How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

With its title, How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question, Schur’s book hovers between philosophical exploration and self-help guidebook: Much of the text is devoted to exploring the mechanics of personal moral development, particularly in the context of Schur’s own moral journey.

Throughout the text, Schur shares several anecdotes from his own life to demonstrate the process of moral awakening and development. Schur traces the genesis of his interest in moral philosophy to an experience he and his wife shared in which they publicly shamed a driver for requesting money to perform aesthetic repairs to his vehicle while rescue efforts were underway in hurricane-stricken New Orleans. Schur describes a pivotal moment when he and his wife both began to feel uneasy. As he puts it, “The little voices in our heads were chirping at us, and we finally started listening to them” (132). From the conversations that followed, Schur developed an interest in moral philosophy, which he began to research. From these experiences, Schur concluded that most moral journeys begin with questions, and perhaps feelings of discomfort, and such journeys are accelerated through conversations with like-minded individuals.

Schur highlights a few other points of interest in his ongoing development. These include his realization that he was desperate to be recognized for his good acts, even the simple act of tipping a barista. This, in turn, spurred Schur to create The Good Place, which constitutes a culmination (thus far) of Schur’s interest in moral philosophy. At the same time, Schur became increasingly aware of the many favorable circumstances and lucky turns that enabled him to succeed, leaving him to wonder about his moral responsibilities to help others. Taken together, these incidents illustrate the need for self-awareness when it comes to effective moral reasoning. To learn from the past, it is sometimes necessary to pause and reflect. By incorporating philosophical theories into his life, Schur was able to put words to innate feelings and poor circumstances and was better able to navigate morality in today’s world.

Schur also addresses failure as an inevitable part of any struggle to change for the better. After describing his own resistance to switching banks despite moral concerns, Schur distinguishes between two types of failure:

[W]e can now be a bit more precise when we define which kinds of failure are good and bad. The good kind comes from trying to do something good, and either miscalculating or just flatly making the wrong decision. That’s the kind of failure that’s 100 percent guaranteed, and 100 percent forgivable—plus the attempt at virtue that led to it lets us learn from what we did, and gives us a better chance at success in the future. The kind I was gesturing at when I didn’t want to change banks came partly from apathy, or maybe ‘moral laziness.’ I didn’t do something I knew would be a little better than the thing I was doing because, well, it was hard and annoying (162).

In the end, it is this laziness and complacency that Schur seeks to dispel in readers. The key to self-improvement is simply to start, and to keep at it, despite inevitable mistakes. Through self-awareness, reflection, interactions with others, and sheer effort, Schur demonstrates that it is possible to make incremental and lasting progress.