Please join us this Wednesday, January 19th from 4:30-5:30pm, for our discussion of The Good Place (available to watch on Netflix). We are meeting virtually, please email chloe.armstrong@lawrence.edu for the Zoom link and to be added to our email list.
Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, and Jason learn that they are headed to the Bad Place after their time on Earth. As they come to grips with this information, Chidi embraces nihilism, lecturing to his ethics students that nothing matters, not even how horrible it is to put marshmallow Peeps in your chili while doing just that. Here’s a summary:
As you watch this episode, consider:
- Would it change your approach to earthly life if you learned you were headed to the Bad Place and there’s nothing you could do about it? If so, how? What if you learned that there is no afterlife at all?
- Have you ever wanted to know more about nihilism? Chidi says nihilism is the view that there is no point to anything. To learn more about Nietzsche on nihilism, listen to the first 12 minutes of this podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p00546yh
- Friedrich Nietzche thought that nihilism is a natural response to grappling with questions about objective moral truths and their relation to the afterlife. However, he also claimed that nihilism is a sickness that must be overcome.
- Is Chidi’s nihilism a sickness? Does he overcome it?
There are lots of other great moments in and leading up to this episode, including Australia’s most American restaurant, illustrations of many of the moral values we’ve encountered so far: virtues and vices, harms and benefits, and acts of duty, and finally, the shape of time in the Bad Place: “Jeremy Bearimy.”
Join us as we discuss how the pursuit of moral truths and good-standing in the afterlife could lead to nihilism, and whether any of that matters.