The Forking Trolley: An Ethical Journey to the Good Place from James M Russell is a fun, light read with a mostly fair introduction to ethics.



Let me say that prior to reading this I had not watched The Good Place, so most of the comments that would have gotten a chuckle from viewers were lost on me. I have since seen several episodes and have enjoyed them. I am going to assume that the areas/thinkers that were glossed over or not summed up very accurately were done so to better fit with the TV

The Forking Trolley: An Ethical Journey to the Good Place from James M Russell is a fun, light read with a mostly fair introduction to ethics.



Let me say that prior to reading this I had not watched The Good Place, so most of the comments that would have gotten a chuckle from viewers were lost on me. I have since seen several episodes and have enjoyed them. I am going to assume that the areas/thinkers that were glossed over or not summed up very accurately were done so to better fit with the TV show tie-in gimmick.



I did get a little tired of the repeated comments about ethics/moral philosophy professors being disliked. Granted, my experience with them only cover three universities but at all three those professors were well-liked and one was downright popular. The classes were fun and engaging. Maybe his experiences were different. But to repeat such a comment so often just made me question his ability to be perceptive, either of those around him or of his own biases.



Now that the complaints are out of the way, I found the book largely a fun read and, to the extent the topics were investigated, functionally adequate. For those who might watch the show but miss some of the ideas behind the banter I think this is a wonderful book.



Hopefully the big takeaway for readers is that these various schools of thought are meant to serve as guidelines. Even Singer, in his lectures, acknowledges that no one stance can be followed 100% of the time, even his seemingly strict stance. We find ways of utilizing whatever approach works best for a given situation (I am not referring to situational or axiological ethics here, just that the approaches are almost best considered as a cafeteria-style offering). The good part is that we can do good by doing so. The danger is that, if we aren't careful, we can find ways to justify doing some awful things.



One of the actual ethics professors who helps with the show, Todd May, recently wrote a book that highlights various schools of thought and how we can live a decent life. Not surprisingly, the title is A Decent Life. It is a good read and is helpful if anyone is trying to figure out how these seemingly strict theories can be applied to real life.



I would definitely recommend this book to viewers of The Good Place, especially if you're interested in delving a little deeper into the thinking. Not sure this has a lot to offer anyone who has studied ethics/moral philosophy beyond an intro class, unless it has been many years and you just want a light refresher. In other words, this is very good within its narrow gimmick niche of the TV show tie-in but lacking in a well-rounded presentation of the ideas so only, at best, a very basic introduction.



Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via Edelweiss.