Mike Schur and Todd May: What We Believe About Freedom – The New York Times

It will be pointed out and rightfully so that obligations to others is a nebulous concept. How much should we consider those around us before we decide how to act and what to believe? To what extent should we limit our own freedom in consideration of those around us? Is there a calculation we can do? A scale we can use? An app we can download?

In short, there isnt. But there are benchmarks that can serve as guides to belief. For instance, we can trust scientists about scientific matters and doctors about medical matters instead of relying only on ourselves and other nonexperts. But even these benchmarks have their limits (which we can capture with a single word: economists).

There are other areas in which the benchmarks are unclear. What, for instance, should we believe about the proper constraints on free speech? Here we must feel our way, using Gandhis dictum and recognizing the various others who are affected by our speech. And in feeling our way, we recognize that we often fail. Perhaps this is why believing in absolute freedom is so tempting if we follow that path, we are always right, which is easy.

One of the authors, in designing the TV show The Good Place, came to the conclusion that a key ethical concept is that of trying. (Which author this was the professional TV show runner or the other guy we will leave as an exercise for the reader.) We try to believe rightly about choices and actions that affect other people. Then, when we fail, we try to do better. Its not as easy a path, but its certainly a more compassionate one, and importantly a more human one.

This is what we think of as our ur-belief: Before we decide what to believe, we have to believe that other people matter. If we act with this obligation in mind and we fail to get it right, then we have to reconsider, learn more, aim to improve and try again. Our inevitable failures will mean more, and be more productive, if they are grounded in what we might simply call consideration for other people the notion that there are people around us who are affected, directly and indirectly, by so much of what we believe and say and do.

Conversely, if we act only out of a sense of unlimited personal freedom, our failures will mean nothing. The refusal to recognize that we have obligations to others and that our beliefs and our behavior should respond to that recognition, is one we allow ourselves at our peril.

Mike Schur is the former showrunner for the NBC series The Good Place. His book, How to Be Perfect, will be published next year. Todd May is serving as philosophical adviser for the book.

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Mike Schur and Todd May: What We Believe About Freedom - The New York Times