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Michael Schur created the Good Place and just released a book on philosophy, particularly the teachings he found the most interesting. The audiobook has him as the main narrator, but Todd May (professional philosopher) and the main cast of the show also read for it. I'm not far at all in it, barely chapter two, but I can tell you this: Ted Danson needs to do more voice work.
And evil laughter
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In Taoism, as in Buddhism, there is a cycle of life and death. But there is no karma. Each of us is like a wave on the sea of being. We arise from the sea, thinking ourselves to be unique and irreplaceable individuals only because we donât see that we are nothing more than temporary movements of something larger. Eventually, we will return to that larger something and become a part of it. Taoism, like Buddhism, takes the concept of the self to be illusory. There is simply the unfolding process of the cosmos, and what appears to be a self is nothing more than a moment in that cosmic unfolding. But, unlike those Buddhists who believe in reincarnation, Taoism is more consistent in this regard. Reincarnation has implicit in it the idea of a self. That self may disappear again when it reaches nirvana, but at least it remains throughout a series of lives. Taoism possesses no concept like this. One is born, one dies, one returns to the cosmic source from whence one came and that, in reality, one never left.
Todd May
We conduct ourselves like other animals whose awareness of death arises only when they face an imminent threat. We know in some sense that we are going to die. We know that our death will be the end of us, that death is not an accomplishment or a goal, and that it is at once inevitable and uncertain. And yet we scurry about under this knowledge as though it had nothing to do with us. Death, when it comes, is always a shock, a blow from the outside, rather than a central human possibility. We react to death â that is, the death of others â as though it were something that happened to them, rather than something about who they are. If we saw it as the latter, we would equally have to see ourselves as mortal.
Todd May, Death (Chapter 1: Our dealings with death; What is death?)
One immediate reservation about wanting someone elseâs experience is that my desire to be someone else (i.e., have his experience) is grounded in values and desires that I have, and so I have to be me in order to want to be him. However, itâs not clear that that presents any real hurdle to such a desire. I could say that it is precisely by my own lights that the experience of being them would be better, and that there would be at least enough overlap with them that they are instantiating my values and desires but have a better experience than I do. So I can still prefer to be them. I think that, on reflection, most of us would not want to trade with another person, no matter how successful or enticing their lives seem â or even are in reality. To see why, though, weâll need to switch our angle of vision. We will have to look at our own experiences rather than at theirs, or perhaps look at our experiences first. What would I be willing to give up to be another? My relationships with everyone â children, spouse, friends â and my whole history. I wouldnât have undergone it. My loss would be that of the whole of my own experience. We live in world in which the lives of those with more wealth or fame or recognition or influence or beauty are constantly placed before us as though they were something to aspire to. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with aspiration in itself. But to the extent these lives are presented to us as something to be hankered after, as lives we would certainly want if only we could have them, we are presented with an image that asks us to forget what is important to us. In an age of acquisitiveness, and one moreover in which the normative constraints on acquisitiveness have largely fallen away, it is comforting â and perhaps even imperative â to recognize that of all the personal histories that we might choose from, it is our own that would be our likely choice.
âIf you could be someone else, could you?â from New York Times
Death by Todd May
The Good Place: âExistential Crisisâ
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John Rawls
T.M. Scanlon
Professor Pamela Hieronymi, Department of Philosophy, UCLA
Todd May, Death
Season 03, Episode 04 (âThe Snowplowâ)
NBC gave Michael Schur total freedom. So the TV impresario made a sitcom thatâs also a profound work of philosophy.
The American sitcom, since its inception, has struggled with a fundamental tension at its core. Letâs call it âjester vs. guru.â We expect half-hour comedies to pull off an impossible double duty: to both inject jokes into the national bloodstream and to enlighten us with high-minded moral instruction. We want not only zany catchphrases but wise life lessons. The history of the form has been a constant tug of war between these two contradictory demands. Early sitcoms tended toward Very Special Episodes â morality plays in which we learned to honor our parents, say no to drugs and rat out even our most charming friends. The sitcoms that followed rebelled against such ham-fisted piety, replacing it with ironic cynicism. âSeinfeldâ famously rejected the moral duties of the sitcom altogether; â30 Rockâ was a pure fire hose of laughs. The control knob turned, further and further, from wisdom toward jokes.
[...]
This is the trick of âThe Good Place.â Ethics is not some kind of moralistic byproduct; itâs baked into the very premise. The show is entirely life lessons. Every episode is Very Special. It synthesizes those old contradictory impulses â jester vs. guru â so completely that they cease to be in tension. If âSeinfeldâ was a show about nothing, âThe Good Placeâ is a show about everything â including, and especially, growing and learning. By all rights, it should probably be awful â preachy, awkward, tedious, wooden, labored and out of touch. Instead, it is excellent: a work of popular art that hits on many levels at once. It has been not only critically acclaimed but also widely watched, especially on streaming services, where its twists and intricate jokes lend themselves to bingeing and rebingeing. The modern world, perhaps, is hungrier for ethics than we have been led to believe.
by Sam Anderson
Click through above for the rest.
The Good Place: The Podcast, chapter 19 | âThe Trolley Problemâ William Jackson Harper & Dr. Todd May philosophy advisor
WJH: â[Chidi has to pull rank on Michael.] And then you see this smile cross Ted's face. When we were shooting the scene, I didn't quite clock that grin and then when I was watching the episode I was like 'Oh, whoa, oh, he's gonna put me through the wringer.' I think the thing Chidi misses is that a lot of these principles apply to the world as we understand it whereas now we are in a completely different world where the rules are probably different. So to pull rank like that, I feel there's a little bit of hubris there. Maybe that's not the time. I understand that Chidi thinks he knows more than Michael at this point but we are not on Earth. The rules are different and I think that's what that smile was about.â
WJH: âI am looking at a cannon filled with blood and foam and rice krispies and two grinning dudes on either side of it. The fear of being on this trolley is real because I know I'm about to get shot in the mouth with a blood cannon. The first time we did it, it was largely on my chest and glasses. It was fine. Then the second or third time, one of the chunks of foam came out with such velocity and ferociousness that it just went straight down my throat. That really put the fear in me and made it emotional. [How did they avoid shooting KB and Ted?] They just made sure the cannon was aimed directly at me. Ted got a little bit on his brogues but it was all pretty much in my face.â
TM: "Michael is essentially attacking the things that Chidi identifies himself with. He's diminishing philosophy and that's the one thing Chidi cannot have. [Chidiâs reaction] was [a departure from usual behavior] but also very much in keeping with protecting the thing he thinks is the one really important thing in the world."
TM: "Eleanorâs certainly onto something but there's something else that's going on at the same time. Both Michael and Eleanor have been evolving in ways that might be difficult for them to recognize. Theyâre evolving toward being better. So I think you got two layers going on here: similarity between the two of them that Eleanor catches Michael on and another similarity that's in evolution that I'm not sure she recognized. [Fear of inadequacy is something she recognizes in him about herself.] Yeah, or maybe through herself in him."
TM: âWe actually may have seen supererogation already. Itâs Michael. Michaelâs doing things that seem to go above and beyond the kinds of things that he feels basically obliged to do. Like when he sacrifices himself or even when he just aligns himself with the humans.â
