How to Be Perfect

The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

By: Michael Schur

Narrated by: Michael Schur

Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

From the writer and executive producer of the award-winning Netflix series The Good Place that made moral philosophy fun: a fool-proof guide to making the correct moral decision in every situation you ever encounter, anywhere on earth, forever.

How can we live a more ethical life?

This question has plagued people for thousands of years, but it's never been tougher to answer than it is now, thanks to challenges great and small that flood our day-to-day lives and threaten to overwhelm us with impossible decisions and complicated results with unintended consequences.

Plus, being anything close to an 'ethical person' requires daily thought and introspection and hard work; we have to think about how we can be good not, you know, once a month, but literally all the time.

To make it a little less overwhelming, this fascinating, accessible and funny book by one of our generation's best writers and adept minds in television comedy, Michael Schur, boils down the whole confusing morass with real life dilemmas (from 'should I punch my friend in the face for no reason?' to 'can I still enjoy great art if it was created by terrible people?'), so that we know how to deal with ethical dilemmas. Much as Chidi used humour and philosophy to make Eleanor a less selfish person, Schur takes us on a journey through the 2,500-year discussion of ethics, sketching a road map for how we ought to act along the way.

By the time the book is done, we'll know exactly how to act in every conceivable situation, so as to produce a verifiably maximal amount of moral good. We will be perfect, and all our friends will be jealous. Okay, not quite. Instead, we'll gain fresh, funny, inspiring wisdom on the toughest issues we face every day

With contributions from Professor Todd May of Clemson University, who served as an advisor on The Good Place, this is a brilliant, clever and hugely entertaining book about one of the most important topics in the world.

'The problem is, if all you care about in the world is the velvet rope, you will always be unhappy, no matter which side you're on.' (Tahani Al-Jamil, The Good Place)

©2022 Michael Schur (P)2022 Simon & Schuster Audio

A funny and entertaining listen

A funny and entertaining audiobook. Easy to listen to. Various philosophical ideas presented in light manner.

How philosophy should be written

Excellent, laugh out loud read which remains serious and true to its sources and forebears. Highly recommended.

Excellent 101 of Philosophy in a light Tone

This is a Philosophy 101/Overview book - it covers a very broad range in basic depth. It's very light and tries to be funny/light at all times. That sometimes is not ideal (at least for me) but it's really effective in reducing complex topics down to a small size so that they can be easily digested by most readers

Even though I agree with his philosophy proposed at the end, I still see that the author strawman's and at times ridicules that strawman for all philosophies in a way that helps shape his narrative/opinion

That's not perfect - but it's more than good enough if you focus on the goal of the writer - which is to make this way of thinking relevant and even attractive to a much wider audience.