Amy (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
such_heights) wrote2018-02-02 01:20 pm
such_heights) wrote2018-02-02 01:20 pm
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The Good Place 2x12
This started out as a reaction post to the finale and then turned into an essay on ethics. On behalf of my fellow philosophers, I'm very sorry that we really are the worst. :D
Ahh what a good finale. This show is so consistently moving to me, the way it keeps coming back to themes of the love and goodness that is present in people, waiting to grow, even when they don't remember.
Watching two people fall for each other in different ways over and over again is such good fannish catnip and it's one of the things I love about Chidi/Eleanor. And then he kissed her, and it was so decisive and I was so proud of him! I've loved how they've played this recently, with Eleanor quietly nursing her feelings, telling Chidi only because of how Chidi values honesty, not because she has any expectations. And then, boom, they kiss on the face and it's amazing. Hot diggity dog indeed. *_*
But more importantly, I love how the show keeps repeating that people deserve second, third, fourth, eight hundredth chances, that it's never too late to start being a better person, and that moral goodness is rooted in relationships. What we owe to each other, as Chidi says. If I may dig out my philosophy degree hat for a second, I think that while the show keeps moving through different theories about what it means to be a good person, something at the heart of it is quite rooted in virtue ethics, which I like.
Brief moral philosophy sidebar: most ethical theories are classed as either deontological (actions are right or wrong in all circumstances) or consequentialist (right and wrong is determined by end results). So Kantian ethics is deontological because it says that lying is wrong in all circumstances, even if telling a lie would save someone's life. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that says we have to make decisions based on what will create the best results even if it will cause some suffering.
Naturally, many philosophers have worked on and developed both of these approaches to address the obvious problems and come up with theories that fall somewhere in the middle, that's just the rough ball park: do actions inherently have or lack virtue, or is it dependent on their consequences?
Virtue ethics tries to move away from that spectrum and asks a different question: how do we become good people? In the Aristotelian version, virtues are seen as the middle ground between having too much or too little of a particular character trait. Somewhere in the middle is where a good person should be. Good people know how to be brave, not cowardly or foolhardy.
Chidi and Jason are the perfect example of this. Chidi is too indecisive, and Jason is too impulsive. Meanwhile, Tahani cares too much what other people think of her, but Eleanor is too inconsiderate. It's all part of why Michael thought these four can torture each other, but actually it's why they can help each other, finding balance and drawing on each other's complementary virtues.
(The fact that Chidi and Eleanor were chosen to be each other's fake torture soulmates but actually are maybe the closest thing there really is to soulmates, two people who keep finding each other and falling in love with each other and bringing out the best in each other is so so good, and now I have to go ugly cry over them excuse me.)
Developing virtues, in combination with the application of 'practical wisdom', or common sense, is the best way to be a good person and to make morally good decisions, according to this school of thought.
And now they are back on earth, and have to learn to develop their virtues and their practical wisdom (Molotov cocktails do not, perhaps, solve *every* problem, Jason), with some help from guardian angels in the form of a reforming demon who is sometimes a bartender (they've really been waiting for the right moment to get Ted Danson wiping down glasses, haven't they) and an AI with a lot of feelings. I love them all so much.
I'm sure season 3 will burn through plot at a similarly speedy pace, and who knows where it's going. I can't wait to find out.
Ahh what a good finale. This show is so consistently moving to me, the way it keeps coming back to themes of the love and goodness that is present in people, waiting to grow, even when they don't remember.
Watching two people fall for each other in different ways over and over again is such good fannish catnip and it's one of the things I love about Chidi/Eleanor. And then he kissed her, and it was so decisive and I was so proud of him! I've loved how they've played this recently, with Eleanor quietly nursing her feelings, telling Chidi only because of how Chidi values honesty, not because she has any expectations. And then, boom, they kiss on the face and it's amazing. Hot diggity dog indeed. *_*
But more importantly, I love how the show keeps repeating that people deserve second, third, fourth, eight hundredth chances, that it's never too late to start being a better person, and that moral goodness is rooted in relationships. What we owe to each other, as Chidi says. If I may dig out my philosophy degree hat for a second, I think that while the show keeps moving through different theories about what it means to be a good person, something at the heart of it is quite rooted in virtue ethics, which I like.
Brief moral philosophy sidebar: most ethical theories are classed as either deontological (actions are right or wrong in all circumstances) or consequentialist (right and wrong is determined by end results). So Kantian ethics is deontological because it says that lying is wrong in all circumstances, even if telling a lie would save someone's life. Utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory that says we have to make decisions based on what will create the best results even if it will cause some suffering.
Naturally, many philosophers have worked on and developed both of these approaches to address the obvious problems and come up with theories that fall somewhere in the middle, that's just the rough ball park: do actions inherently have or lack virtue, or is it dependent on their consequences?
Virtue ethics tries to move away from that spectrum and asks a different question: how do we become good people? In the Aristotelian version, virtues are seen as the middle ground between having too much or too little of a particular character trait. Somewhere in the middle is where a good person should be. Good people know how to be brave, not cowardly or foolhardy.
Chidi and Jason are the perfect example of this. Chidi is too indecisive, and Jason is too impulsive. Meanwhile, Tahani cares too much what other people think of her, but Eleanor is too inconsiderate. It's all part of why Michael thought these four can torture each other, but actually it's why they can help each other, finding balance and drawing on each other's complementary virtues.
(The fact that Chidi and Eleanor were chosen to be each other's fake torture soulmates but actually are maybe the closest thing there really is to soulmates, two people who keep finding each other and falling in love with each other and bringing out the best in each other is so so good, and now I have to go ugly cry over them excuse me.)
Developing virtues, in combination with the application of 'practical wisdom', or common sense, is the best way to be a good person and to make morally good decisions, according to this school of thought.
And now they are back on earth, and have to learn to develop their virtues and their practical wisdom (Molotov cocktails do not, perhaps, solve *every* problem, Jason), with some help from guardian angels in the form of a reforming demon who is sometimes a bartender (they've really been waiting for the right moment to get Ted Danson wiping down glasses, haven't they) and an AI with a lot of feelings. I love them all so much.
I'm sure season 3 will burn through plot at a similarly speedy pace, and who knows where it's going. I can't wait to find out.
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This show is so consistently moving to me, the way it keeps coming back to themes of the love and goodness that is present in people, waiting to grow, even when they don't remember.
I love how the show keeps repeating that people deserve second, third, fourth, eight hundredth chances, that it's never too late to start being a better person, and that moral goodness is rooted in relationships.
Yesssss! Because it could do some of these things without doing all of them, and it would still be an excellent show, but the way that these three themes are so tied together is really just *chef kiss* It speaks to such a quiet, pragmatic optimism.
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From the very beginning of S1 when I thought they all actually were in the good place, but Eleanor didn't belong there, I wanted for ultimately this to be the truth. I'm so happy that S2 confirmed in countless ways that, no matter what, Chidi and Eleanor are soulmates. It makes me so happy.
And now they are back on earth, and have to learn to develop their virtues and their practical wisdom (Molotov cocktails do not, perhaps, solve *every* problem, Jason), with some help from guardian angels in the form of a reforming demon who is sometimes a bartender (they've really been waiting for the right moment to get Ted Danson wiping down glasses, haven't they) and an AI with a lot of feelings. I love them all so much.
Me, too! I can't wait for S3!
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I can't wait to see how Jason, Tahani and Chidi react to their near-death experiences...
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Hi, I'm still working on coffee, this may be mostly incoherent. Thank you for your moral philosophy sidebar!
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And YES, they have been waiting for the right moment to put Ted Dansen behind a bar, and that made me grin a lot.
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I have to admit, I squealed and clapped when I saw Ted Danson behind the bar. And then marveled at how his body language never referenced Sam Malone AT ALL. How even.
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I will link to this in this MetaFilter thread where we are discussing the season finale.
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I EXTREMELY LOVE your take on Chidi & Eleanor's relationship (which is maybe the best canon ship in anything I'm watching right now????) -- I love the idea that people who have opposing virtues and faults are actually perfectly positioned to love each other, because loving another person is the act of letting yourself be changed by your admiration for them. And I love that the final episode pretty much explicitly says that's true of Tahani & Eleanor's friendship, so it's not just that the show is saying romance will save the world, it's saying that caring for each other makes us better.
Also, now I kind of want to read up on virtue ethics.....?
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