Schur opens with a hypothetical where a person tries to act morally but discovers every well-intentioned choice has backfired.

Schur explains that researching moral philosophy while creating The Good Place inspired him to write a book about ethics.

Schur introduces Aristotle's virtue ethics, arguing that admirable qualities like courage and honesty can be developed through practice.

Schur explains Aristotle's golden mean as the ideal balance between two opposing extremes on a spectrum of behavior.

Schur introduces the trolley problem to explore whether it is right to redirect a runaway trolley to kill one person instead of five.

Schur introduces utilitarianism, the theory developed by Bentham and Mill that the best action produces the most happiness for the most people.

Schur introduces Kant's categorical imperative, arguing that people should act only in ways they would want everyone else to act.

Schur introduces T.M. Scanlon's contractualism, the principle that morality means following rules that no reasonable person would reject.

Schur introduces ubuntu, the southern African philosophy that prizes human connection and communal responsibility over individualism.

Schur publicly shames a car owner online, using Hurricane Katrina relief pledges as leverage to void a minor repair request.

Schur recognizes his behavior as whataboutism, apologizes to the car owner, and mails him the repair check.

Schur introduces Peter Singer's argument that the wealthy are morally obligated to donate most of their disposable income to life-saving charities.

Schur introduces existentialists Sartre and Camus to argue that individuals must take full personal ownership of their moral choices.

Schur introduces John Rawls's veil of ignorance, a thought experiment for designing a just society without knowing which role you will occupy.

Schur writes a letter to his children summarizing the book's lessons and urging them to keep trying despite inevitable moral failures.

The book begins with Schur establishing just how difficult moral living is and explaining that researching philosophy for The Good Place inspired him to share what he learned. He then guides readers through the three foundational schools of moral thought—Aristotle's virtue ethics, Bentham and Mill's utilitarianism, and Kant's deontology—showing each system's strengths and blind spots in turn. Schur adds further tools with Scanlon's contractualism and the southern African concept of ubuntu, building a layered picture of what we owe one another. A personal reckoning arrives when his own public shaming of a car owner forces him to confront whataboutism and the gap between ethical posturing and genuine moral responsibility. The later chapters widen the lens, introducing Singer's challenge to the wealthy, existentialist warnings against leaning too hard on any one system, and Rawls's blueprint for a just society. The book closes with Schur writing directly to his children, urging them—and all readers—to keep trying despite inevitable failures.

The core philosophical journey from virtue ethics to existentialism.

Schur draws on Judith Shklar's work to argue that cruelty is the single worst quality a person can possess.

Schur presents the 'Steve the electrician' scenario, where utilitarianism suggests leaving an injured worker to suffer so a sports broadcast continues.

A bridge variant of the trolley problem asks whether it is right to push a bystander onto the tracks to stop the trolley and save five lives.

Schur uses the dilemma of whether to tell a friend her shirt is ugly to contrast what utilitarianism and deontology each demand.

Schur uses the shopping cart dilemma to illustrate contractualism's minimum standard of socially responsible behavior toward strangers.

Schur opens his heroism chapter with soldier Jack Lucas, who miraculously survived shielding fellow soldiers from a grenade in World War II.

Schur introduces Susan Wolf's concept of moral sainthood to show that total devotion to others risks producing a bland, unfulfilling life.

Schur presents Thomson's violinist thought experiment, where a kidnapped woman is medically connected to a famous musician to keep him alive against her will.

Schur introduces Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of mindfulness as a contrast to seeking external recognition for good deeds.

Schur's fiancée bumps a car in slow-moving traffic, and the owner later requests $836 to replace the fender.

Schur shares the car dispute online and rallies $20,000 in conditional pledges to donate to Hurricane Katrina relief.

Washington Commanders owner Daniel Snyder publicly refuses to change the team's name, which Schur identifies as a racial slur against Indigenous people.

Schur debates whether he can continue watching Woody Allen films in light of Allen's deeply troubling personal conduct.

Schur cites Tom Petty's apology for displaying a Confederate flag at a concert as an example of a genuine and effective public apology.

Schur analyzes Ted Yoho's non-apology to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a prime example of Harry Frankfurt's concept of 'bullshitting.'

This pool traces the significant secondary moments that flesh out the book's philosophical framework, beginning with Shklar's argument that cruelty is the single worst quality and working through the trolley problem's most challenging variants. Schur tests each theory against memorable thought experiments—the suffering electrician abandoned during a broadcast, the kidnapped woman connected to a famous violinist, the bystander on the bridge—each one exposing hidden weaknesses in a different school of thought. He also brings in personal stories, including the specific fender collision that set off the car-shaming episode and the $20,000 in online pledges that made it spiral. Questions of heroism and self-sacrifice are examined through soldier Jack Lucas's grenade story and Susan Wolf's concept of moral sainthood, while Thich Nhat Hanh's mindfulness reframes the value of good deeds done quietly. The pool closes in the territory of applied ethics, weighing responsibilities toward sports teams with offensive names, the moral complexity of admiring artists with troubling personal histories, and what genuine versus hollow public apologies look like.

Key supporting arguments, thought experiments, and personal anecdotes.

Schur admits he is personally too rules-oriented and must shift toward a more relaxed approach to reach his own golden mean.

Schur presents Bernard Williams's vacationer and sheriff thought experiment to expose how utilitarianism strips individuals of moral accountability for their own actions.

Schur concludes that Kantian ethics permits lying when a murderer asks for the location of their intended victim.

Schur realizes he deliberately waits for the barista to be watching before dropping his change into the tip jar.

Schur introduces the concept of moral desert, the belief that people should receive rewards proportional to the good they do.

Schur presents William James's squirrel thought experiment to defend a pragmatic approach that prioritizes outcomes over unresolvable semantic debates.

Schur warns that Jeffrey Epstein's self-serving charitable donations reveal the limits of evaluating morality by outcomes alone.

Schur and his fiancée begin feeling uneasy about the public shaming campaign they built against the car owner, sensing something has gone wrong.

Schur concludes that guilt, which involves private disappointment in oneself, is more likely to drive lasting moral change than public shame.

Schur discovers his bank's owners hold deeply objectionable values but struggles to act, coining the term 'moral exhaustion' to describe the feeling.

Schur dismisses Ayn Rand's objectivism as failing the basic ethical standards of every major philosophical school he has examined.

Schur eventually summons the energy to switch to a bank that better aligns with his values, modeling how moral effort produces real change.

Schur buys an autographed baseball bat for his son, then feels a pang of guilt recalling Singer's argument about charitable giving.

Schur resolves to buy an electric car to protect the environment but discovers that electricity in his area is mostly generated by coal.

Schur lists twenty lucky coincidences in his own career to demonstrate that fortunate circumstances shape success as much as individual effort.

This pool focuses on the internal shifts and hard reckonings that give the book its emotional backbone, beginning with Schur catching himself acting in ways that fall short of the golden mean he admires in others. Each philosophical framework is tested at a breaking point: Kantian ethics confronts the murderer who asks for a victim's location, utilitarianism is exposed by a sheriff who outsources a killing to a tourist, and pragmatism is defended through a squirrel that refuses to be categorized. Schur's most uncomfortable self-discoveries follow—realizing he tips for applause, feeling the creeping guilt as a public shaming campaign grows beyond his control, and facing the gap between his values and his choice of bank. The final stretch brings Singer's challenge to bear on a personal purchase, an electric car that turns out to run on coal, and a catalog of twenty lucky breaks that made Schur's career possible at all. Taken together, these events trace a journey not toward perfection but toward honesty about the distance between who we are and who we are trying to become.