Section 1: The Good Place - A Synopsis
Eleanor Shellstrop, the protagonist of the show, has died and ascended to the Good Place. Along with a group of other people, she is introduced to her new home by a video of the Good Place’s Architect, Michael, who explains that they are all objectively good people, deserving of being in the show’s version of heaven. He knows their goodness to be objective because the decisions they made throughout their lives have been judged on a divinely accurate scale of morality – all the negative and positive actions were added together, and because their scores were high enough, they have come to the Good Place. The central conflict of “The Good Place” is the fact that, in actuality, no human scores highly enough to be admitted to the Good Place – it is an illusion. After investigations in the accounting department of the afterlife, Michael presents his findings to the Judge (a godlike figure) – that the point system used to determine the destination of an individual in the afterlife is broken because life in the developed, globalized world is complex to the point of every action having some negative effect, be it environmental, related to human labor, or otherwise.
Section 2: Thoughts & Arguments
The core philosophical issue raised by “The Good Place” is the philosophy of ethical judgement, and the implications it has on modern society. Specifically, itS compels one to ask the question ‘Are the mundane actions of indiveiduals living in developed economies ethical?’ Even in the modern, highly developed sphere of philosophical discussion no singular theory of ethics has been adopted as definitively better than the rest. Being that this uncertainty persists, the ethical system of judgment which determines where one goes in the afterlife of “The Good Place” ought to be examined: What kind of ethical theory is it and is it worthy of being used to draw conclusions concerning the ethics of modern society?
Michael, the architect, explicitly outlines the admissions process of the afterlife in the first few seconds of the stimulus, stating that one’s moral standing is judged by one’s actions and “how much good or bad [those actions] put into the universe” (Schur 00:00:23). This description of moral judgment sounds similar to the operating axioms of ethical judgement of utilitarianism. First developed in its recognizable form by Jeremy Bentham, though based in the works of earlier hedonists such as Epictetus, this system of normative ethics was famously and persuasively articulated by John Stuart Mill in his articles for Fraser’s Magazine. Through his prose, Mill argues for the axioms of the utilitarian position – the principle of utility – which dictates that moral right or wrong is appraised through a sum quantity of the happiness (pleasure) and unhappiness (pain) an action produces. He later elaborates on the above gauge of ethics by noting that quality, as well as quantity, of happiness and unhappiness determine morality.
The firm tether between “The Good Place” and utilitarianism is best explained when considering that which is intrinsic; any given thing that has value in and of itself. “Good” and “bad” are necessarily intrinsic, as their definitions mandate that the former is desirable and the latter undesirable – humans like something that is good because it is good, and dislike something bad because it is bad. The connection between “The Good Place” points system of “good” and “bad” and Mill’s rendering of utilitarianism is revealed when pondering what humans desire to have and to be free of. One might say humans strive to have food, shelter, and friendship while avoiding injuries, embarrassment, and failure, et cetera. The aforementioned objects of desire or avoidance, however, are not intrinsic – they have no value in and of themselves – rather they are extrinsic, meaning that their value is based on their relationship to some other thing.
Take the example of food, why do humans want it? It can be determined that humans desire it to feel satiated. Why do humans want to be satiated? Because being satiated is pleasureful and starvation is painful. Why do humans desire pleasure and avoid pain? Well, there is no further extrinsic relationship; humans want pleasure and avoid pain because we perceive the former as good, and the latter as bad. Hence, the chain of extrinsic relationships arrives at its intrinsic ends – pleasure and pain are intrinsically good and bad, respectively. Thus, a utilitarian is able to assert moral judgement as a function of intrinsic values of good and bad, pleasure and pain, and rational cogitation.
When observing utilitarianism through a macroscopic lens, one will find it to be primus inter pares of the consequentialist moral philosophies. In essence, consequentialism observes and judges the consequences of actions. Given that a passerby has saved a child from a burning building, a consequentialist will state that their action was good because of the consequence of saving a life, with the passerby’s intentions playing no role in the ethical calculus. Did they do it for the sake of saving a life or for glory? Ultimately, it does not matter, so long as the result was good.
Opposite to consequentialism lies deontological philosophy, which argues that the morality of an action and an agent are judged by their adherence to a given system of ethical rules. This very broad basis allows for many different systems to coexist in the deontological environment, from theological to legalist ethics. The most famous of the deontological collective, apart from religious scriptures, is Immanuel Kant’s ethical theory based on two rules, the categorical imperative and the formula of humanity. The former is a rationalized version of theological prescriptions such as the Golden Rule. Writing in his Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant asserts “Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.” (Kant 30). The latter is Kant’s notion that all people are ends in themselves (Kant 36).
Through the articulation of the Kantian deontological position, a challenge is put to the validity of utilitarianism as a reliable source of moral judgement. Indeed, a Kantian might employ several arguments to highlight the weaknesses of utilitarian thought. Some are weaker and some stronger, and in an effort to establish the robustness of utilitarianism most justly, let the strongest possible opposing argument be made. The Transplant thought experiment posed by Philippa Foot will be employed as such.
The Transplant thought experiment posits that five patients are in critical condition, each dying from the malfunction of a different organ. A sixth, healthy individual is at the hospital, and a surgeon notes that killing him and harvesting his organs would save the five, dying patients. Should the surgeon do it? The Kantian deontologist would argue that a utilitarian must agree that the surgeon should kill the sixth individual, as that would increase the happiness and decrease the pain of the most, maximally. The argument then follows that, both heuristically and deontologically, it is impossible to agree with killing the sixth individual. The Kantian would note that a) one cannot agree to the maxim behind the murder without it becoming a universal law, and surgeons murdering innocents for the sake of organ harvest is morally wrong, and b) that since each person is an end in and of themselves, to use one as a means to help others is wrong. Intuitively, one must agree with the deontologist. Thus, how does a utilitarian respond?
Firstly, the notion that a utilitarian would necessarily agree with the murder of the sixth patient is wrong because it considers the utilitarian agent to be a narrow-minded one. Let the implications of murdering the sixth individual be more deeply. In terms of pleasure, it is evident that the five dying patients and their families and friends would be overjoyed at their recovery. Pain would be produced in the death of the sixth individual and his friends and family. Though initially damaging to utilitarianism, this ethical calculus is incomplete. It fails to consider that the surgeon might suffer from his actions, that the five patients would dread that the organs in their bodies were acquired through murder, and the wider, incalculable social upheaval. Actions, especially actions as severe as murder, have unpredictable consequences. A rational utilitarian would consider this future unpredictability and would be forced to disagree with the murder, as the ethical calculus is not only undeterminable in respect to the pleasure and pain of the five, but also impossible to complete more broadly.
Secondly, the utilitarian would note that Kantian or indeed any deontologist, would not necessarily be against the murder. The categorial imperative allows one to act so long as one supports the universalization of one’s actions. What element of this makes it a duty for the surgeon to not kill? None, if the surgeon rationally decides that it would be best to universalize the maxim of murder and organ harvesting, say for the sake of profit, the categorical imperative supports it. One would rebuke this by noting the formula of humanity – that each human, including the sixth individual, is an end. Yet the five patients too are ends, humans whose lives are valuable intrinsically, and quantifiably more than one, placing Kantian ethics in the impossible position of needing to decide which end is worthier. Thus, deontology fails to assert its moral superiority over utilitarianism, as the rules-based system upon which any deontological ethical theory functions, including Kantian, is based on whim masquerading as rational thought.
With utilitarianism defended as a successful theory of ethical judgement insofar as it is applied considerately and rationally, what judgements of globalized capitalist societies can be made using its axioms? “The Good Place” shows that, because the daily actions of agents living in a capitalist, developed economy – such as purchasing tomatoes from a company that exploits their laborers and soil – are immoral, no people are sufficiently ethical to get into the Good Place. It is later asserted that this is a failing of the utilitarian points system, for surely, intuitively, not all humans participating in the current globalized market are immoral. We ourselves, the viewers, are not immoral – or are we? The show presents an initial, uncomforting ethical analysis, yet fails to accept it as a result of mere intuition. In truth, if one follows utilitarianism down a logical path such as the one championed by philosopher Peter Singer in his work The Life You Can Save, one arrives at the conclusion that, when viewed with minimal bias, the actions of the inhabitants of developed society are unethical.
The Platonic thought experiment of the Republic (Plato 331) – the Madman and the Sword – serves to show part of the reason for categorizing developed society as unethical. Plato asks if it is just to return a sword to a man from whom you have borrowed it, if in the time that it has been in your possession the man has become mad. He concludes that it is not, for the actions of the madman would be partially your fault.
The same logic can be shown in a globalized, capitalist transaction. The company produces a product you desire, if you elect to give the company your money, then the actions it takes with it, which you know to be potentially exploitative, must partly be blamed on you. Given that the company’s factories collapsed and resulted in the deaths of workers, you too are partially responsible, for you provided the corporation with an amplifier of agency – the money – allowing it to produce a wrong of that magnitude. Moreover, the effect of pain produced by the abhorrent working conditions needed to supply developed societies with cheap goods is not outweighed to any degree by the consumer’s happiness. Pleasure gained from purchasing desired, unnecessary goods is ephemeral, as shown by the waste produced by developed countries – it is the action of the purchase, rather than the good, which creates short pleasure, incomparable to a life of suffering hoisted on those who produced the good.
These are the underpinnings of Singer’s The Life You Can Save, wherein he asks if, given that you have more money than you need to secure a comfortable life, it would be more ethical to spend the excess on cheap baubles or donations to those whose most basic necessities are not met? (Singer 44) The utilitarian rendering clearly shows that one must give one’s money away, for the alleviation of the condition of privation is incalculably more ethically valuable than a new, passing purchase.
Synoptically, ‘Are the mundane actions of individuals living in developed economies ethical?’ In accepting the utilitarian model of ethical judgement and understanding the dual truths that one is responsible for the effects that one’s spending habits have on others and that, by and large, the spending habits of citizens of developed nations lead to suffering, one is forced to agree with the initial indictment that “The Good Place” makes of modern society – it is unethical. Accepting this assertion is a difficult and counterintuitive task, yet in doing so through philosophical thought one lays the groundwork for living a more moral life, contributing to a more moral society, and building a more moral world – undoubtedly, the highest purpose of ethics.
Works Cited
Good Place Synopsis Sources:
Schur, Michael, “The Good Place – How Your Life Is Scored (Episode Highlight)”, YouTube. The Good Place, Universal Studios, NBC, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ut0ai4s4mjU&ab_channel=TheGoodPlace
Schur, Michael. “Michael Knows Why the Point System Is Broken”, YouTube. The Good Place, Universal Studios, NBC, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8m_5HDZF7w&ab_channel=TheGoodPlace
Thoughts & Arguments Sources:
Kant, Immanuel. “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, June 2012, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/kant-groundwork-of-the-metaphysics-ofmorals/6FB8B104B7417A1B83E4091003938A0C.
Mill, John Stuart. “Utilitarianism.” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, June 2015, https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/utilitarianism/3A446B8AF3BD081490C8BC D32493A94E.
Plato. “The Republic.” Cambridge University Press, Cambridge University Press, 22 Sept. 2016, https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-internationalrelations/texts-political-thought/plato-laws?format=PB.
Singer, Peter. “The Life You Can Save: Acting Now to End World Poverty (New York: Random House, 2009).” Cambridge Core, Cambridge University Press, 25 Mar. 2011, https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/ethics-and-internationalaffairs/article/abs/life-you-can-save-acting-now-to-end-world-poverty-peter-singernew-york-random-house-2009-224pp-22- cloth/F5B9C64A2F3AE0F377CCB4638EF2F491