Mike Schur

* From the writer and executive producer of the award-winning Netflix series The Good Place that made moral philosophy fun: a foolproof guide to making the correct moral decision in every situation you ever encounter, anywhere on earth, forever * How can we live a more ethical life? This question has plagued people for thousands of years, but it's never been tougher to answer than it is now, thanks to challenges great and small that flood our day-to-day lives and threaten to overwhelm us with impossible decisions and complicated results with unintended consequences. Plus, being anything close to an 'ethical person' requires daily thought and introspection and hard work; we have to think about how we can be good not, you know, once a month, but literally all the time. To make it a little less overwhelming, this fascinating, accessible and funny book by one of our generation's best writers and adept minds in television comedy, Michael Schur, boils down the whole confusing morass with real life dilemmas (from 'should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?' to 'can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people?'), so that we know how to deal with ethical dilemmas. Much as Chidi used humour and philosophy to make Eleanor a less selfish person, Schur takes us on a journey through the 2,500-year discussion of ethics, sketching a roadmap for how we ought to act along the way. By the time the book is done, we'll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. OK, not quite. Instead, we'll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day With contributions from Professor Todd May of Clemson University, who served as an advisor on The Good Place, this is a brilliant, clever and hugely entertaining book about one of the most important topics in the world. 'The problem is, if all you care about in the world is the velvet rope, you will always be unhappy, no matter which side you're on.' - Tahani Al-Jamil, The Good Place

The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question – by the creator of the Netflix hit THE GOOD PLACE

How to be Perfect

Aristotle describes virtues as a balance, e.g. too much generosity can be portrayed similarly to too little

Tate Kwiecinski

People with a deficiency of anger are those who are not angered by the right things, or in the right way, or at the right times, or towards the right people.... Such a person seems to be insensible and to feel no pain. Since he is not angered, he does not seem to be the sort to defend himself; and such willingness to accept insults to oneself and to overlook insults to one's family and friends is slavish.

I rinse my mouth with mouthwash for thirty full seconds, because that's what it says to do on the label. I drive with my hands at "ten and two" on the wheel, because that's what my driving instructor told me to do. I've always seen this behavior as virtuous and written off annoyed reactions to it as unfounded-but after I read Aristotle I understood how an excess of dutifulness can negatively impact the people around me: I am constantly killing everyone's buzz.

The more we try to learn and understand the lives being led by other people-the more we search for a golden mean of empathy-the less we will find it permissible to treat them with cruelty.

Kant holds humans in the highest possible regard and rejects any action that demeans them or turns them into tools used to achieve some other goal.

Quote by Kenyan philosopher and theologian John S. Mbiti

The individual does not and cannot exist alone…. He owes his existence to other people including those of past generations and his contemporaries. He is simply part of the whole.... Whatever happens to the individual happens to the whole group, and whatever happens to the whole group happens to the individual. The individual can only say, "I am, because we are; and since we are therefore I am."

One day you will be called upon to break a big law in the name of justice and rationality. Everything will depend on it…. How are you going to prepare for that day when it really matters? You have to stay "in shape" so that when the big day comes you will be ready. What you need is "anarchist calisthenics." Every day or so break some trivial law that makes no sense, even if it's only jaywalking. Use your own head to judge whether a law is just or reasonable. That way, you'll keep trim; and when the big day comes, you'll be ready.

How to be Perfect quotes

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