Is This the Medium Place?: An (Unforgettable) Evening with Michael Schur
While some of us took to making batches of whipped coffee or becoming Animal Crossing fans during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, Michael Schur took upon himself the challenge of writing a book about ethics in our everyday lives. Although the first thought most people have of Schur is “the farmer guy from The Office”, with his new book, he seeks to present virtue ethics, principles of major ethical viewpoints, and being “good” in a world that doesn’t have points assigned to actions, in a more palatable form.
On October 13, the Parr Center for Ethics hosted a special presentation, framed in a conversational style, between Schur and Todd May, a political philosopher and philosophical advisor to Schur on The Good Place. Schur discussed his personal journey through ethics, from a fundraising competition that left him and his wife questioning if they were bad people, to emailing May in the dead of the night to ask questions about too-long philosophical texts.
Anyone who has watched an episode of the numerous shows Schur has produced knows that he is, by all means, a funny guy. His humor is reflected both in his book and in the way he approached ethics on The Good Place. He discussed the difficulty of limiting all the points he wanted to address in a 20-minute episode for general audiences, and in some cases resorted to a literal classroom setting to introduce deontology, utilitarianism, and famous philosophers to viewers. However, with 4 seasons and an ensemble of characters with different moral compasses and growth arcs, Schur felt that The Good Place had served its purpose, and moved on to writing his book to tie his show to his own philosophical endeavors, and (hopefully) convince The Good Place viewers to engage with philosophy in a more in-depth, but still lighthearted and relatable way.
In applying lessons learned to our own lives, Schur seems to be well-versed in the idea that being “good” in a world with so many indirect consequences and relationships isn’t always as easy as philosophers from a century ago claimed. In fact, one of the main points of The Good Place focuses on how the point system (a concept with utilitarian themes) isn’t as accurate as its creators wanted to be. Through the book and the presentation, Schur discusses how he leans towards Aristotle’s idea of virtue ethics, as he feels it is the most “humanistic” - a view that doesn’t rely on rigid rules or contemplation, but rather the tendency to choose courses of action that appreciate social and emotional values.
Although we are attracted to ethical “playbooks” that make making “good” decisions easy for us, Schur claims that compassion, deliberation, and room for error is the way to go - one that doesn’t lead to “moral exhaustion”. If we assigned points to all our actions, the Calculator app would be #1 on the App Store instead of Twitter, but doing our best to live in an ethical manner, choosing actions that support the people and ideas we value the most, and avoiding intentional harm seems to be a good ethical doctrine to start our ethical journeys with.
As an Ethics Fellow at the Parr Center and a member of the Speaker Series’ pod, I was privileged to have the chance to have a small discussion with Schur and May as I walked them to the event venue. Schur and I both found common ground in the fact that we both came to philosophy and ethics from non-conventional perspectives - I from a more technical background, and him from a more artistic background. I also got to learn a bit more about May’s work and teachings on political philosophy - particularly on equality and political systems.
I got to know more about Schur and May on more personal notes, as they exchanged stories about recent events that made them feel old. Then, I had the chance to make them feel really old (the phrase “I was ____ before you were born” was uttered at least 6 times during the conversation), as I told them more about me and my future plans in the pursuit of ethical knowledge and beyond.
I learned that Michael Schur is essentially what everybody would assume an SNL writer turned sitcom producer turned philosophical writer would be like - down-to-earth, humorous, and always interested in other people’s stories. Perhaps the reason why The Good Place is one of my favorite shows of all time is because Schur wrote a show about the things he’s good at - seeing the best in different types of people and highlighting how ethics and moral character can ebb and flow through one’s life.
I highly, highly recommend checking out Schur’s book “How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question”, especially if you are (like I was) wary of heavy handed philosophical texts as an introduction to being and doing “good”. Yes, there is a section on the Trolley Problem, and of course, it’s so funny you’ll forget it's the 50th time you’re reading about it.