What is good anyway? (part 1)

Michael: So, Chidi, just want to double check. How do ethical philosophers feel about murder?
Chidi: It’s frowned upon.
Michael: OK. What if the reason you want to murder someone is to make your life easier? That’s OK, right?

(Series 2, episode 7)

The characters in The Good Place struggle to identify what makes a particular action “good.” They are initially told that this can be precisely determined (to two decimal places):

Michael: During your time on Earth, every one of your actions had a positive or a negative value, depending on how much good or bad that action put into the universe. Every sandwich you ate, every time you bought a magazine, every single thing you did had an effect that rippled out over time and ultimately created some amount of good or bad.

(Series 1, episode 1)

Which is quite similar to Utilitarianism, where the sum total of positive and negative effects is what matters:

Chidi: Utilitarianism posits that the correct choice is the one that causes the most good or pleasure, and the least pain and suffering.
Eleanor: I like this one. It’s simple. Ugh, screw all the other complicated theories, why didn’t you start with this one?
Chidi: Ah, but here's the problem. If all that matters is the sum total of “goodness,” then you can justify any number of bad actions, like torturing one innocent person to save a hundred, or preemptive war.

(Season 1, episode 5)

The point system has some differences to Utilitarianism though. For example, a person’s motivation for doing something is factored in (so being “good” just to get into the Good Place isn’t worth any points).

By the end of season 3, Michael identifies a problem with the point system. In an increasingly complex world, the effects of an action become harder to predict, so a well intended action can easily have unforeseen consequences:

Michael: In 1534, Douglass Wynegar of Hawkhurst, England, gave his grandmother roses for her birthday. He picked them himself, walked them over to her, she was happy – boom, 145 points. Now ... Yeah, here we go. In 2009, Doug Ewing of Scaggsville, Maryland, also gave his grandmother a dozen roses, but he lost four points. Why? Because he ordered roses using a cell phone that was made in a sweatshop. The flowers were grown with toxic pesticides, picked by exploited migrant workers, delivered from thousands of miles away, which created a massive carbon footprint, and his money went to a billionaire racist CEO who sends his female employees pictures of his genitals.

(Season 3, episode 10)

Season 4 hasn’t come out at the time of this writing, so it will be interesting to see where they are going with this.

Meanwhile, Eleanor starts paying attention to her “little voice”:

Eleanor: This ethics stuff, it’s hard, and it’s confusing. It is such a buzzkill. But, it does get rid of the little voice. Because at least I’m trying to do the right thing instead of the crappy thing, and I’ve got to say, man, I don’t miss the little voice.

(Season 2, episode 10)

The writers haven’t delved very far into the concept of following your conscience, but here are just a few thoughts:

☛ Conscience is a system of punishment and reward: not just feeling bad when you do something that goes against the grain, but feeling good when you do what you know is right. This makes human beings vulnerable to manipulation through guilt (as many cults and advertising companies have discovered).

☛ Feeling bad when you do something that goes against your conscience isn’t a terrible thing. Just like physical pain tells you something is wrong in your body, pangs of conscience indicate that there is a problem somewhere.

☛ Conscience is often regarded as a sufficient guide to people’s actions, in and of itself. “I cannot and will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand, I can do no other, so help me God” (Martin Luthor).

☛ The intensity of people’s conscience varies. Sociopaths may have a non functioning conscience, and some people (particularly victims of abuse) may have a very tender and possibly oversensitive conscience.

☛ People can disagree about what goes against their conscience, which is not necessarily because one person is more moral; it may just be due to cultural influences or past experiences. If you were always told that wearing makeup was vain, you may feel guilty for doing so. If you are from a line of big game hunters, killing a rare tiger as a trophy may feel heroic.

☛ It is possible for a person’s conscience to change over time. Observing that wearing makeup isn’t harmful may help someone get over feeling guilty about it; receiving a fine for littering may make someone more sensitive in that area. But trying to force someone to go against their conscience when you disagree with them is rarely helpful.

☛ The fact that people’s consciences vary doesn’t imply that there are no moral absolutes. Murder, lying, stealing and so on are pretty much universally acknowledged as wrong under normal circumstances (ignoring situations involving a “greater good”).

☛ I would argue that, even if someone doesn’t seem to acknowledge that a thing is wrong, they do actually know it at a deeper level (and their conscience is bugging them). This becomes clear when people vehemently justify their actions. Nobody in real life sees themselves as the bad guy; Hitler claimed to be on the side of righteousness while performing genocide.

So the “little voice” isn’t a perfect guide to right and wrong, but it is still useful.

One last thought:

☛ A guilty conscience can persist for a long time. People can feel bad about something in their past, even if there is nothing they can do about it in the present. Jesus died to take away all our guilt and shame, and is the ultimate answer to an accusing conscience. When our conscience says, “You deserve to be punished,” the response for a Christian is, “Yep! And Jesus was punished for me on the cross, so there is none left over.”

Next: What is good anyway? (part 2) – the Christian perspective: it all comes down to love.