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

Schur brings his unique comedic voice to liven up a discussion of a usually dry, academic subject. Highly recommended for anyone curious about Western philosophy!

Distilling ethics into small, understandable pieces, is a challenge, but doing so with humor certainly makes it easier to internalize.

Have you ever wanted a rundown of modern philosophy in plain terms with situations that relate to your life instead of just the abstract? Michael Schur, creator of The Good Place provides that. He writes compelling chapters that provide digestible philosophy that anyone can understand, while applying it to life. And opining on how he used his journey through Philosophy to write the show. You don't need to have seen it to read this, but there are some mild spoilers.

This is a short, gentle, practical, populist introduction to the world of moral philosophy -- light, funny, irreverent, but entirely serious. I’m glad I read it. It kicked up a lot of dust for me and led me to ponder deeply some big questions. I’m grateful.Fair warning, however – several things bothered me. I found much of the humor flippant to the point of annoying. I also felt the book contains a few too many cheap shots at real-world folks whose conduct the author considers morally repugnant. Most seriously, I think the book’s tone and content is too politically polarizing. The author leans to the left politically (as do I) -- fair enough. But he seems blind to the possibility that there are thoughtful people of good will who see things differently. He seems to presume (unconsciously?) that liberal values are morally superior, spends too much time outlining standard defenses of those values in a tone that suggests no reasonable person could disagree, and is often dismissive of conservative views.On page 142 the author says “we should remember how powerful the simple act of conversation can be, to help us navigate these choppy waters.” I agree. In my view, however, these conversations are most valuable when they take place among people with different views who engage respectfully in a sincere attempt to understand and appreciate other perspectives. Here, I think, the book falls short. But I honor and appreciate Michael Schur’s sincere effort. He cares deeply. He’s trying. And as he makes clear throughout the book, that’s the most important thing of all. At some level it’s all any of us can do. We try, we fail, we try again, and we keep on trying. Before he even begins the book’s introduction, the author allows Maya Angelou to speak beautifully on this point: “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

Having thoroughly enjoyed The Good Place, I knew I was going to want to read this book.Though I bought both print and audiobook (CD) versions, I chose to start with the audiobook, not least of all because the cast of The Good Place (and a surprise guest, as it turns out) participated in the reading. I listened to the whole thing (yes, all 9 hours) in basically one sitting, while I worked.Michael Schur has an engaging, conversational tone, so the recording sounds more like a conversation than someone reading a book. Each chapter is introduced by Ted Danson, who you can't help but picture in his Good Place Michael suit. For the most part, it's easy to pick out the Good Place cast members where they appear, though I think there are a few parts where D'Arcy Carden was reading when I thought it was Kristen Bell (she apparently sounds much different when she's not in Janet mode).If you're at all familiar with The Good Place, you'll recognize some of the subjects covered in this book, particularly the Trolley Problem, Kant, and the irrational hatred of Hawaiian pizza. The section on existentialism is great; not only does he nail Sartre, he also manages to refer to Camus as a "stone cold hottie". (You probably won't see that in any other philosophy books!)Of particular note is the way footnotes are handled. Each shift from narrative to footnote is signalled by a tone; a slightly lower tone signals the return back to the text. I found that this actually added to the sense of the audiobook being more like a conversation, since conversations are frequently filled with asides, explanations, and the occasional smart-alecky remark.Overall, it's probably helpful to think of this book—particularly in its audiobook format—as an extension of The Good Place. Schur started working on the book during the show's run, and it basically expands on many of the themes explored on the show. Like The Good Place, this book will get you thinking about Stuff, but not so that your eyes will glaze over or your head will explode—even when you get to the thorny bits.

(That headline is a light-hearted dig because I know Mike Schur kinda hated playing Mose on The Office. In the spirit of the book: Mike, I apologize. :-) )I heard about this book on the Office Ladies podcast when they interviewed Mike. They mentioned the title of the chapter about whether you really HAVE to return your shopping cart and I was sold--bought it the next day. I've always seen that as the lowest bar, minimum possible thing that humans can do to make the lives of other humans better--and I'm constantly shaking my head at the fact that so many people have such disregard for others that they don't return their damned carts! It's frustrating!Anyway...this book does not disappoint. Think of it as a humorous Cliffs Notes distillation of the many philosophies of morality. It's a book that makes you laugh and makes you think. And it really does give you some easy to understand (but hard to follow in some cases...that's the nature of being better, it's hard) guidelines for the things one can do to be a better person. It's so worth the read.Great stuff, Mike. I'm gonna go stream The Good Place now.

A valuable review of several philosophical and ethical schools and a useful reminder that perfection is a worthy but unattainable goal.

Thoroughly enjoyable book. To give you a bit of a background about myself, I'm not someone who's that much into philosophy but nonetheless, it has been a topic that I had been curious to explore. As a major fan of Micheal Shur's work from the office, good place and parks & rec I was very curious to give this book a try. Especially after watching the good place which explores a lot of interesting philosophy concepts, I was keen to understand Schur's outlook.I can safely say that this book did not disappoint and was a delightful read. Books regarding philosophy can be a chore to read however Schur's narrative makes the novel very compelling and at no time did I ever feel like the book was ever too dense or dry. The structure of the novel flows very nicely from one chapter to another and the concepts are really built on nicely on top of one another. Coming from someone who has no context to any real philosophy as such, I found everything very easy to follow. On top of the content and the themes explored, Schur has great humor and his style just makes the book such an enjoyable read. One of the funniest side editions is how he uses footnotes in the book. Usually, footnotes are just for additional context which one tends to pass over but in this case, they're filled with such funny insights and comments that you can't help but read all of them. What's more is that he relates each concept very nicely with personal examples which helps add to the overall engagement when reading.Overall excellent book. Of course if you're looking for a hardcore philosophy read then this is probably not the novel for you, but for most of you who are just looking for something light and have an interest in the subject matter - I cannot recommend this book enough. An extremely interesting book along with Schur's own personal insights and life experiences makes this a very worthwhile read.

This is fine. A good snapshot of certain moral philosophy tenets and given some interesting modern parallels or thought problems. However, the constant footnotes to explain a joke, or to give what would be a look to camera in a TV comedy, do detract from what is otherwise fairly interesting.I could avoid the footnotes but every so often there is one that provides further context or history of the topic or person being talked about, so I just get irritated by the other kind.

If you enjoyed watching The Good Place (and I loved it) then this book focuses on the underlying philosophies dealt with in that programme in an entertaining and very readable way.And there’s a very moving (well I found it so) letter to his children at the end that advises them about how to be good people. Quite beautiful.

Got one for me and my friend, ended up with a signed copy According to the sticker on the front, so no complaints! Nice size and decent hard cover