What Kind of Person Should I Be?

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The most common barrier, i would say, is that people think like, well, what does it matter? And if you want to be that kind of person, then turn the water off. It's very rare that any individual action fixes any kind of large scale problem. When you just pose that question, actions, one way or the other, become a lot more clear in terms of what's right and what's wrong.

Humans face ethical dilemmas big and small every day: Which product is the most sustainable? Can you separate the art from the artist? Should you really share your streaming platform passwords? Today’s guest, Michael Schur, has spent a lot of time thinking about morality, most recently in his Emmy-nominated show The Good Place, and in the New York Times bestselling book “How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question,” and. In this episode, Michael talks about why he’s gone from working on shows like Saturday Night Live, The Office, Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and Hacks, to reading and writing about Kant, Nietzsche, and Aristotle. Michael shares why he uses analogies and pop culture references to engage with philosophy, why he’s still chasing after the eternal and perhaps unanswerable question of “how to be perfect”, and why he believes caring about ethics –at any level– can actually make a difference.