty.plts.edu/gpence/html/kohlberg.htm.

Fitch, Nathan and Ismail Ferdous. “The Deadly Cost of Fashion.” YouTube. The New

York Times Op-Docs, 15 April 2014, youtu.be/9Fkhzdc4ybw. 

LeGuin, Ursula. “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas.” The Wind’s Twelve

Quarters: Stories. William Morrow, 2004. Print.