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heathsuz's review against another edition
5.0
An excellent overview of the philosophy of morality. Great context to why we experience decision fatigue and some thoughts about how to navigate the complexities. I listened to this book and it's a good listen for sure.
becki_bee's review against another edition
5.0
Philosophy and ethics are topics that seem like they will be very interesting, but they turn out to be complicated and surprisingly dry and boring.
Against all odds, "How to be Perfect" is informative, funny, and very accessible. I learned a lot, and I found the last couple chapters (about the importance and responsibility of "luck", and about apologizing) to be really moving and impactful. Tons of footnotes added to the fun factor, and periodic notes re The Good Place were a great bonus.
Recommend!
Against all odds, "How to be Perfect" is informative, funny, and very accessible. I learned a lot, and I found the last couple chapters (about the importance and responsibility of "luck", and about apologizing) to be really moving and impactful. Tons of footnotes added to the fun factor, and periodic notes re The Good Place were a great bonus.
Recommend!
jun1pper's review against another edition
4.0
I don't think a dry topic like moral philosophy can get better treatment than this. Schur is a solid, stand-up human, living thoughtfully, making the world a better place through writing comedy and books, and the addition of the Good Place cast is golden.
aseroff's review against another edition
3.0
It started a good balance of funny and informative, and as it went on, the funny dropped off and the book became a bit of a slog. A crucial error in the section about sports (the Seminole nation has a relationship with FSU and control over their image), and the preachiness of sections heavily slanted by Schur's politics (e.g. Ayn Rand) detracted from my ability to regard Schur with the impartiality required of a discussion of ethics.
chewedgum's review against another edition
5.0
If you've heard me yammer on about The Good Place, it's no surprise that I loved this. It's a fantastic audio book and truly a must-read introduction to Western Philosophy with a touch of Buddhist thought. No, it's not going to touch all of your favorite philosophers, but it's probably going to make you want to read more from them and discover new ones.
alongapath's review against another edition
1.0
DNF
I couldn't do it. Between promoting his discontinued TV series, attempting to be funny and claiming to understand the ethics philosophers of the past 1000 years, Schur lost me.
Perhaps it was the audio version that did me in, with its *hundreds* of footnotes. These were most often silly sidebars or personal back stories. Each had a tone announcing the beginning of a footnote and a different tone to announce that the interruption was (finally) over. These were incredibly distracting and took away, rather than added, to the lessons he tried to share.
Luckily it was on a whim that I started this and, on a similar whim, ended it.
*honestly - there were hundreds of footnotes. Not a sentence went by without a footnote.*
I couldn't do it. Between promoting his discontinued TV series, attempting to be funny and claiming to understand the ethics philosophers of the past 1000 years, Schur lost me.
Perhaps it was the audio version that did me in, with its *hundreds* of footnotes. These were most often silly sidebars or personal back stories. Each had a tone announcing the beginning of a footnote and a different tone to announce that the interruption was (finally) over. These were incredibly distracting and took away, rather than added, to the lessons he tried to share.
Luckily it was on a whim that I started this and, on a similar whim, ended it.
*honestly - there were hundreds of footnotes. Not a sentence went by without a footnote.*
tylerwiseman's review against another edition
3.0
A comedic and competent introduction to philosophy, this book breaks down concepts like existentialism, utilitarianism, consequentialism (and a bunch of other big, intelligent-sounding words) into digestible and pleasant portions. Not life-changing, but I do feel smarter, and didn't have to read 19th century Russian to get there.
michielmennen's review against another edition
5.0
Irresistibly funny. The Good Place is a great TV-show that addresses moral philosophy in a surprising and comedic way. As its co-creator, Michael Schur shows that he can do the same in book format. Great fun read that provides you with a foundational knowledge of the great moral philosophies of mankind. Or if you don’t, just try again. Fail again. Fail better.
ashley_kelmore's review against another edition
4.0
Best for:
Fans of The Good Place. People who want to be better.
In a nutshell:
TV writer and Creator of The Good Place shares what he learned about moral philosophy during that show, breaking it down using funny analogies and stories.
(Note: My review may have some spoilers for The Good Place. If you’ve never seen the show, I suggest you fix that immediately.)
Worth quoting:
“[F]or a meritocracy to work — for a society to properly value and celebrate the hard work and individual success — the people within the society need to start from the same point of origin. Otherwise, the cream isn’t rising to the top — the people who were the closest to the top already are rising to the top, and the whole concept of meritocracy crumbles to dust.”
“For people deeply invested in the way things are, any change would mean confronting decisions they’ve made that created or sustained the troubling reality.”
“When we do something good, we want credit, dammit. We want a little gold star.”
Why I chose it:
The Good Place is 100% my favorite television show of all time. Like, it’s not even a competition. Part of that is because I studied moral philosophy in graduate school (I actually squealed when ‘What We Owe to Each Other’ showed up in an early episode, and ran to get my copy to show my partner) and part of that is because it’s forking hilarious while also being extremely thoughtful. When I saw this book, I knew I had to order it and read it immediately.
Review:
What a book. What a delightful, optimistic, educational, funny book.
Alright, so Michael Schur, who created a Good Place that I really hope exists, has taken what he learned about philosophy from that experience and written an interesting and easy to understand book about moral philosophy and ethics. It is a VERY fun read, which is impressive, since it covers virtue ethics (Aristotle), deontology (Kant), utilitarianism (Mill and Bentham), Consequentialism (Scanlon), and Existentialism (Sartre and Camus).
Plus it includes some nice, deep burns of Ayn Rand. Those are always welcomed.
Schur starts with the easier stuff (“Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?”), introducing different concepts slowly, so the reader can get used to one and see how it applies in a situation. By the later chapters, when we’re dealing with more intense stuff (e.g. can you keep supporting a person or company that does bad things and also makes things you love, aka the Chic-fil-a Conundrum), he brings together multiple theories to see what they would say about the decisions we could make, and opines on why some options might be better than others.
I especially appreciate his take on the ideas of what we owe to each other, because he talks extensively about how what we owe does depend on who we are and where we are in our lives. He has a running thread about a 27 cent tip on a $1.73 cup of coffee. He rightly points out that to someone who doesn’t have a lot of money, that 27 cents is generous. But for someone like him, who is extremely privileged and has a lot of money, he should be giving more. Doing more. He owes it to society. As do people with even more wealth and privilege than Schur like, say, Jeff Bezos.
Obviously I loved this book, so why isn’t it 5 stars? Well, let’s get back to the Chic-fil-a Conundrum. Because part of the book — not a huge part, but definitely at least a chapter — is devoted to Peter Singer. Now, I have read some of Singer’s work in the past, and I found a pre-CBR review I wrote of one of his works that I obviously didn’t assess critically. I should have done my homework, because that guy is a mess. He’s definitely … consistent, but that consistency leads him to support eugenics. Dude is SUPER ableist, to a deeply disturbing degree. Which is a big bummer, because he also happens to have some interesting ideas about where we should target charitable giving.
Schur references this a bit in a footnote (a footnote that comes in ten pages into the section on Singer), but basically makes it sound like he almost respects how hard Singer sticks to his beliefs even as they lead to some despicable outcomes (making Singer a pretty big failure from a virtue ethics perspective). Schur even suggests that people don’t like Singer because he makes us feel bad about our own actions. I mean sure, probably that factors in it a little. But mostly its the eugenics. And apparently Schur even wrote the introduction to one of Singer’s books? COME ON BUDDY. Like, I know it’s a bit meta, but writing a book about moral philosophy and choosing to include one of the more problematic living philosophers isn’t great. I’m sure there’s another philosopher he could have included for that section.
Some other bits of note:
This book has a lot of footnotes and those footnotes are GEMS. I love a book that takes a moment to redirect the reader to a footnote, and that footnote says something like ‘Todd notes that Sartre would also say that addiction is a choice. Mike notes that Sartre needs to cool it a little.’
I wish this book had been available to me before I started grad school because honestly, Schur described Kant and the categorical imperative in 10 pages better than many philosophy professors. Like, seriously, if I could go back and take my moral philosophy course exam again, I think I might crush it.
Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend and Keep
Fans of The Good Place. People who want to be better.
In a nutshell:
TV writer and Creator of The Good Place shares what he learned about moral philosophy during that show, breaking it down using funny analogies and stories.
(Note: My review may have some spoilers for The Good Place. If you’ve never seen the show, I suggest you fix that immediately.)
Worth quoting:
“[F]or a meritocracy to work — for a society to properly value and celebrate the hard work and individual success — the people within the society need to start from the same point of origin. Otherwise, the cream isn’t rising to the top — the people who were the closest to the top already are rising to the top, and the whole concept of meritocracy crumbles to dust.”
“For people deeply invested in the way things are, any change would mean confronting decisions they’ve made that created or sustained the troubling reality.”
“When we do something good, we want credit, dammit. We want a little gold star.”
Why I chose it:
The Good Place is 100% my favorite television show of all time. Like, it’s not even a competition. Part of that is because I studied moral philosophy in graduate school (I actually squealed when ‘What We Owe to Each Other’ showed up in an early episode, and ran to get my copy to show my partner) and part of that is because it’s forking hilarious while also being extremely thoughtful. When I saw this book, I knew I had to order it and read it immediately.
Review:
What a book. What a delightful, optimistic, educational, funny book.
Alright, so Michael Schur, who created a Good Place that I really hope exists, has taken what he learned about philosophy from that experience and written an interesting and easy to understand book about moral philosophy and ethics. It is a VERY fun read, which is impressive, since it covers virtue ethics (Aristotle), deontology (Kant), utilitarianism (Mill and Bentham), Consequentialism (Scanlon), and Existentialism (Sartre and Camus).
Plus it includes some nice, deep burns of Ayn Rand. Those are always welcomed.
Schur starts with the easier stuff (“Should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?”), introducing different concepts slowly, so the reader can get used to one and see how it applies in a situation. By the later chapters, when we’re dealing with more intense stuff (e.g. can you keep supporting a person or company that does bad things and also makes things you love, aka the Chic-fil-a Conundrum), he brings together multiple theories to see what they would say about the decisions we could make, and opines on why some options might be better than others.
I especially appreciate his take on the ideas of what we owe to each other, because he talks extensively about how what we owe does depend on who we are and where we are in our lives. He has a running thread about a 27 cent tip on a $1.73 cup of coffee. He rightly points out that to someone who doesn’t have a lot of money, that 27 cents is generous. But for someone like him, who is extremely privileged and has a lot of money, he should be giving more. Doing more. He owes it to society. As do people with even more wealth and privilege than Schur like, say, Jeff Bezos.
Obviously I loved this book, so why isn’t it 5 stars? Well, let’s get back to the Chic-fil-a Conundrum. Because part of the book — not a huge part, but definitely at least a chapter — is devoted to Peter Singer. Now, I have read some of Singer’s work in the past, and I found a pre-CBR review I wrote of one of his works that I obviously didn’t assess critically. I should have done my homework, because that guy is a mess. He’s definitely … consistent, but that consistency leads him to support eugenics. Dude is SUPER ableist, to a deeply disturbing degree. Which is a big bummer, because he also happens to have some interesting ideas about where we should target charitable giving.
Schur references this a bit in a footnote (a footnote that comes in ten pages into the section on Singer), but basically makes it sound like he almost respects how hard Singer sticks to his beliefs even as they lead to some despicable outcomes (making Singer a pretty big failure from a virtue ethics perspective). Schur even suggests that people don’t like Singer because he makes us feel bad about our own actions. I mean sure, probably that factors in it a little. But mostly its the eugenics. And apparently Schur even wrote the introduction to one of Singer’s books? COME ON BUDDY. Like, I know it’s a bit meta, but writing a book about moral philosophy and choosing to include one of the more problematic living philosophers isn’t great. I’m sure there’s another philosopher he could have included for that section.
Some other bits of note:
This book has a lot of footnotes and those footnotes are GEMS. I love a book that takes a moment to redirect the reader to a footnote, and that footnote says something like ‘Todd notes that Sartre would also say that addiction is a choice. Mike notes that Sartre needs to cool it a little.’
I wish this book had been available to me before I started grad school because honestly, Schur described Kant and the categorical imperative in 10 pages better than many philosophy professors. Like, seriously, if I could go back and take my moral philosophy course exam again, I think I might crush it.
Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a Friend and Keep