Chidi vs. Tahani: Intentions or Consequences?
Cool thing I’ve noticed on what is probably my 50th rewatch of The Good Place:
(I love ethics and I’m fascinated by The Good Place so this is gonna be a long one!)
One of the big questions ethicists and moral philosophers ask is intentions vs. consequences. Does the morality of an action depend on the consequences from it, the intentions behind it, or some combination of the two? Different schools of thought give different answers. So for example consequentialist theories, like utilitarianism, hold that the only thing that matters is the consequences of an action, how much good vs. bad they do in the world. Your intentions don't matter, and could be selfish or corrupt so long as the action is a net good. For virtue ethics, intentions matter more because what makes an action ethical is how it develops your character and makes you a better person. So an action with negative consequences but good intentions is not necessarily unethical, but doing good with selfish motives is unethical.
The interesting thing I've noticed in The Good Place is how that question of intentions vs. actions is reflected in the characters, specifically Chidi vs. Tahani.
In season 1, we're meant to think we really are in the Good Place, and that Chidi and Tahani are among the best people who ever lived. But early on we're introduced to a tension in the logic of The Good Place: It doesn't give a consistent answer to the question of intentions vs. consequences.
Tahani is "British and condescending" but made it to the good place because she did a stunning amount of philanthropy. Meanwhile Chidi is a moral philosopher who spent his life trying to act ethically, but he's a miserable mess as a result, he can't do anything. Basically, Tahani is all actions with no good intentions, and Chidi is all good intentions and no action. And yet by the rules of the "Good Place" they both supposedly qualify. If Tahani qualifies on her actions alone, then how can Chidi qualify when he's never done anything in his life? And if Chidi qualifies based on his good intentions, how can Tahani qualify when she never cared about the people she helped? It's one of the many clever details that the show includes to hint from the very beginning that something isn't right here.
Eventually we learn that the point system takes both intentions and consequences into account, and so in theory, the amount of good caused by someone's actions could outweigh their negative intentions, and vice versa, and earn them enough points. That's how we get Mindy St. Clair. And the conclusion the show comes to is one that many of us instinctively have, I think: both intentions and consequences matter, and the degree to which they matter is context-specific. Good intentions don't erase the harm your actions cause, but intentionally causing harm is worse. And doing good in the world and materially helping people is important, but having selfish motives for doing so detracts from that. To be ethical, your actions must have good intentions behind them and good consequences from them. That’s a lesson our characters learn many times in many different ways.
Chidi and Tahani start the show off as polar opposites, pure intention vs. pure action. And as the show progresses they each develop the other side. For Chidi, becoming a better person means becoming more decisive and active, rather than being paralyzed by indecision. He actually does things to try and make the world around him better. By the midpoint of Season 1 he’s already storming into Michael’s office, demanding Eleanor not be sent away. At the end of his journey, he readily walks through the Door, without needing to know what’s on the other side. For Tahani, becoming a better person means shedding her need for attention and validation, and actually caring about the people around her and the world she lives in. Her actions become less and less about herself and more and more about helping other people. And at the end of her journey, she decides to spend eternity doing just that, designing afterlife tests to help more people get into the Good Place.
Also Eleanor and Jason kind of parallel that, where Eleanor is pure negative intention and Jason is pure negative action. Eleanor is just a kind of shitty, selfish person for most of her life, but she doesn't do much, her actions aren’t great but they aren’t terrible. As she puts it, she was “a medium person.” Jason is a sweet little dum-dum bird, he has a good heart, but he just... he does so many bad things lol. Either just for fun or because he needs money or because he and his friends are being dumbasses.
They both start off with "low-grade crappiness" in different ways. Throughout the show, Eleanor becomes a less selfish person, and actively tries to do good instead of just retreating into her selfishness, to the point where she can’t move on from the afterlife until she knows all her friends are taken care of. Jason curbs his impulses and learns to slow down and actually think before acting, to the point where he can wander the eternal woods for a thousand Bearimys until Janet comes back (just like a monk!).
And these parallels are reflected in their relationships with each other too! Chidi teaches Eleanor to do the right thing instinctively, rather than the selfish thing. Eleanor teaches Chidi not to think so much, to let his feelings and intuition guide him, and to actually act. Jason gets Tahani out of her own head, teaches her not to think about herself and her image as much. Tahani teaches Jason to think about the impact of his actions on the other people in his life before just impulsively acting. Eleanor and Tahani help each other become less self-centered, with Eleanor teaching Tahani useful life skills and Tahani helping Eleanor connect with other people. Jason helps Chidi become less inhibited and Chidi teaches Jason some restraint and patience. They're all “perfectly suited to make each other miserable” but it turns out they’re also perfectly suited to help each other become the best versions of themselves.
Anyway, The Good Place is such a well-crafted, clever show, and I love rewatching it and noticing all these details!
