How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

Aristotle was an Ancient Greek polymath who made significant contributions to the fields of philosophy, natural science, economics, politics, art, and more. Although it is estimated that only a third of his writings survive, he is considered among the foundational thinkers of Western civilization. In Schur’s text, he is primarily discussed for his views on virtue ethics, which he expounded in Nichomachean Ethics. A key concept of his approach is the golden mean, referring to the perfect balance between any two opposing character traits.

Since not very much is known about Aristotle’s personal life, Schur’s characterization of him is somewhat vaguer than his characterization of other, more recent philosophers. To fill the gaps in historical knowledge, Schur simply imagines Aristotle saying things such as “Dude. You super blew this” after seeing Schur make a mistake (141). In terms of overall influence and applicability of his theories, however, Aristotle is arguably the text’s most significant figure: His is the first philosophy Schur introduces, and Schur applies the search for a golden mean in numerous contexts; he also draws on Aristotle’s theory of personal development through habituation. While remaining generally in awe of Aristotle’s wisdom, Schur does notably push back against one aspect of Aristotle’s work that is recognized as problematic today: his support for slavery.

Bentham was a British philosopher recognized as a leading exponent of utilitarianism. Born in 1748, Bentham was ahead of his time in arguing for the rights of women, gay people, animals, and more. Through his followers known as Benthamites, he exerted a significant influence on public policy. His design of a prison known as a panopticon, in which the prisoners cannot tell when they are being watched, is considered one of his more innovative ideas. A key policy of his approach was the principle that the morally correct choice is the one that brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. Bentham also introduced seven scales or indicators to help measure the amount of happiness or pain that is likely to result from a choice, including the “intensity,” “duration,” “certainty,” “propinquity,” “fecundity,” “purity,” and “extent” (46). Schur recognizes the usefulness of this concept as well as its inherent limitations.

As a character, Schur presents Bentham as an eccentric, citing Bentham’s request that his friend, a doctor, preserve his skeleton after his death, replacing Bentham’s head with a wax replica, as needed. Bentham’s auto-icon, as the preserved skeleton is known, resides in the collection of the University College London. Schur also cites a rhyming poem written by Bentham to capture the gist of his utilitarian principle. Bentham therefore emerges as a relatively whimsical philosopher among dryer, sterner peers.

Mill was an influential British utilitarian philosopher. A student of Jeremy Bentham, Mill received an extensive classical education at a very young age, which left him feeling depressed as he entered young adulthood. Mill emerged from his funk through reading poetry and falling in love. Philosophically, Mill refined and extended Bentham’s arguments for utilitarianism, arguing that certain pleasures of the mind are higher, and thus more valuable, than the low pleasures associated with bodily appetites. This allowed him to counter one critique of utilitarianism—that it leads to oppression of the few by the many—by holding that the right to security of the minority trumps the demands of the majority. Mill’s work remains controversial, as does utilitarianism as a whole, but Schur finds it a viable analytical tool in certain situations.

Scanlon is an American philosopher who taught at Harvard University from 1984 until his retirement in 2016. In his 1998 book What We Owe to Each Other, Scanlon develops a moral system known as contractualism. The key principle of contractualism is that people should act according to rules that no reasonable person could reject. This sets a baseline for the minimal acceptable social behavior. While contractualism does not provide exhaustive answers to some of the delicate moral questions, Schur uses it to expound the value of simple actions, such as wearing a mask to reduce the spread of disease or returning a shopping cart to the rack, that benefit others.

Schur refers to Scanlon’s work as a personal favorite of his, and there are multiple references to it in The Good Place as well; one episode is named “What We Owe to Each Other.” Schur attributes the appeal of contractualism to its reliability (the answers he arrives at through contractualist reasoning often accord with his intuition) as well as its simplicity in application, as opposed to the more daunting Kantian ethics. Apart from the founders of the three major schools of Western philosophy, Scanlon’s philosophy is probably the theory Schur returns to most often in his analysis.

Singer is an influential Australian philosopher within the utilitarian school of thought. Singer’s work is notable for both its uncompromising edge and its immediacy. Singer expresses the opinion that those who are wealthy should give most or all of their disposable income, whatever they have left over after meeting their basic needs, to charities that can save and improve the lives of disadvantaged people around the world. Schur describes Singer as “a postpunk, grizzled, lone-wolf utilitarian warrior, wandering through the desert, guided by an uncompromising sense of justice” (173); he also describes him as “the consequentialist answer to Immanuel Kant” (173). While acknowledging how frustrating it can be to wade through Singer’s relatively inflexible work, Schur acknowledges him as a much-needed antidote to complacency. He also sees his work as a helpful supplement to Scanlon’s theories: After meeting the basic minimum requirements of human society as specified in contractualism, those who are fortunate can move forward to help others as Singer invites them to do.

Singer and Schur are friends, and Singer asked Schur to write a foreword for the 2019 reprinting of his book The Life You Can Save.