Why Michael Schur wrote a book delving into philosophy after his experience on The Good Place

The New York Times

Schur had some more philosophical questions he wanted to tackle after The Good Place, so he wrote How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question, which was released earlier this week. The audiobook features narration from The Good Place's Kristen Bell, D’Arcy Carden, Ted Danson, William Jackson Harper, Manny Jacinto, Marc Evan Jackson, Jameela Jamil and the show's philosophy advisor Todd May. As The New York Times' Alexandra Alter notes, "in about 300 pages, Schur covers some 2,500 years of Western philosophical thought, breaking down concepts like virtue ethics, deontology, utilitarianism and contractualism, analyzing principles espoused by Aristotle ('a good salesman, and he gets us all excited about his pitch'), Kant ('a pretty rigid dude') and Camus ('a stone-cold hottie'), and examining arguments from contemporary philosophers like Judith Thomson, Peter Singer, T.M. Scanlon and Johann Broodryk. He raises quandaries that are easy calls ('Should I Punch My Friend in the Face for No Reason?') along with more challenging thought experiments like the Trolley Problem ('Should I Let This Runaway Trolley I’m Driving Kill Five People, or Should I Pull a Lever and Deliberately Kill One (Different) Person?') and fraught issues like whether it’s wrong to enjoy art and literature created by people who behave reprehensibly." Since he is a philosophical layman, Schur is worried about how the book will be received. “I’m terrified of people who know what they’re talking about reading it and saying, ‘You fool,’” he says. “That’s my greatest fear right now, is that someone is going to read it and out loud, alone in his or her office, say the words, ‘You fool.’”

ALSO:

• How to Be Perfect touches on the pandemic a handful of times, but Michael Schur admits that it was difficult not to make it the focus of the whole book
• Michael Schur complains that Amazon already had a rip-off of his book
• Schur recounts on Office Ladies podcast how his real life inspired a hilarious Mose Schrute moment on The Office