wherein i try to talk about a show and sort of go off rails

[sigmaleph]

The Good Place is a show that is clearly *about* philosophy in a way very little television is (or at least, television I've been exposed to). Which makes it all the more frustrating when the show is just... terrible. at analysing philosophical questions.

The comparison that comes to mind is that it's to philosophy what science fiction is to actual science, except, well... that's kind of awfully arrogant of me isn't it. I am not a scientist but I was a science student for a while. I typically have reason to be confident when I call out some bit of technobabble as making no sense whatsoever, and I have the backing of the scientific establishment behind me.

But like, me calling out Chidi for not being a consequentialist or whatever that nonsense was about free will vs determinism for not even mentioning compatibilism? Lots of real actual philosophers think consequentialism and compatibilism are wrong. I am not even an amateur philosophy student, just some girl who spends too much time on the internet, who the heck cares what I think

and yet compatibilism is the obviously correct answer to the philosophical question of determinism vs free will. like being 100% honest I'm not entertaining much reasonable doubt about this. I have the sense that I *should be* less confident that I've got this question right when clearly lots of very smart people spent longer than I've been alive thinking about this and came to different conclusions, but I'm not.

that sure sounds like it makes me arrogant, which is interesting because I tend to be a very epistemically anxious person (also an anxious person in general). why am i not on this, of all things?

anyway yeah don't watch The Good Place for philosophical instruction, and don't watch sci-fi to learn science.

Comments

[oligopsony]

Chidi not mentioning compatibilism seems much worse than his not being a compatibilist. As you point out, plenty of philosophers are incompatibilists (i.e., wrong.) But none of them would fail to be aware of it as an option, if only to knock it down.

But then Chidi hsd always been a frustrating character, because the basic idea of the character is neat and compelling, the actor delivers it well, but he's just served such inconsistent characterization from the script. He's an academic philosopher but shows almost zero interest in the bizarre metaphysical situation he finds himself in, except for one reboot that gets depressed. His defining character traits are being extremely smart and pathologically scrupulous, but he misses whole strains of ethical considerations that should be obvious.

This is implicit in your post, I think, but I think TGP might be the rare fiction where becoming more like a rationalist fic would be better by its own criteria.

[sigmaleph]

Worth mentioning that Chidi wasn't a part of the free will debate, it was just Michael and Eleanor.

I don't actually know if TGP would be improved by becoming more rat-fic-like, any more than a random sci-fi show would improve by becoming harder scifi. It would frustrate *me* less, but to some extent it'd be worse qua comedy