The Good Place and Philosophy

Dive into the moral philosophy at the heart of all four seasons of NBC's The Good Place, guided by academic experts including the show's philosophical consultants Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and featuring a foreword from creator and showrunner Michael Schur

• Explicitly dedicated to the philosophical concepts, questions, and fundamental ethical dilemmas at the heart of the thoughtful and ambitious NBC sitcom The Good Place

• Navigates the murky waters of moral philosophy in more conceptual depth to call into question what Chidi's ethics lessons--and the show--get right about learning to be a good person

• Features contributions from The Good Place's philosophical consultants, Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and introduced by the show's creator and showrunner Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation, The Office)

• Engages classic philosophical questions, including the clash between utilitarianism and deontological ethics in the "Trolley Problem," Kant's categorical imperative, Sartre's nihilism, and T.M Scanlon's contractualism

• Explores themes such as death, love, moral heroism, free will, responsibility, artificial intelligence, fatalism, skepticism, virtue ethics, perception, and the nature of autonomy in the surreal heaven-like afterlife of the Good Place

• Led by Kimberly S. Engels, co-editor of Westworld and Philosophy

Autorentext

KIMBERLY S. ENGELS is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Molloy College, Rockville Centre, New York. She is the author of numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles, and is the co-editor of Westworld and Philosophy.

Klappentext
PHILOSOPHY/POP CULTURE Is the points system fair, or does it punish and reward people unjustly? Does Chidi really belong in The Bad Place? Is it possible for Michael to change his demonic nature? Is Eleanor capable of true moral improvement? Is Janet a person? No other television show has embraced moral philosophy quite like The Good Place, NBC's quirky and inventive sitcom featuring an imperfect cast of characters who, by virtue of a bureaucratic fork-up, find themselves residents of a cheerful, verdant afterlife reserved for the ethically elite. Funny, clever, and reliably good-hearted, The Good Place may poke a bit of fun at philosophy and namedrop Aristotle, Sartre, and Kierkegaard with a wink and a nod, but the series centers itself firmly around its characters' moral evolution and the ways in which they grow together, beginning a meaningful dialogue with modern audiences about what it means to be a good person. Is morality fixed or relative? What does it mean to be goodand is goodness sustainable if we are inherently self-interested? What do we owe each other, and what does trying to become a better person look like? The Good Place and Philosophy responds to the show's philosophical curiosity by mapping its broader intellectual landscape, adding context to Chidi's lectures and navigating the theoretical schematics of the ethical dilemmas that Eleanor and her friends face. Original essays situate The Good Place in relation to the work of a wide range of classic and contemporary philosophers and schools of thought, and discuss diverse concepts drawn from all four seasons of the show, including Kant's categorical imperative, T.M. Scanlon's contractualism, and Philippa Foot's classic trolley problem. Featuring contributions from the show's creator Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation, The Office) and its philosophical consultants Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, the collection explores the philosophical underpinnings of the series while offering insight into many of the show's inside jokes, references, and recurring themes. Whether you're doing the recommended reading for Chidi's class or just want to know who died and left Aristotle in charge of ethics, The Good Place and Philosophy is an accessible and engaging companion to the critically-acclaimed sitcom and its philosophical source material.

Zusammenfassung
Dive into the moral philosophy at the heart of all four seasons of NBC's The Good Place, guided by academic experts including the show's philosophical consultants Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and featuring a foreword from creator and showrunner Michael Schur

• Explicitly dedicated to the philosophical concepts, questions, and fundamental ethical dilemmas at the heart of the thoughtful and ambitious NBC sitcom The Good Place
• Navigates the murky waters of moral philosophy in more conceptual depth to call into question what Chidi's ethics lessonsand the showget right about learning to be a good person
• Features contributions from The Good Place's philosophical consultants, Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, and introduced by the show's creator and showrunner Michael Schur (Parks and Recreation, The Office)
• Engages classic philosophical questions, including the clash between utilitarianism and deontological ethics in the Trolley Problem, Kant's categorical imperative, Sartre's nihilism, and T.M Scanlon's contractualism
• Explores themes such as death, love, moral heroism, free will, responsibility, artificial intelligence, fatalism, skepticism, virtue ethics, perception, and the nature of autonomy in the surreal heaven-like afterlife of the Good Place
• Led by Kimberly S. Engels, co-editor of Westworld and Philosophy

Inhalt

Contributors ix

Editor's Introduction and Acknowledgments: We Are Not in This Alone xvii
Kimberly S. Engels

Foreword xix
Michael Schur, creator of The Good Place

Introduction xxiii

Pamela Hieronymi and Todd May, philosophical advisors to The Good Place

Part I I Just Ethics'd You in the Face 1

1 How Do You Like Them Ethics? 3
David Baggett and Marybeth Baggett

2 Don't Let the Good Life Pass You By: Doug Forcett and the Limits of Self-Sacrifice 15
Greg Littmann

3 Luck and Fairness in The Good Place 25
Scott A. Davison and Andrew R. Davison

Part II Virtuous for Virtue's Sake 35

4 Can Eleanor Really Become a Better Person? 37
Eric J. Silverman and Zachary Swanson

5 The Good Place and The Good Life 47
C. Scott Sevier

6 The Ethics of Indecision: Why Chidi Anagonye Belongs in The Bad Place 57
Traci Phillipson

Part III All Those Ethics Lessons Paid Off 65

7 Moral Absurdity and Care Ethics in The Good Place 67
Laura Matthews

8 The Medium Place: Third Space, Morality, and Being In Between 75
Catherine M. Robb

9 What We May Learn from Michael's Solution to the Trolley Problem 87
Andreas Bruns

Part IV Help Is Other People 97

10 Some Memories You May Have Forgotten: Holding Space for Each Other When Memory Fails 99
Alison Reiheld

11 The Good Other 110
Steven A. Benko

12 Not Knowing Your Place: A Tale of Two Women 121
Leslie A. Aarons

Part V Absurdity Needs to Be Confronted 131

13 Marginal Comforts Keep Us in Hell 133
Jake Jackson

14 I Would Refuse to Be a God if It Were Offered to Me: Architects and Existentialism in The Good Place 141
Kimberly S. Engels

Part VI Searching for Meaning Is Philosophical Suicide 153

15 Death, Meaning, and Existential Crises 155
Kiki Berk

16 From Indecision to Ambiguity: Simone de Beauvoir and Chidi's Moral Growth 166
Matthew P. Meyer

17 Beyond Good and Evil Places: Eternal Return of the Superhuman 178
James Lawler

Part VII The Dalai Lama Texted Me That 189

18 Conceptions of the Afterlife: The Good Place and Religious Tradition 191
Michael McGowan

19 Who Are Chidi and Eleanor in a Past-(After)Life? The Buddhist Notion of No-Self 202
Dane Sawyer

Part VIII Sometimes a Flaw Can Make Something Even More Beautiful 211

20 Hell Is Other People's Tastes 213
Darren Hudson Hick and Sarah E. Worth

21 Why Everyone Hates Moral Philosophy …