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Philosophical Inspirations
The Good Place makes use of many different theories of moral philosophy and ethics through the vessel of Chidi Anagonye, the moral philosophy professor. Within the show, there is reference to John Locke, Tim Scanlon, Peter Singer, and Derek Parfit and "now three seasons into the show, the show has covered everything from Jonathan Dancy’s theory of moral particularism, to Aristotelian virtue ethics, to Kantian deontology, to moral nihilism." . Beyond these references, there are a few particular philosophies that The Good Place draws direct inspiration from.

The beginning of The Good Place takes its inspiration from Jean-Paul-Sartre's famous idiom "Hell is other people" from his play, Huis CLos or No Exit. In No Exit three people are trapped in one room, which acts as Hell, and they psychologically torture one another while reflecting upon the sins that got them there. The concept "Hell is other people" is an often-misunderstood philosophical idiom meant to reflect that ″Hell is other people because you are, in some sense, forever trapped within them, subject to their apprehension of you.″

The play No Exit acts as a direct inspiration for The Good Place’s first season where it is revealed that the human-loving Good Place architect, Michael, is a demon sent from Hell to run an experiment on the idea that humans are their own best torturers. He selectively chooses a group of four people who he decides are perfectly offset to torture one another and, in the beginning, it appears to work. Chidi tortures Eleanor with his indecisiveness, inflexibility, and scholarly disposition, likewise Eleanor tortures Chidi by constantly putting him in situations where he must make decisions or go against the very moral tenets he espouses. Tahani tortures Eleanor by continuously reinforcing her superiority, Jason tortures Tahani by being unable to return her incessant need for validation (as he is initially the silent Buddhist monk Jianyu), and for Jason the mere fact he is forced to pretend he is someone other than himself is torture in itself. Each character is designed to bring out what they hate most about each other and themselves, resulting in the new form of torture Michael is experimenting with.

The second philosophical inspiration of The Good Place is called meta-ethics, which is a practice of moral philosophy that investigates whether studying moral philosophy can have a direct effect on how moral one can be. In season two Chidi becomes a teacher to Eleanor, Jason, Tahani and the demon, Michael. The show doesn't present an answer to the theory of meta-ethics as, Eleanor often struggles in situations to decide which moral philosophy is best to abide by but, what the lessons do encourage is the process of self-reflection. By encouraging Eleanor to reflect on the moral implications of an act it encourages moral intuitiveness in herself. In Michael, we see morality created in him not through Chidi's lessons, which Michael uses as a means of torture, but rather through the relationships he develops with the characters.

The final major philosophical tenet of the show is named in one of the series’ episodes, What We Owe to Each Other which is a philosophy book written by Tim Scanlon. According to the show's head writer Michael Schur, this "book forms the spine of the entire show." . The book presents the idea of Contractualism, the idea is that "to act morally is to abide by principles that no one could reasonably reject." . The show and the relationships between the characters act as an investigation into contractualism with the four main humans, Michael, and Janet forming their own society whereby they must act in ways that no one could reasonably reject even when that goes against the rules and tenets of higher powers. The overarching thesis of the show, greatly influenced by the contractualist theory is "the point of morality… isn’t to accumulate goodness points, as in the elaborate point system the organizers of The Good Place and its corresponding Bad Place employ to determine who goes to which upon death. It’s to live up to our duties to each other."