TV Series· 2016· Comedy

The Good Place

by Michael Schur

The Good Place: it draws on 1 recorded source.

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What influenced The Good Place

The works this one is recorded as drawing on.

The Good Place is a sitcom about moral philosophy that teaches Aristotle by name, and the Nicomachean Ethics is the text it settles on after trying the alternatives. Chidi lectures the other characters on virtue ethics explicitly, and the show's argument is Aristotle's: that being good is a practice rather than a state, that character is formed by habit, and that you cannot become virtuous alone. The final season turns on the claim that people can improve given time and company, which is the Ethics' position against the divine ledger the premise starts with. The series employed a philosophy consultant and the citations are on screen.

About the work

The Good Place

A woman wakes in the afterlife, is congratulated on a lifetime of good deeds, and knows at once that they have the wrong person. Keeping the secret means actually learning ethics, and the first season ends on a twist that rewrites everything before it.