The difference between our society and Omelas is that the functioning of the society is fundamentally built upon the intended torturing of the child - you not merely foresee the harm to the child, but you *intend* it, because otherwise Omelas would collapse. Intending someone's harm, to a deontologist, is one of the worst possible things that one can do, so a society which is like that is fundamentally rotten to its core. There is *no* institution in the real world which makes it the case that a) a specific person is horribly tortured, b) the harm to that child is intended and not merely foreseen and c) our society would collapse without a) being the case.
So any deontologist, and probably also any virtue ethicist, should simply reject your analogy.
But presumably our society would be better if we eliminated 99.9% of the worlds torture but then made the world dependent on the last instance of torture. I think Huemer would say intending to harm a child to create paradise would be worth it; though you seem like a more hardline deontologist than Huemer.
I can't wait for "Utilitarianism wins outright part 153"
The difference between our society and Omelas is that the functioning of the society is fundamentally built upon the intended torturing of the child - you not merely foresee the harm to the child, but you *intend* it, because otherwise Omelas would collapse. Intending someone's harm, to a deontologist, is one of the worst possible things that one can do, so a society which is like that is fundamentally rotten to its core. There is *no* institution in the real world which makes it the case that a) a specific person is horribly tortured, b) the harm to that child is intended and not merely foreseen and c) our society would collapse without a) being the case.
So any deontologist, and probably also any virtue ethicist, should simply reject your analogy.
But presumably our society would be better if we eliminated 99.9% of the worlds torture but then made the world dependent on the last instance of torture. I think Huemer would say intending to harm a child to create paradise would be worth it; though you seem like a more hardline deontologist than Huemer.
Bulldog's don't refute metaphorical literary works with three premises challenge (impossible)
I refuted a short story.