One of the most original sitcoms of our times, The Good Place (2016-2020), made a strong case for why it is difficult to lead a truly moral life. The show, set almost exclusively in the afterlife, dealt with several thorny questions, including the big one about how mortality gives us meaning. However, the one that resonates the most in the here and now has to do with the near-impossibility of “being good” in a complex world. What may seem like an unambiguously ethical decision in one moment — let’s say, switching to EVs in order to do one’s bit against climate change — often ends up being entangled with consequences neither intended nor fully comprehended. In this deeply interconnected age, a decision about mobility in one part of the world could well mean something as dire as the greater use of slave labour or environmental devastation elsewhere.

To try to be good in such a world is often to confront one’s own limits — to recognise that purity is a fiction, that every choice carries a residue of harm. Over time, this awareness can dull moral ambition, and it becomes easier to settle into ambiguity than to strain toward conviction. Worse, this ambiguity can harden into a kind of defeatism: If I can’t actually do anything to end the exploitation of children in cobalt mines, the argument might go, then why even worry about........

© Indian Express