The system is unforgiving, so that failure to meet a certain very high point threshold lands you in The Bad Place, where at least you’ll have the consolation of sharing the neighborhood with all of the greatest philosophers in history, along with Mozart, Elvis, and basically every artist ever. Eleanor dies and finds herself in the Good Place, which she understands must be mistake, since she has been anything but good. ( Log Out / Encouraging good behavior and inhibiting wrongdoing has always been regarded as one of the chief jobs of retributive justice here on the mortal plane, so maybe the cosmic reckoning in the afterlife has a similar objective. The Good Place points to a similar conclusion, while also suggesting that under the right circumstances the opposite might be true. Ironically an "and philosophy" book about a show that is about philosophy had a higher bar to surpass and this one does not do so. Watch him in “The Good Place,” NBC’s circle-squaring philosophical sitcom about life, death, good, evil, redemption and frozen yogurt. For someone like me, always on the lookout for new ways to enlist pop culture on behalf of philosophical pedagogy, discovering The Good Place was stumbling into a gold mine. The Good Place and Philosophy, CFA. | Blog of the APA, A Good Place for Philosophy? Immanuel Kant, who’s probably gagging on rancid egg salad as we speak, points to another problem. Some are written with careful attention to the philosophical issues while others seemed to be meager efforts to meet a deadline. It’s hard to imagine how suffering such tortures or even just anticipating them could improve anyone. And that’s where the fun begins. The term “mimetic rivalry,” derived from mimesis, the Greek word for imitation, is closely associated with the French theorist René Girard (1923-2015). We witness Eleanor on earth, watching what she describes as “a long nerdy video” on YouTube. But what made the difference wasn’t really the content of his lessons—from which she mostly just acquired a casuistic talent for tailoring her moral principles to the exigencies of the moment—but the example set by her teacher, his generous donation of time that could have been spent doing more afterlife-y things, like rowing a boat on a lake while drinking wine and reading French poetry. It’s neither fear of retribution nor the study of moral philosophy that transforms Eleanor, though it was fear that prompted her to ask Chidi to teach her moral philosophy. I argue that we choose to be good because of our bonds with other people and our innate desire to treat them with dignity. Find all the books, read about the author, and more. This is still worth a read. Unable to add item to List. None of this is lost on Eleanor. One of Chidi’s heroes is the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), who was convinced that the contemplation of the abstract idea of moral duty in all its exacting purity could be a powerful moral tonic, unmatched in its power to instill in us a desire to be good. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. Yet, most students do not report any such stirring of the heart from reading Kant, more often just a dull throbbing of the head. Herein lies one of the greatest sources of human misery and wickedness. The philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) brilliantly illustrated this idea in his play No Exit. Whenever the objects of our intersecting desires are things we cannot or will not share, such as status, prestige, or dominance, the result is jealousy, envy, and resentment, incitements to conflict and even violence. New York: Vintage International, 1989. Yet, improve she does, becoming what everyone agrees is a much better version of herself. Nietzsche, The Gay Science, #277 Alexander E. Hooke To spice up this weekend’s Super Bowl, you might place a bet on who will score the first touchdown, total … He credits The Good Place with helping him to break his habit of using “Facebook” as a verb. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. She herself explains: “I’m a different person now because of the person who helped me and I want to be like him. Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Inside Out and Philosophy: What Does it Mean to be Okay? Or Kantian ethics discussed alongside fro-yo? Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video! He is the editor of. One possible answer is fear of retribution. The Good Place is a fantasy-comedy TV show about the afterlife. It just doesn't discuss enough of the big ethical philosophers. Eleanor dies and finds herself in the Good Place, which she understands must be mistake, since she has been anything but good. The “And Philosophy” series mines the philosophical questions and insights that are presented by various popular culture entries. If the student has an entrenched habit of surrendering to whatever passion grips her at the moment, as Eleanor most definitely does, then merely acquiring theoretical knowledge will produce only a more erudite wanton, not someone with a virtuous character. Kant, Immanuel. The Good Place has laid out a moral vision that’s surprisingly sophisticated and deeply informed by academic philosophy — a vision that puts learning, and trying, to do good front and center. (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series) 1 by William Irwin, Kimberly S. Engels (ISBN: 9781119633280) from Amazon's Book Store. The Good Place is a fantasy-comedy TV show about the afterlife. And that explains the prominence The Good Place gives to T. M. Scanlon’s book What We Owe to Each Other—its importance for Eleanor rests not with Scanlon’s particular moral theory (contractualism), but in the very idea that there’s a “we” and an “owing” that binds us together. Translated by Allen W. Wood. In The Good Place and Philosophy, twenty-one philosophers analyze different aspects of the ethical and metaphysical issues raised in the show, including: Indefinitely long punishment can only be justified as a method of ultimately improving vicious characters, not as retribution. 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 Bio's Jack Griffin and The Good Place's Chidi Anagonye give us their different approaches to moral philosophy.» ... A.P. Posted on | July 10, 2018 . The show’s philosophical adviser Todd May discusses the variety of theories and moral dilemmas it addressed as each of its characters found their own way to redemption—philosophically speaking. Like many books in this series the essays are a mixed bag. Eleanor dies and finds herself in the Good Place, which she understands must be mistake, since she has been anything but good. ( Log Out / – Martine Mussies. And it’s even debatable whether his lifelong study of Kant has had a salutary effect on the moral character Eleanor’s teacher, Chidi. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002. This particular book is a good read, but not the best for textbook purposes. The basic premise of The Good Place is the familiar idea of a retributivist cosmos, in which good people enjoy their postmortem rewards in The Good Place, while bad people get paid back everything they dished out and then some in The Bad Place. Top subscription boxes – right to your door, The Good Place and Philosophy: Everything is Forking Fine! Please try your request again later. Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Olúfẹmi O. Táíwò was alerted to the existence of “The Good Place” while he was a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at UCLA and friends started telling him that there was a show with a character that was just like him. He provides Eleanor with a model of kindness and decency that she had apparently never before experienced up close. Another character on the show considers herself the moral crème de la crème for having raised a jaw-dropping $6 billion dollars for charity over the course of her short lifetime. Ted Danson knows. Indeed, there’s reason to believe that it only reinforced his unhealthy tendencies to rigidity and indecisiveness. Enjoy a great reading experience when you buy the Kindle edition of this book. But the chief problem with punishment as an instrument of moral correction is that it teaches the wrong lesson, for “the mere sight of the judicial executive procedures inhibits the criminal himself from experiencing his act, his mode of conduct, as reprehensible as such: because he sees the same kind of action practiced in the service of justice and given approval, practiced with a good conscience.” Being condemned to an eternity of torment by flying piranhas and lava monsters, having hotdogs shoved in every hole, being forced to organize baby showers for people you don’t know, and eating egg salad from a hospital vending machine in Azerbaijan—all actual tortures in The Bad Place—sends the message that none of these abuses is “a depraved and condemned act as such, but only in certain respects and applications” (55). Under the circumstances, Eleanor seems like a poor candidate for self-improvement through the study of moral philosophy. Like most college freshmen, she often finds these readings abstruse and boring, but she soldiers on in the belief, not generally shared by freshmen, that studying them will be morally edifying. Eleanor’s afterlife soulmate, Chidi (played by William Jackson Harper), was an ethics professor when alive. 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 .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more. So what’s the cause of her transformation? Brief content visible, double tap to read full content. Okay, this sounds wild at first, but hear it out — it got more than a thousand upvotes on … Pingback: The Good Place: Does Studying Moral Philosophy Make One A Good Person? It shows. The Good Place: Does Studying Moral Philosophy Make One A Good Person? Bio's Jack Griffin and The Good Place's … “The problem is, if all you care about in the world is the velvet rope, you will always be unhappy, no … To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. The better essays are the ones that stay away from attempts at humor. “There’s no need for red-hot pokers,” declares one of the characters: “Hell is other people!” (45). Chidi is God. .orange-text-color {color: #FE971E;} Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip. Change ), Saturday Night Live and Philosophy edited by Jason Southworth and Ruth Tallman, Black Mirror and Philosophy edited by David Kyle Johnson, Disney and Philosophy edited by Richard Brian Davis, The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. “So why do it, then?” Chidi asks from behind his podium. The Good Place and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy, 130). The Forking Trolley: An Ethical Journey to The Good Place, The Good Place and Philosophy: Everything is Forking Fine! ( Log Out / Riffing on a line from Shakespeare, we might say: There is neither Good Place nor Bad Place, but our bonds with Other People make it so. If you want to do this for your philosophy class do it. The Good Place is a fantasy-comedy TV show about the afterlife. Through flashbacks, we learn that she has always envisioned the world as a place where everyone is on her own, where people encounter each other as isolated individuals who owe each other nothing (and keep it that way if they’re smart), and where sacrificing for others is the height of folly. Instead, it must be “done from duty,” dutifully motivated, so to speak (13). And perhaps that’s where we should look for an explanation of what launches Eleanor’s postmortem transformation from a callous narcissist to a conscientious and caring person, albeit one who retains a fair share of adorably rough edges. This raises all kinds of philosophical questions, and the book “The Good Place and Philosophy” intends to answer at least a few of them. Translated by Carol Diethe. Set in the afterlife, it’s about how three damned souls do the work of hell’s minions by torturing each other with their gratuitous scorn and malice. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. “Punishment is supposed to have the value of arousing the feeling of guilt in the guilty party,” observed Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), though it could hardly be more poorly suited to the task. | WFUmediaphiles, Pingback: A Good Place for Philosophy? The Good Place and Philosophy Edited by Kimberly S. Engels The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series Please circulate and post widely. Something went wrong. My experience with this book was a 5 out of 5, a very good book to read, and love how it's based on The Good Place. Fear of retribution does not make people better. .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}Ask Alexa to read your book with Audible integration or text-to-speech. The philosopher Aristotle (382-322 BCE), on the other hand, believed lectures on ethics are totally wasted on those who don’t already have some experience of being good under their belts, since “one judges well only the things he knows” (5). Sartre, Jean-Paul. That appears to be what happened to Eleanor Shellstrop, a shallow and self-centered telemarketer, the top salesperson at a company that sells fake medicine to gullible old people, who opens her eyes one day to find herself seated in the waiting room of The Good Place, facing a huge sign with the reassuring greeting: “Everything is Fine.” It seems like the opposite of a Kafkaesque nightmare—instead of an innocent everyman persecuted by an implacable bureaucracy, an apparent glitch in the system has rewarded her with eternity in The Good Place after a lifetime of selfishness. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. | Blog of the APA, Pingback: A Good Place for Philosophy? It comes as no surprise that the show employs not just one but two professional philosophers as regular consultants (UCLA’s Pamela Hieronymi and Clemson University’s Todd May). This automated system of cosmic retribution bears more than a passing resemblance to the current Chinese government’s plan to assign a “social credit score” to every citizen, based not only on whether you pay your bills but also on more dubious indicators of character, such as how many hours you spend playing video games and whether you share “positive” or “negative” content online. 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. It’s all played for laughs, but the system’s patent silliness raises serious doubts as to whether we could ever score goodness and badness precisely enough to compare the moral worth of different individuals with any kind of reliability. There's a problem loading this menu right now. But, since every religion was only about 5% right in its guesses about the afterlife (as we’re told in the first episode), the cosmos of The Good Place differs from most canonical views of the final reckoning in several important respects. The Good Place was shown on NBC from Sept 2016 to Jan 2020 over four seasons and 53 episodes, and is about a woman, Eleanor, who is sent to a ‘Good Place’ after her death, a type of Heaven for those who have lived a righteous ethical life. In other words, for your actions to count as the deeds of a genuinely good person, you must do the right thing just because it’s the right thing to do, from the motive of pure good will. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required. There was a problem loading your book clubs. Translated by W. D. Ross. But it turns out that this otherwise worthwhile accomplishment is absolutely worthless morally-speaking, since it was motivated not by a genuine concern for the recipients of her charity but by her mimetic rivalry—her lifelong contest of one-upmanship—with her insufferably self-satisfied sister. By the conclusion of the second season, Eleanor and the friends she’s made in the afterlife have gone through a succession of ordeals that none of them could have predicted at the outset of the series. It’s unique not only due to its principle protagonists all being dead (except for one who’s an anthropomorphized vessel of knowledge and another who’s an Eternal Being) and all of the present tense, non-flashback action taking place in the afterlife. The Good Place is a fantasy-comedy TV show about the afterlife. We work hard to protect your security and privacy. A strong title, but not the best of its kind, Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2020. That he puts himself at grave risk in helping her—aiding and abetting a Bad Place truant is probably sufficient to get him banished from The Good Place—even makes him kind of a moral hero, as does his willingness to endure the stomach-churning agony of navigating the steady torrent of moral dilemmas that helping Eleanor brings his way. In the season 2 finale, a dispirited, drunken Eleanor confesses to a bartender (Michael … What, then, enables Eleanor to become good? When various freakish events start to occur in her “neighborhood”—The Good Place is organized into small designer communities—she concludes that she must be the wrench in the works disrupting the smooth machinery of heaven. 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 Super Bowl Gambling—Daring the Odds and Gods Now and then someone plays with us—good old chance. Simply put, we are not in this alone” (“Somewhere Else,” 2.13). I intend on using both books this fall all the same. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Yet, for four … Her role models in this regard were her self-centered, alcoholic parents, whom she as a teenager had urged to sign emancipation papers, promising that once they affixed their signatures, “I won’t owe you anything; you won’t owe me anything” (“Mindy Sinclair,” 1.12). .orange-text-color {font-weight:bold; color: #FE971E;}View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look. Trying to do a Good Place and Ethics class. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. If that sounds ominous, just imagine your eternal destiny being at the mercy of such a system! … Even when I do nice things, I’m only doing them so I can get something out of it, the ability to stay here, which means that none of this had any real moral value” (“What’s My Motivation?” 1.11). After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. The Good Place has also featured episodes based on such philosophical chestnuts as the trolley problem and the doctrine of double effect, in addition to building a major plot twist around an idea obviously inspired by No Exit, Jean Paul Sartre’s famous play about an ingeniously cruel form of torture in the afterlife. Also, like other books in the series, there is a decent amount of duplication in the subjects discussed. This something that contributors to this series need to keep in mind: you are philosophers, not humorists. First, there’s no Supreme Being—or, if there is, the Almighty has retired from any direct involvement in doling out deserts and delegated that task to a supernatural bureaucracy as full of infighting, inefficiency, and incompetence as any counterpart on earth. Please try again. References: Dylan Matthews' brilliant profile on The Good Place Dylan Matthews on why he donated his kidney Book recommendations: In the surprise twist ending to Season One, it is revealed that this is really the Bad Place, but the demon who planned it was frustrated, because the characters didn't torture each ot As with any allegedly foolproof algorithms, we shouldn’t be too surprised when it makes the occasional mistake. I use these to teach themed classes on 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 Aristotle. No Exit and Three Other Plays. Full content visible, double tap to read brief content. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Nietzsche, Friedrich. Indeed, once Eleanor learns that The Bad Place is not only real but will be her eternal abode if she doesn’t straighten up, she suddenly acquires a powerful motivation to learn how to be good. Moral Desert. This is a conversation about how and why The Good Place exists and what it reflects about The Odd Place in which we actually live. To her consternation, holding the door open for people and apologizing for the myriad ways she’s complicated everyone’s afterlife barely nudges the point counter northward. There was an error retrieving your Wish Lists. While The Good Place hewed to the demands of a network sitcom—there was hugging and learning and quite a few jokes about farts—it also centered an ongoing debate about moral philosophy, … An okay and somewhat disappointing effort, Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2020. Who’d have thought we’d ever see an NBC episode named after one of our backlist titles? If Eleanor can even make it to the end of the sentence quoted above—and, yes, it is a single sentence—without slipping into a coma, she might very well conclude that Kant is in The Bad Place as punishment for having written it and many others like it. Moreover, the decision about each individual’s final destination has been fully automated, with every action on earth assigned an either positive or negative numerical value according to a rigid scheme.
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