Exploring Morality and Ethics in NBC's The Good Place

Explore hedonism and ethical hedonism, examining how pleasure shapes a life worth living, with examples from The Good Place and debates over the experience machine and egoism.

Explore utilitarianism, including classical and welfare varieties, examine counterarguments like utilitarianism bingo, and analyze the trolley problem and examples from the Good Place to discuss ethics.

Examine objectivism, the view that objective moral truths and universal principles bind all people. Compare absolutism and relativism with Chidi and Eleanor's lying discussions in the Good Place.

Explore deontology through Kant’s universal law and humanity principles, including contradictions in conception and will. Compare perfect and imperfect duties and how the show treats people as ends.

Explore moral particularism, the view that there are no absolute rules and morality depends on each situation, as shown through Eleanor’s perspective in The Good Place.

Explore moral virtue through Aristotelian virtue ethics, examining eudaimonia, arete, and phronesis, and weigh Susan Wolf's moral saint critique against living well in The Good Place.

Explore solipsism and moral nihilism in The Good Place, examining how the self's private experience supports solipsism and how no objective moral facts exist.

Explore rights and the social contract, from natural rights and life, liberty, and property to Rawls's veil of ignorance, and how we owe each other dignity.

Explore the finale's big ideas on morality and mindfulness in The Good Place, linking Zen teachings, Kant's deontology, and the wave metaphor to living well.