Can studying Philosophy and Ethics make you a good person?
- Begina Slawinska
- Oct 11, 2017
- 1 min read
Watching Netflix new series ‘The Good Place’ inspired me to think more about the idea that doing Philosophy can make you a good person.
In the first season Eleanor Shellstrop finds herself in the afterlife. She's both comforted and flabbergasted that she's made it into the Good Place. It doesn't take long for Eleanor to realise she's there by mistake. She’s deciding to hide this fact from the Good Place's architect and try to become a good person by studying Ethics with agreed help of Chidi, Professor of Ethics and Philosophy.
So, will learning all the ethical theories about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ make one good? When thinking about possible answers another questions popping up in my head like bubbles: can someone be just good or just bad?, can one learn to be a good person?, and is The Good Place even possible?.
I’m not entirely sure if Philosophy can make you a good person. I’m definitely positive that Philosophy can make you a better person. Philosophy can simply improve your thinking. But if to exercise the idea that being good it is to distinguish what’s right and wrong then being good is definitely to reason. Philosophy made Eleanor more open to thinking, analysing other options, critically approaching her decision making processes; also ethical examples from Chidi’s seminars helped her to creatively hypothesize so her problem-solving skills improved, or I should say appeared and developed…
What do you think?
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