"The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is subtitled "Variations on a Theme by William James"; the older brother of Henry James, William James purported the theory of pragmatism, a belief that holds that the meaning and truth of an idea is a function of its practical outcome. In her short story, LeGuin takes this theory to its moral conclusion.
In one preface to her story, LeGuin writes that it is a critique of American moral life. In explanation of the story's subtitle, LeGuin notes that she was inspired to write the story based upon something James himself wrote:
[If people could be] kept permanently happy on the one certain condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life or torment..., how hideous a thing would be [the employment of this happiness] when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain.
And, while James felt that societies would not accept such a bargain, some of the residents of Omelas do just that, rationalizing their moral responsibility with the idea that the good of many is worth the sacrifice of the one miserable creature on the "far-off edge" of their society. For the others, the moral value of an individual overrides any other so-called practical truth, and they must, therefore, walk away. That they understand the immorality of the pragmatism of the "good for all" is evidenced in those who leave's passing "between the houses with yellow-lit windows (yellow=the color of evil):
The place they go towards is a place even less inaginable to mos of us than the city of happiness....It is possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.
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