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NancyLebovitz comments on The "Intuitions" Behind "Utilitarianism" - Less Wrong
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What about the consequences of the precedent set by the person making the decision that it is ok to torture an innocent person, in such circumstances? If such actions get officially endorsed as being moral, isn't that going to have consequences which mean the torture won't be a one-off event?
There's a rather good short story about this, by Ursula K LeGuin:
The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas
Why would it?
And I don't think LeGuin's story is good - it's classic LeGuin, by which I mean enthymematic, question-begging, emotive substitution for thought, which annoyed me so much that I wrote my own reply.
For what it's worth, some people read "Omelas" as being about a superstition that torturing a child is necessary (see the bit about good weather) rather than a situation where torturing a child is actually contributing to public welfare.
And the 'wisdom of their scholars' depends on the torture as well? 'terms' implies this is a magical contract of some sort. No mechanism, of course, like most magic and all of LeGuin's magic that I've read (Earthsea especially).