The issue of free will is always lurking in the background of The Good Place, a show deeply concerned with making choices, doing the right thing, and moral responsibility. This chapter offers a careful analysis of the arguments exchanged between the two characters, Eleanor and Michael, in The Good Place. The idea that everything, including human behavior, has a cause of some sort is called “determinism.” More precisely, determinism is the view that everything that happens is caused by other thin…
Read moreThe issue of free will is always lurking in the background of The Good Place, a show deeply concerned with making choices, doing the right thing, and moral responsibility. This chapter offers a careful analysis of the arguments exchanged between the two characters, Eleanor and Michael, in The Good Place. The idea that everything, including human behavior, has a cause of some sort is called “determinism.” More precisely, determinism is the view that everything that happens is caused by other things that happen. Compatibilists use a number of strategies to reconcile free will and determinism, but the simplest, and most common, is to insist that free will isn't the ability to do otherwise. Eleanor offers an argument against free will that can be avoided only by denying determinism. An argument inspired by one of Michael's arguments implies that free will can be denied only by giving up moral responsibility.