... an enjoyable next step for anyone who watched [The Good Place] and for anyone else who wants to learn about moral philosophy while avoiding the usual dry earnestness ... The narrative voice is not that of a gentle professor but of a slightly manic bar-room joker who is actually funny and genuinely excited to share his passion with anyone who will listen—and anyone who won’t ... does a good job of covering the basics ... it also manages to put its finger on key problems with the philosophies discussed ... Someone must have told Mr. Schur that if he was going to write a proper book about ethics, it needed to have footnotes. He decided to follow the letter rather than the spirit of this law. His footnotes are more akin to the bonus clips on a DVD than scholarly references. It probably doesn’t sound funny if I say that one footnote attached to the sentence 'You can imagine how popular I was at parties' reads: 'Not very'. But there’s something about having to look down to the bottom of the page to see it that makes it work ... At times the levity threatens to be too much, but somehow it never is ... This self-deprecation saves the book from coming across as moralizing or self-satisfied, which is always a risk when you dare to write about how we should live. Mr. Schur rightly spends some time discussing how the same moral standards can’t be applied in all circumstances ... there is no more to quibble over here than there is in any academic text. That makes How to Be Perfect one of the most accessible entry points to philosophical ethics available—in short, a very good place to start.

... a wryly funny book that is also packed with wisdom, a primer of sorts with regard to the semantics of being a good person ... Schur is a hell of a good writer, one who proves more than capable of converting these thoughts and concepts into material that is engaging, relatable and hilarious. Even as he guides us through these ideas, he never loses sight of his book’s central tenet – how to be a good person. And with that simple notion as his lodestar, he never loses his way. Sure, there are footnotes and tangents and the like, but that’s part of the joy of the journey. You’ll never laugh as hard at a tossed-off reference to Wittgenstein or heavy shade thrown at Kant’s treatise on wind as you will while reading this book ... might not be the sort of book you’d expect for Michael Schur’s debut. Honestly, that’s part of the appeal ... Tongue-in-cheek title aside, Schur knows that nobody’s perfect … but we can always try to be better. And considering the world in which we’re currently living, a bit of advice about being a good person is certainly welcome.

Schur’s gift to the reader is his ability to distill the writing of ancient philosophers such as Aristotle and Socrates, more recent ones such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, and modern thinkers such as Pamela Hieronymi and Peter Singer into breezy, engrossing chapters. It’s as if the author has his arm around your shoulder and is whispering in your ear, Come on, give it a go; this is going to be fun. It’s a lively romp through moral philosophy that’s not dumbed down to be the philosophical equivalent of the chicken dance ... I’m relieved that Schur doesn’t give us 12 rules to live by, or a fixed list of ways to be good. How to Be Perfect is joyously absent of the bossing around you get from certain self-help scolds. Instead Schur’s approach is flexible–he offers lots of ways to examine a situation and make moral decisions. As we continue to navigate the new world we live in, Schur gives us not one road map but many ... I’m not a doctor, but as bibliotherapy, I prescribe How to Be Perfect to anyone trying to make moral choices in a complex and confusing world—which is all of us.

Schur writes sparkling prose ... He writes so well that this book might pull off the unprecedented feat of getting otherwise sane and healthy teenagers to read Immanuel Kant. Whether that is a good idea, for the teenagers or anyone else, is another question ... That brings me to the one trick that I thought Schur missed in this enormously enjoyable, useful and readable book. Ethical thought, systematic or otherwise, may be not much younger than human civilisation, but what is older than civilisation, and will outlast it if anything does, is our drive to control and dominate others. It can manifest itself as a nanny state or a police state, but wouldn’t it be cheaper to implant the nanny or policeman inside people’s heads? ... Schur writes as though there are ethical truths that we keep failing (but should still keep trying) to find. Yet the real mistake might be thinking that there are any answers.

I’ve studied philosophy for decades and taught moral philosophy to college students, so I’ve never felt less welcome as a reader ... The distinctive Schur-twist (Schurprise?) of How to Be Perfect is, of course, comedy. The text is studded with riffs on philosophers and their theories, along with the occasional funny observation about contemporary life. The joking tone varies from playful absurdism to winking irony to hyperventilating histrionics, as if Schur were playing an improv game of 'yes and' with himself ... these are all jokes, right? Schur’s just a funny guy, poking fun at the severe nerds. Maybe. I hope. It’s exactly this uncertainty that makes philosophy and any sort of comedy except the obvious and ham-fisted a difficult fit. Insofar as even the most basic philosophical reasoning is carried out by the valid connection of true premises, it’s difficult for readers to follow along when they’re never quite sure the presented statements are true — or at least taken to be true by the author ... Ironic humor allows a conceptual slippage and narrative disengagement that ensures the author cannot be critiqued and the reader may not need to feel challenged ... For all its comedy, How to Be Perfect isn’t solely, or even primarily, concerned with scoring laughs. Rather, Schur cares about the underlying topics and wants to share them as broadly as possible. His humor contributes to what is a remarkably companionable book, a text that invites the reader to learn, explore, and grow. He’s clearly spent years working through the details of philosophy’s complications to render it comprehensible for television viewers and nonspecialist readers. He does this, in part, by showing how these theories apply to his own choices, including some he’s screwed up. The text most fully succeeds when Schur-the-comedy-writer pivots to Schur-the-person. He reveals how he’s been shortsighted, haughty, and pedantic, and we learn from his example in a way we wouldn’t if we’d been presented with only the adventures of a carefully constructed ethical exemplar ... Except for the jokes, Schur’s summaries and applications of ethical theories are of a piece with those a reader might find in most any introductory ethics textbook. What a reader won’t find in those standards, though, is anything like Schur’s earnest vulnerability and willingness to open himself for critique to make a point, not just a joke. Such inclusion reminds us that ethics isn’t simply a field of abstract study but a set of tools to be used for getting through daily life without nagging regret and constant self-hatred ... With his careful attention to the complexities of moral life, development of a novel concept to explain one of our era’s defining features, and an unflinching analysis of his own character and foibles, Michael Schur has shown us something of how to be a philosopher, too.

... both heartfelt and funny ... In addition to delightful explorations of the history of philosophy, the author shows behind-the-scenes moments from The Good Place and touches on the strangeness that exists in the discipline ... Moving both carefully and conversationally through progressively more difficult questions, Schur makes good on his promise to 'wade into some deeply confusing and painful applications of moral philosophy, stretching and straining and chewing on really tough questions that plague us in our daily lives, that cause us anxiety and anguish and often lead to loud arguments with our closest friends and family. But in a fun way!' Whether discussing how to enjoy something that is morally problematic or debating whether we need to make moral decisions at all, the text is a relatable and consistently amusing introduction to practical philosophy ... Like The Good Place, this is a humorous and thought-provoking journey into some of life’s hardest questions.

... zippy ... [Schur's] chatty, informal, and often irreverent style does well to balance the serious inquiries. This smart romp is sure to pique those who tend to wonder about the right way to be.