This is an exciting call for papers! I think there’s room for a Good Place and Theology volume, too, but philosophy is obviously the place to start, given the show’s focus on moral philosophy (even though, by virtue of being set in the afterlife, theology is at the very least a close second)…

Call for Abstracts

The Good Place and Philosophy

Edited by Kimberly S. Engels

The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series

Please circulate and post widely.

Apologies for cross posting.

To propose ideas for future volumes in the Blackwell series please contact the Series Editor, William Irwin, at williamirwin@kings.edu

If you have comments or criticisms for the series, please contact the series editor after reading “Fancy Taking a Pop?” and “Writing for the Reader: A Defense of Philosophy and Popular Culture Books”

Abstracts and subsequent essays should be philosophically substantial but accessible, written to engage the intelligent lay reader. Contributors of accepted essays will receive an honorarium.

Possible themes and topics might include, but are not limited to, the following:

Moral heroism: Michael’s solution to the Trolley Problem; Snowplowing circumstances: Michael’s interventions and moral luck; Chidi and Eleanor’s forgotten love: the role of memory in personal identity; Conspicuously absent care ethics: Chidi’s ethics silent on care; Call me ‘Donkey Dad’: Can you be good without good parents?; What the fork? What makes swearing wrong?; Janet and Jason: Can AI feel love?; Destined for the Bad Place? Fatalism and moral futility; Your best self: Is moral growth possible?; Virtue for virtue’s sake: ethics without rewards; Forcett’s self-sacrifice: Does your own happiness matter for morality?; Soul Squad in dire straits: Nietzsche’s Eternal Return of the Same; Marshmallow chili: Chidi’s nihilism; Free will, responsibility, and the Bad Place: Does it matter if the humans can do otherwise; Cartesian Meditations: Skepticism and the Good Place; “Where” does the Good Place exist?; Janet’s omniscience: Internalism or externalism?; Are all humans’ actions causally determined?; The “self” within the reboots; To Be a Human: Does Janet know what it is like?; Possible worlds and the Good Place: Is each earthly timeline equally “real”?; Time in the Good Place: Can time pass without change? Conceptions of the afterlife: The Good Place and religious tradition; Gender and The Good Place: the portrayal of female characters; The meaning of death and dying: why are we here?

*This volume has its roots in a meeting of the North American Sartre Society, which included the creator of The Good Place, Michael Schur, and a philosophical advisor to The Good Place, Todd May. Michael Schur, Todd May, and Pamela Hieronymi will be contributing to the volume, as will several members of the North American Sartre Society. Thus, we aren’t in need of submissions on Sartrean existentialism.

Submission Guidelines:

1. Submission deadline for abstracts (300-500 words) and CVs: April 2, 2019.

2. Submission deadline for drafts of accepted papers: July 2, 2019.

Kindly submit by e-mail (with or without Word attachment) to: kimberlysengels@gmail.com

Of related interest: The Good Place, Job, and the Power of Fables: