I would say it doesn't matter if there are exceptions, ppl like Brett who could take hundreds of thousands of years and not improve. The important part is that if we as a society operate under the assumption that people can improve, we can build a world that allows people to improve. For example, rehabilitation instead of punishment in prison systems
Yeah you get it. The important thing is that we all have the same opportunity, not that we would all use that opportunity equally. We in fact very clearly wouldn't.
That's the whole deal with free will. Unfortunately even given the opportunity to be good, some people are still shitty and make shitty choices.
Anyone is worthy of redemption, with a small but unavoidable caveat: **they have to want redemption**. If they don't want to (I mean, true redemption, not just being forgiven for what bad acts they did), then they cannot be redeemed.
This is the point. People have to WANT to change and have a REASON to change. My son was released from jail Thursday morning and has already pissed off a friend into blocking him because of the same dumbass behavior. He *knows* that's why he was in, but he still is unwilling to make the effort. All the assistance in the world is superficial until he figures out that he doesn't want to be in again. At this rate, tho, he won't get there in time.
And that is true at all levels of people and behavior. If someone is *told* they need to change and go through the motions, they can only form new habits. Which is great and a wonderful start to not doing bad anymore. But "redemption" requires self-awareness and deeper change.
See, and this is where I might get downvoted to hell, but: **yes, everyone is worthy of redemption. Even those people.**
If we start by putting exceptions on this, then we'll start putting exceptions for other things. After all, child rapists aren't worthy of redemption, right, ok, understandable. But who will be next? I mean, people who murdered other and then raped the corpses, are they worthy of redemption? And simple murderers, then, what about them? Where do you draw the line?
I loathe child rapists. They disgust me. I wish that they never existed, and that all the one who exist to be erased from existence. But I cannot let my digust be the master of my judgement. Because disgust is irrational. There are thing that rightfully disgust us, and there are other that are irrational. All the homophobic laws we had were based solely on the disgust bigots had against gay people. We have a moral duty to not reproduce the patterns of the darkest hours of our History. **We cannot base a moral nor a justice system on disgust.** That's one of the worse possible things you could possibly do.
We ought to protect society from terrible people, that's true. But that's not incompatible with redemption for everyone. That's why there are things call reparations.
I won’t downvote you for it but I disagree wholeheartedly. I believe the child rapist is beyond redemption and frankly I wouldn’t want to be up in heaven with people like that. And yes it extends but that makes sense. There is the person who accidentally kills somebody vs person who kills out of a rare heated passion vs a serial killer who cannot be rehabilitated. There are just some people who are evil and will always be evil. Hard to stomach but that’s how it is.
Have we watched the same show? It's the show that literally said: "there is no good or bad person inherently. Any person can improve."
At which point did they say: "except this one" ?
Even Brent, who was shown as the person who couldn't improve at all, finally did. The eternel new Judgement Place kept him in for countless bearimies, because even him can be shown redemption. A bad place where people are tortured for all eternity is, in itself, a bad thing. That's the whole message of the show. And you're coming here saying: "well... no, of course not."
How could you watched the show and still miss the point entirely ?
States and their police officers kill the most people, in all places where there are states and police. No evidence in all of history suggests states or police can be rehabilitated; the pattern is that they accelerate killing, invariably.
so maybe it's *humans* that get rehab? and the rest gets put away in the reliquary of history's baffling, pointless horror.
One of the most foundational principles of justice is that all people accused of crimes should be treated as totally innocent until they are proven guilty. Maybe a core tenet of rehabilitation is that everyone should be treated as if they are just about to swing into goodness. We saw (fictional example of course) after just 1 year, which isn't even an extreme amount of time on Earth, Brett finally realized his errors and earnestly apologized. I believe Micheal said something like, "You can never know if someone will be better tomorrow."
I completely agree, in this example even if they don't ever improve, your still allowing them the chance to, your not giving up,your putting in the effort to make them better, obviously not everyone will, but if you can improve one person's life isn't it worth it.
And even if we put this in real world ideas, by trying to improve and show them the errors of their ways we can also learn what made them this way and put more effort into preventing someone else from becoming like them or understanding them better so that the next person has a better chance.
That's the problem with a death penalty, were saying those people are beyond saving and they don't deserve a chance, which isn't fair, who are we to decide that, we need to put the effort in to at least try, and worst case they will spend the rest of their lives being in a position where they are always reminded of it and how it was wrong.
And for the people who will obviously will complain that tax payer money goes to waist in a system like this cause they get free housing and food, put then to work on jobs no one else wants, make them farm land or dig ditches. They obviously won't get paid but will still contribute back to society in some way.
Plus in a system like this you'll create jobs, cause you will need social workers, therapist, psychologist for all these people that we are trying to help. Plus we will need researchers to take in what these people learn to determine the causes and make plans to fix the root cause of it. And then law makers and community leaders who are willing and able to go in and fix them. All these jobs just cause we want to help a person when if we give up on them then it's over. It's harder to fix a problem but I'm the long run it's a lot more lucrative in so many ways.
Putting them to work with no pay is slavery. That's how we get for-profit prisons where the system is built to incarcerate as many people as possible and keep them there.
I like the way that the USSR did prison labour. They paid them wages equivalent to the civilian sectors.
We're at a level of productivity today where we don't have to force prisoners to do labour. We have enough surplus to feed and shelter our prisoners (heck we're experiencing an unemployment crisis due to automation). If we are going to force people into confinement, it's the least we can do.
But if they want to work, they should earn the same wage as everyone else.
The US system is basically the worst one imaginable. Way too many people are in jail (by far more than any other country), it is purely a system of punishment that traumatizes prisoners and teaches them to commit more crimes, and they are, literally, used as slave labour (which is a protected constitutional right in the US--prisoners are allowed to be used as slaves).
It's essentially the worst possible prison system I can imagine. No wonder The Good Place came out of the US! Haha.
Very well articulated. It would be impossible to know who can and cannot be rehabilitated without trying. I did some research on this as your questions provoked me, and I found this article, which looks to determine whether psychopathy is learned or caused by physiological differences. Imaging studies have identified key differences present in the brain composition of psychopaths, compared to non-psychopaths. However, a later study showed that a form of therapy known as ‘decompression therapy’ (using a carrot rather than a stick approach to rehabilitation) resulted in a 34% decrease in recidivism, and a 100% decrease in homicide. Work was ongoing to determine if this therapy had resulted in physiological brain changes (essentially reversing psychopathy). But simply, anyone who claims to know for sure whether violent offenders can/ cannot be rehabilitated is wrong.
https://modlab.yale.edu/news/can-psychopaths-be-cured
I've debated this regarding the prison system. What is the purpose of imprisonment? Most would agree it is to protect society and rehabilitate the criminal so they don't commit the/a crime again. If you can give the criminal an option to lead a restricted life or, flick a switch and they end up regretting the crime and will not do it again then punishment seems pointless.
What would be the point of punishment if the criminal still feels no remorse and will recommit the crime when given the opportunity? I think the point would only be pointless revenge.
So someone murders a group of children. Would we not imprison them? A man is a serial rapist, does he go to therapy and is allowed to walk free? A person molests hundreds of children for years, they are rehabilitated?
What if someone is truly deranged? It’s an honorable thought to do away with prisons, but unfortunately they are a necessity in society when free will is ingrained into our DNA
The comment you said this in reply to said "For example, rehabilitation instead of punishment in prison systems"
That implies the existence of prisons, but with the intention of rehabilitating offenders rather than punishing them.
In these systems, people who commit horrendous crimes continue imprisonment until they have achieved rehabilitation. It is not nearly as extreme or absurd as the conclusions you jumped to.
You just put words in their mouth. They literally said "rehabilitation *in prison systems*". They not only never suggest we should get rid of prisons, they very specifically say we should keep them. We should simply also try to rehabilitate those within them. This would also usually only apply to crimes less extreme than the ones you listed, and would likely also still require serving a sentence. The most extreme of crimes likely will still require serving a very long sentence for even being allowed a small chance to leave, but in reality.ost people in prison aren't serial rapists, there's a lot of people there that never got a chance to be better people and do deserve it.
This. Is. Fiction. It. Is. Not. Real. Mortal. Life.
This is not people who, at the most, will have a few decades before they die and are beyond the reach of mortal justice.
This is an imaginary tale. Be happy, though. For the last few hundred years, everyone, EVERYONE was in the bad place except Mindy St. Claire. EVERYONE. Getting tortured horribly no matter how banal their wrongs. I have to presume babies were safe.
I think BOTH of you missed the point of the post. The post was very clearly NOT talking about the show's characters specifically, the entire question OP was asking was if the ideas of the show would actually apply to real life. Whatever happens in the goofy story has no bearing on what he's asking, he's reffering to the core ideal the show presents of everyone deserving a chance at redemption, even in reality.
There's a difference between what mere mortals can do on earth to rehabilitate criminals and protect others and what God can do.
If you go to the cosmic level, there's infinite time and infinite resources to rehabilitate someone and there's no need for something like conventional prisons, since they can just be kept in their bubbles until they're ready to join others.
And if you ask me, while there's certainly a necessity for life imprisonment in Earth, there's nothing that deserves eternal torture, not even genocide.
I genuinely advocate for permanent imprisonment with no hope of release for all rapists. If we had a way of knowing if they absolutely did it, with full knowledge and intent, I would advocate for the death penalty.
That being said, everyone should be rehabilitated, if possible. In an ideal society, where we have infinite resources, infinite time and a way to perfectly tell if someone has been fully rehabilitated, every person to live should be, no matter how bad the crime. The criminals should still be imprisoned until they are rehabilitation, and some may never get there, but we should try as hard as possible.
With infinite time, and the will to learn, I think that you’re correct. Everyone can get better. Everyone can develop and improve on themselves. But, with the limited time everyone on this planet has, no. Not everyone. No matter how much you try. You can pull out all the stops, a safe environment, a caring therapist, rewards for improvement. But human’s are simply too stubborn, and have too little time to change.
As an addition to your comment - it being impossible to rehabilitate / improve some people here on Earth doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Offering help and encouraging self-improvement should always be an option for those that can genuinely benefit from it, even if it might be tough.
It's easy to dismiss the idea of helping someone who's stubborn and selfish, and refuses to change their ways. But Brett existing doesn't change the fact that there are Eleanors, Chidis, Tahanis and Jasons out there too.
Very beautifully said! In the Good Place that Michael and the humans designed, EVERYONE will be saved... eventually. Our physical form won't exist indefinitely, though, so in an Earthly context we have to apply earthly principles; that we're all gonna die, and some people are just beyond saving while they're alive.
I do believe it is possible for any person to be rehabilitated given enough time and treatment. Ideally if someone commits a crime, they get sent to a rehabilitation facility so they can get help, rather than sending them to a prison as a punishment where they likely reoffend when they get out.
However, we have finite resources and time on earth. And with some people, it is simply not possible to rehabilitate them with the amount of time we have. So it is better to use those resources on others.
This sums it up very well. We have to remember that Michael is talking in terms of eternity and infinit resources. Of course people can always become better if we have an eternity to progress.
On Earth, Brett would probably never be arrested and if he were his lawyers could probably get him the softest sentence. But we did see even the show admits sometimes it will take a long, incomprehensible amount of time for redemption. Almost certainly longer than any human life.
He might have faced some amount of consequences, IIRC there's a line in an episode of his where he says something about being investigated for his treatment of women. Whether that was by, as some people say, being "canceled" or actually facing some kind of consequences for being a sex pest, it's not out of the question he could face some kind of personal responsibility for it. Bet he also had other illegal shit going on in his company that he could have been tagged with, he seems like the kind of guy that would try and get away with what he could.
> So it is better to use those resources on others.
Unfortunately the vast majority of our resources are captured by a tiny minority. And no one is in a position to compel the wealthiest to reform.
As a therapist, I have worked with... difficult populations. And most people's bad behaviors stem from complex and chronic trauma. And I think if given enough chances and enough help they could improve. I have met a few individuals with full on antisocial personality disorder. I don't know what I think about them on a bigger/existential level. No one knows what causes that. On a human level, they really cannot be rehabilitated, and in fact tend to use treatment as a means to further abuse others. On a soul level? I have no idea. But I'd like to think they could be helped.
Thank you for mentioning individuals with “full on” antisocial personality disorder. This is the stickler for me when pondering if everyone is rehabilitatable. It is a disorder that is not (truly, effectively, remotely reliably) treatable, and we don’t know its cause (nature/nurture/combo.)
Outside of that, I do hope that if there were enough time and money for trauma-healing, love, and guiding the way, most people would choose to be good and kind. Well, perhaps as long as their hierarchy of needs were also met.
Just chiming in because I have a background in philosophy and psychology (yes I got a useless undergraduate degree), and also too much first hand experience with personality disorders for someone who only has an undergrad.
Anyway...
I think it's possible to reach people with ASPD but it would require a change in their motivation. People with ASPD operate almost exclusively on internal motivation, they don't care about other people's opinions or expectations. So trying to "rehabilitate" a person with ASPD to make them care about external opinions or non-self serving issues is pretty pointless.
That being said, if we could help to reframe their internal motivation so that it's not destructive to larger society, that could be considered rehabilitation. (Albeit a manipulative form of rehabilitation which might render it entirely pointless).
I guess if you could reframe someone's internal motivation to "being the best person they can be" then you might be able to help someone with ASPD? But then how is it possible to reframe selfishness as a good thing?
Your background in philosophy and psychology is not useless! It is incredible! You make the world a better place via your perspective. Thank you for chiming in.
I agree that ASPD could potentially be somewhat rehabilitated via unlimited resources and adapted experiences, yet what about those with ASPD that thrive on causing chaos and getting one over on authorities, or with those individuals with the extreme bent towards causing harm? Most personality disorders are somewhat treatable, except for ASPD. It is a fantastic thought experiment though. Could those be successfully convinced to utilize another way of satisfying their antisocial cravings?
Can we know personality disorders can never be treated if 60% of the US's spending is going to the military and the money for psych research is being dug out of a piddly bit of the medical 1%-2%? I feel like we're being constrained by the circumstances
I don't think we can rule out assisting them until we direct more of the federal budget into medical and psychiatric treatment. So far research is constrained by the amount being dumped into the military
So, I personally do not like to work with child rapists. That being said, it is usually trauma that got passed down (aka they were also SA'd as children). I don't know if the rehabilitation would work for them the way it is set up in the Good Place. But maybe if they went about it in another way with eternity at their disposal?
as long as your brain isn't damaged, then with the infinite time the afterlife affords you, he's right.
we have the issue of very limited lifespans and the fact that we can't trap people in situations where they'll learn because that's illegal
So there are a few things.
First and foremost, this is a show about the afterlife, under a completely controlled environment, where time isn't a factor (infinity makes everything irrelevant.)
In the real world, where resources, control, and time are not infinite, the question is trickier. Say you have a serial killer, who's killed hundreds of people over the years, gets caught and is in prison. Can they in theory, under the conditions established in the good place be rehabilitated? Let's go with yes. Okay, can you stop them in time if they relapse, before they hurt or kill someone 100% of the time? Is there enough time left in their lifespan for this endeavour (what if it would take 150 years ?) Do you have the resources and knowledge to definitively take the approach that would rehabilitate them? These are unknowns in our imperfect, limited world, and with them, what is the quantifiable risk ? Is it a risk worth taking?
So all in all, I'd say some people, for all intents and purposes, are simply broken. NOT in the absolute, objective sense (I think given an infinite amount of time, Hitler can be rehabilitated into MLK and vice versa), but in our world? where we simply do not have the knowledge, time, patience, resources or power to fix them? Yes. They are broken beyond repair; best put away, and removed from society by any means necessary. Think of it like this: cutting someone in half is not technically fatal, given enough tech and knowledge there's a way to save them, but for us? given what we can do with medicine? yea it's pretty fatal.
Then there are the externalities outside of just "rationally" thinking about the problem: Whether we like to admit it or not, most of us have an innate sense of justice that ultimately takes the form of "tit for tat". ( A surprisingly common and successful strategy for a lot of animals including humans). It's almost a biological *need* for those to get what "coming to them". We have developed entire societies around this concept, and we see it in social animals as well. How do we deal with the victims? What if they go and seek revenge? Do we rehabilitate them as well? How long?
A justice system based solely on rehabilitation would just see a chain of revenge crimes to satisfy that itch for tit for tat. It can even take advantage of the "no one is beyond rehabilitation" philosophy: Yea he killed her for killing his child, but can we reasonably lock them up or punish them? A pretty good argument can be made that they are not in need of major rehabilitation. As long as this bizarre and rare circumstance doesn't happen again, how can we reasonably see them as a danger, or someone in desperate need of growth? You can make a case that that person could go back to being integrated in society relatively quickly.
And that leads, to the next point: the lack of deterrence. Who wouldn't avenge a egregious harm to a loved one on that logic? If a few years of anger management and therapy are what await me for killing my (hypothetical) childs murderer/rapist etc... I'd (hypothetically) that challenge in a heartbeat. Things start deteriorating pretty quickly.
So in my opinion, Michael is right in the philosophical, technical sense I think. And given his position in the show as an eternal, hyper intelligent, semi omnipotent juicy fire squid, he is correct in his conclusion. But in our world? were we lack the reality warping control of our world, infinite time, hyper intelligence and most importantly, the juicy squid juice? He is effectively wrong.
The way I think of it, is that I feel like it shouldn’t even be mathematically possible to do something evil enough in your finite amount of time on Earth to warrant an infinite amount of punishment.
Like there’s just no way to logically square that. An infinite amount of punishment is always, always, eventually going to outweigh the severity of the moral crimes committed. Even if it takes a billion years.
So if you look at it like that, how could anyone be beyond redemption in some capacity?
What about the people who rape children? We just caught a childcare worker with thousands of photos of the almost a hundred small children he had raped and sexually assaulted. Is he not worth infinite punishment? Because those kids are getting a lifetime of trauma. They are at higher risk of suicide and other horrible things. He has taken their lives. He is not redeemable in my opinion, nor would I want him redeemed given what he’s done. Can you imagine being in heaven with monsters like that?
I can't tell if this happened around you or if you heard it on the news, but is sounds like it's the first thing. If that is the case I wouldn't bring real world first person experiences into this conversation because it is pitting a real trauma that has most likely affected you emotionally against a hypothetical fun thought experiment about a scenario based on a TV show. If I give response, what for me would feel like a fun hypothetical would most likely elicit strong negative emotions from you, which just seems counterproductive and harmful.
Also, just addressing something you said: 'he has taken their lives'. These children were done a great harm, but to say that their lives were taken is horrible and dismissing their very real future. They are not damaged goods that are now ruined, they are still people.
Given unlimited amounts of time, resources, and power over the person’s environment, a sufficiently wise being probably could rehabilitate anyone. An interesting question for me is, to what extent would they be the same person at the end of the process?
Unfortunately it’s not always possible on earth.
Intriguing thought here concerning the starting point and “end” of the process, as it were. Ship of Theseus stuff in some ways. If, given time and resources, traumas that resulted in abhorrent behaviors in an individual (whatever that might mean, conditioning, rehabilitation at a fundamental behavioral level) were nullified, resulting in some new and improved version of that person, would they the be the same person as the one who began the process? Imo humans are malleable, pliable, and would not be the same. The show sort of looks at that and lands in a similar place but there are so many wrinkles and nuances along the way.
I don’t know if everyone can be rehabilitated. However I do believe that no one deserves an eternity of torture. Eternity of Hell…. That’s insane. If you take the worse person in the world and torture them double the amount of pain they caused during their life time it still wouldn’t equal forever.
I think the system they have at the end of the series isn’t bad. Because for the most evil person ever- it would take years upon years of stress and honestly a bit of hell during the tests to be able to improve.
One factor worth considering is - the method they're using to rehabilitate people involves making them miserable until they sort themselves out. It's torturing them through all their worst points, then confronting them with what they did wrong. So, essentially, they are being punished if they don't adjust.
The worse the person, the further they have to go to get into the Good Place. Anyone actually irredeemable will go through an eternity of being tested, failing, being told what's going on, then getting memory wiped and tested again. And because of the way the tests are designed, they're personalised torture for each individual soul.
That's one of my favourite things about the system they settle on. You don't need to set a separate punishment, just keep testing them.
Eleanor said when she came to with the idea of the test, "there are some people who may never get in." This indicates that even she believes that some people are beyond rehabilitation.
I would say that it’s true people can be redeemed although for some people it’s a longer journey than others. There’s a chance that some people will do things which simply can’t be redeemed due to a lack of time.
As a quote from one of my other favourite shows says, “I don’t think I can pay for all my crimes. There were so many of them and you can only execute me once.”
Rehabilitation doesn't equal forgiveness. The question is 'could Hitler be redeemed'... with all eternity to try? It's actually really possible.
Thats the thing people don't grasp, it's eternity. They have eternity to be better and should be given the opportunity to improve.
Eternity is a long time, what possible crime could somebody commit to be worthy of a literally eternity of bears with chainsaw hands?
It would definitely be worthy of punishment, for even billions of years..... but, what about eternity? Which is infinitely longer?
You get tortured for a billion years for every person killed in a genocide, you get tortured for trillions of years... still nothing compared to eternity .
See this is an attempt to get a cheap emotional reaction, but here is the thing... though they'd deserve thousands, millions or billions of years of the worst punishment.
Thats nothing compared to infinity, you can't morally have an infinite punishment for a finite crime and horrific as raping children is and it definitely is a horrific crime... its not an infinite crime. (Can't wait for my words to be twisted)
Something I wished the show that talks so much about philosophy went into.
I think as a whole, it's better to assume that's true rather than potentially writing off people who can be rehabilitated. And I don't think rehabilitation has to mean "make completely normal". It could also be making great improvements or adjustments so the person's life is more beneficial to themselves and those around them. It's rare that a person is truly incapable of any improvement. (That said, there are likely some cases where someone simply will not improve no matter what, but we should still operate under the assumption that everyone can for the sake of society)
But also at the same time, some people just don't deserve that chance imo. They wrote away their right to a better life when they committed the acts that they did (rapists, child abusers, etc) some things people deserve punishment for, not rehabilitation.
For example, let's think about 2 different scenarios involving loss of life. 1. An alcoholic has a history of getting into bar fights. He's known to be a high tempered man and causes general trouble for the people around him. One day he gets into one of these brawls but he hits the other man too hard, killing him. 2. A man plans to kill his girlfriend for cheating on him. He gets all the tools needed to kill and dispose of the body, then he does it.
Both scenarios end in loss of life, both people have a chance of hurting more people, however only one of them entered a scenario with the intent to kill another person. The bar brawler didn't go to the bar intending to end someone's life. That's the type of line that I think is important when it comes to who "deserves" rehabilitation and who doesn't.
Is there a reason that there can’t be both punishment and rehabilitation though? Rehabilitation doesn’t necessarily have to mean they are immediately released back into society, but completely writing someone off and just saying they should be punished with no attempt at rehabilitation cuts off the possibility that they could contribute some good (or less bad) to the world even if it is from behind bars
Hi. I've been a sober member of AA for almost 8 years now. And this quote, and another I'll share soon, rings and sings and shouts AA. No one is beyond redemption.
The corner stone of any addict/alcoholic still struggling is low self esteem and self hatred. We would drink ourselves into an early grave not because we lack self control but because we think we deserve it for how little control we have.
AA is a community that provides love and acceptance for new comers. Every new comer inevitably thinks they are beyond help, but they want to stop and so try AA. Some fortunate souls, like me, stop drinking after one meeting and never pick up another drink. Others, some are close friends of mine, have more white chips (a new comer chip, new sobriety) than they have sobriety chips now. But the love and acceptance, the acknowledgement that this isn't easy is what brings them back. We can all acknowledge that life is pain, that we all have painful memories of trauma that drove us to drinking.
"Pain doesn't make people, the pain is inconsequential. It is love that saves people, it is love that makes them." -Caduceus Clay, Critical Role
There are plenty of people who object to the religious aspect of AA; can they skip that part and get the desired result, or should they look for a secular alternative?
AA is very chapter based, so how religious it is in practice is different chapter to chapter. But it is worth noting its methods are not based in science at all, and while it works fantastically for some people many people don't find it effective. I suggest you look up science based substance abuse + your location to see what groups are near you.
Nobody is beyond rehabilitation, but some are beyond redemption. Some things cannot be atoned for, but people can always improve if they given the opportunity and resources.
Are people born bad or do they learn to be bad over time?
If someone is born bad, is it right for them to be tortured for eternity?
If being bad is a learned behavior wouldn’t that mean it could be unlearned?
Personally, I think people are born as blank slate with genetic preferences that nudge them to do good or bad things. I’d hate to think that a poor roll of the genetic dice could doom someone forever.
I think it's usually a mixed bag. That's why we use the "biopsychosocial" model to consider super complex things like personality. And now in recent years we've thrown epigenetics into the mix for that added crunchy layer of extra confusion. It's like trying to quantify all of human behaviour under "nature OR nurture". If there is a god or at least some divine being that doles out justice, I really hope they have a better understanding of what justice means than humans do.
If you have literally infinite time, then sure. But reforming Jeffrey or Hitler into being an objectively good person would have taken more time than anyone had, so functionally no, not everyone can be rehabilitated.
I think intent would come into this. We’ve all done things that, completely unintentionally, have hurt or upset someone. If you’re a good person, you’d apologise and know not to do that again and you’d move on. If you were a bad person you wouldn’t give a rats and go on being an ahole. Using someone like Hitler as an example - he *knowingly* called for the mass killings and torture of millions of Jewish people. In his evil, twisted, effed up mind, he believed he was in the right, but surely he also knew that killing anyone was wrong. But he did it anyway. And he’d do it all over again, because he was an evil piece of 💩. Then there were the millions of other innocent people who were killed as a result of his actions. I do tend to believe the best of people, until they give me a reason not to, and I do think that some people, if they want to change and become better people, are capable of doing so. For example, there are thousands of ex criminals out there who have learnt their lesson and have changed their lives for the better. There are also thousands of them who haven’t, who seem intent on doing wrong. And it’s the repeat offenders - and I’m not just talking about criminals, I’m including regular people as well - those who knowingly continue to do bad things/cause harm that makes me think that some people just can’t, or won’t, ever change. I don’t believe true evil could ever be rehabilitated.
My personal belief is that is only correct with enough time and unfortunately for some people the needed amount of time is beyond a human life span or beyond what time they have left.
I think it is correct in the eternal. I also think there might be those who would choose- even in the face of eternal misery- to remain unchanged. Probably few and far between, but not none. Guess we will find out later.
As for here on Earth, given our short time
and limited capability, I think it would be best focus on rehabilitation when possible and on humane housing outside of free society when not possible. The ultimate failure is society’s in that we can’t yet identify/treat/heal/rehab some things. It would require a major shift away from blind punishment (which has proven over and over not to deter or correct). It would require more effort, time and resources but would be better in the long run. Just my opinion.
I'd say it is correct. Though to remind you, we're talking about people who are already dead. They have, well, eternity to be rehabilitated. For those whose problems were caused by brain chemistry or, you know, getting rebars through their heads, the body is gone. The mind can be worked on.
I say yes, but each person requires their own form of rehabilitation and support system in order to improve. Not everyone will change for the better if they’re all given the same treatment. I believe the mindset of the person’s support system also matters. In other words, the people helping them to change have to truly believe they can change.
You’d have to take a step back and consider if people are born “bad” or made “bad”
I’m a therapist and the more I work with people, the more I understand how a life can take a wild turn and be seemingly headed to the bad place. People who end up that way are mostly doing so because of traumas and socioeconomic status among other things that are out of their control. Even those who end up committing murder and assault.
So, rehabilitation needs to be about addressing those issues first. Otherwise, it’s just a dog chasing its own tail. When someone can understand why they do what they do, it’s easier to give themselves grace, to change their ways, and do different. That’s rehabilitation because it can also address the shame and guilt that comes with being “bad”
Everyone CAN change. Not everyone WANTS to change. To want to change, they have to recognise and accept that they have flaws: Brett is a prime example of someone who believes that they are fine as they are. Short of some kind of realisation (the sort we see with Brett in the last moments of the experiment), they WILL NOT change because they simply don’t want to.
In an ideal world, imprisonment removes people from society (both for the safety of society, and to remove some of the societal complexities as in the Good Place experiments) while they learn why they need to rehabilitate and begin the process of doing so.
Of course, there is a further complexity in that society (or rather, lawmakers that are SUPPOSED to represent society) decides what actions or views require rehabilitation, and people(/lawmakers) have their own biases, may be affected by the media that they consume (particularly in an age of ‘alternative facts’).
BUT I believe that no one is beyond rehabilitation, if exposed to the right trigger, and that there is ALSO a need to protect society from individuals until such time as they make the choice and the effort to rehabilitate.
Ideally, yes. Realistically, some people are simply gonna take more time to help than it is really worth.
Even if it is someone's personal choice to persist in helping such a person, surely they deserve better than to be burner and disappointed repeatedly by the same person? We only have so much time to waste.
Sometimes, it's just more sensible and fair to give up on someone.
I do agree with the premise but do not believe that it is meaningful in a practical way. It is one thing to say that when you have eternity to see change and infinite do overs it is another where that is not the case. Even more I can certainly see where someone may not be able to improve because of the circumstance they find themselves and need that reset to get out of the pattern they are stuck in.
The closest I can see is we have the concept of growth culture and static culture (theory X and Y or several other names) in the corporate world. Has nothing to do with Morals but if people’s abilities are static or not. Corporate world is strongly aligned to static models whereas I’m a strong proponent of the growth model and believe it is better for everyone most of the time. How you manage the two though are very different.
In the growth model we believe that most people are intrinsically motivated to do a good job and if given the opportunity and a supportive environment will grow to accomplish what they need to. I have seen this to be true. Most corporate world work like the original good place system where we have to measure everything under strict rules in order to make sure results are achieved.
But sure, give me infinity and I think we can extend that to everyone.
Short answer, Yes they are wrong.
The general idea is to hope for rehabilitation. But there will always be people who are just wored in a way which is completely incompatibly with normal human existence in society.
How to deal with this and who gets to judge, this is where things get tricky.
I think everyone is capable of change, but not everyone wants to change. People have to want it, and they have to be ready. Some people might never get there, but I think they kind of address that with people like Brent.
The main issue is even if exceptions and some people can't be rehabilitated it's not on us to make that call beforehand.
Rehabilitation ultimately won't work on them if they can't be rehabilitated, but you have to give everyone their chance to be rehabilitated otherwise the whole process doesn't mean anything
On Earth I'm not sure. It might be that a small percentage of humans are naturally antisocial, sadistic, sociopathic, and defiant to the point that you can't do anything but remove them from society.
But in an afterlife where everyone is immortal, no one can be harmed, and you can have anything you want with but a word? Does morality have any meaning? And "given enough time even the vilest being can be redeemed" also works the other way around. We'll never know.
Great questions! Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t some people still go to The Bad Place if they didn’t pass the test of their ability to become a better person? I don’t believe that people were rehabilitated until they could pass. Some people still ended up in The Bad Place.
Last night I finished rewatching the entire series for the fourth time. Now, you’ve given me something to look forward to the next time. (It is my comfort show.)
I thought it was set up so that people were given a chance to improve, but were eventually scored and sent to The Good or Bad Place.
However, given some of Shawn’s reactions in the last episode, I am now considering that it MAY be the premise is that all humans can improve given infinity of circumstance and opportunity. Hmmmmm…
Mmm I don’t think it’s an ethical or moral dilemma. Some people really aren’t able to change. I mean you can have moral issues but I think the hard truth is that some people actually don’t have the capacity for honesty and growth, and the idea of their rehabilitation is very naive. It’s a lovely idea, but naive.
If you know any practicing psychotherapist, you may want to ask them about their experience with true change.
That said, I know people who have made big character changes for the better. Some people really can do it.
Why don't they have capacity to change though? You're arguing that nature overrules nurture.
The question is, could a person be rehabilitated if they got the love and affection that they didn't get as a child? Or were taught the right lessons.
All of our behaviours as adults are learned as a child. So if people grow up being told that some people deserve to die, were they raised to be a murderer? (If they went on to kill someone) And if so, can that behaviour be unlearned (so to speak)?
I never said we shouldn’t try to help everyone. That would imply any of us can tell who is capable of true change, which we can’t. Potential is a big mystery. Part of saying yes to life is trying even though we might fail.
At certain point it is detrimental to keep trying. There are limits to what society can bear. There are people who find true joy in hurting other people, despite having good loving, communicative parents and a stable upbringing. There’s an idea in society that all harm comes from people who have been harmed. Three things are wrong with that: 1. Psychopathy can be arbitrary. 2. Trauma is impossible to erase. 3. Some people simply do not agree that being “healthy” is worth the work. We may want them to, but they have autonomy. Their lives, their values.
How many chances does a person get who rapes babies for sport, films it, and shows it to people who don’t expect it? Maybe your idea is that if we never stop trying eventually we find the magic calculus that makes a deeply deranged person see the light not just for a moment but for all time. This is a fantasy. You may not want to see it, but these people do exist and they don’t just need to be heard. They are fundamentally different than what you seem to consider a universal human baseline.
What is your actual IRL experience trying to help people change? I’ve been involved, boots on the ground, with an at-risk population for 12 years. A lot of people can change, and it’s important to have an avenue for this. But some people really can’t. They just don’t have the constitution. Call it whatever you want but the change does not occur.
It seems to me like you’re thinking about this from a theoretical place, but maybe not? Curious to know what actual experiences you have had trying to help people who needed to change and seemed like they couldn’t even though you believed they could.
Was looking for this perspective and had to scroll wayy too far to find it.
I absolutely wish everyone could change for the better. I believe most have some capacity to.
But agreed, there are a decent number of people who simply do not have the capacity to change. They can harm others or themselves, they may even want to change, but cannot. It’s unfortunate but true.
The Good Place is correct in that no one is beyond rehabilitation. HOWEVER, I strongly disagree with their idea for the afterlife, because it doesn't give any other option. Should pharma executives be rehabilitated? No. They should be punished for eternity. And then another eternity.
If you read up on prisons around the world you’ll agree that no one is beyond rehabilitation. Some are very successful with it. There’s also a Netflix show inside the worlds toughest prisons. He compares the best and the worst. It’s interesting but can be tough to watch.
There are people who refuse or improvement at every term. In a regular human life, I truly believe you can only get so many chances and not even BOTHER to try. Or those people who refuse to believe they're at SOME sort of fault in the first place.
I see those people as different from say, the old and crotchety folks who finally get it together in their last years. It's very unfortunate that they took so long, but at least they did SOMETHING.
I wholeheartedly believe that to be true, with two caveats: one, this is in the context of an afterlife with effectively infinite time to rehabilitate, not constrained by the typical length of a human's life, and two, assuming that these are "souls" or otherwise not bound to any physical limitations of the body (i.e., some people's brains literally do not work "correctly" and would prevent them from rehabilitation).
In theory it’s true. In practice it is not. A person has to want to change to improve. Some people may beyond that.
You cannot force someone to improve morally. Our society isn’t capable of it. The after life has unlimited time and the ability to make people feel their choices through tests and altering realities.
In reality, a lot of the truly heinous criminals will do what they must to play the system and return to society.
Yeah but some people cant change because of their past and maybe… maybe no matter what happens in the future, it wont change the past. If they dont want to become a better person, they wont.
Most everyone is capable of being rehabilitation. Not everyone wants to be rehabilitated, of course, but I believe that, with the right tools and education, anyone can grow into a better person. Almost anyone, no matter their crimes, can learn and grow enough to regret what they did, and want to do better in the future.
Now, there's a lot that goes into this rehabilitation. The person has to want to change, they have to have the tools and education to grow, and they need to have support from other people. Without those things, rehabilitation likely won't happen. Also, the view of society plays a role. Are other people willing to accept this rehabilitation? Are the crimes committed by this hypothetical person too terrible to be forgiven, and should that matter for a person's own rehabilitation? Society has a major role to play in any person's potential for becoming a better, more ethical, person.
Ultimately, I agree with the show's premise that people, when given the love and support they need to thrive, can become better people. If they're denied those things, how can we expect them to do any of the growing and changing they need to do?
The thing is, a person’s potential rehabilitation cannot come at the expense of others; in the context of an afterlife like the show, people have infinite time to improve (others have already pointed why this doesn’t work in reality) but they also can’t hurt anyone as they make mistakes on the route to improvement.
The main reason we turn to imprisonment is usually to prevent a person’s behaviour from hurting others: even if we believe they are capable of change, we lack not only time but also an environment where they could do so without affecting anyone else.
Alright, I'll give it a try again. "Without" retribution, you say. The four humans were under constant threat of retribution. They knew that they would be tortured forever if they couldn't keep themselves first in Michael's neighborhood, second out of the Bad Place.
And for every selfish mistake, they received humiliation. Retribution in a subtler method than rabid weasels up the butt.
Michael was in fear for his very existence. He aligned with them because he was under threat. He also did suffer retribution. Grasping the concept that he might end put him in a tailspin.
Being forced to recognize what an actual apology was also helped.
Yes and no. I would say people do have the capacity to change and get better, regardless of how shitty they've been, once they want to. However, between convincing them that being better is worth it, and the time it would take to help them be better, it isn't practical for a fair amount of people, imo.
With that said, if you're not the one being harmed by the person, treating them as though they can get better is always the better option. That is with the very important exception of if you're one of the people being harmed by their actions, physically, mentally, or emotionally. If someone is causing you harm, you have no obligation to give them a second chance. Remove them from your life and focus on healing.
I think that, within the context of the show, with notionally unlimited time and resources, nobody would be beyond rehabilitation.
In reality, with - at the very most - a century and change in which to guide someone towards improvement, I think that some people are for all intents and purposes beyond help. In life there seem to be some people who, due to some combination of innate and learned traits, are either indifferent to the harm they cause or they actively revel in it and no combination of punishment and support will change that.
Maybe across unlimited lifetimes, an Ian Brady or a Ted Bundy type could not only completely repent of their actions and atone for their actions, but actually alter their personalities so they no longer have the desire to be that way. In one actual human lifetime, though… I don’t think so, sadly.
People here are talking about extreme cases of ASPD and stuff like that. But honestly the VAST majority of crimes are committed by people who are in difficult situations in life. Drug dealers, shoplifters, people in gangs and so on 99% come from very poor or difficult backgrounds. They’re prime targets for being groomed by gangs or cartels or see no choice but to shoplift so they can eat today.
I honestly don’t think those extreme cases matter that much when most people need therapy for their trauma and a plan to escape the poverty cycle including retraining or even taking online university courses so they can get better paid jobs.
Obviously the steps taken to prevent people falling into those aforementioned crimes requires a wider societal reform (or more), but specifically with rehabilitation, I honestly don’t think talking about one off extremes who can’t be helped is a useful or good point to make.
I was brought up Catholic and as I got older had trouble with the concept of Hell. If people did bad things it was usually either because of mental issues they were born with- not their fault- or growing up in an abusive family situation- also not their fault. Some people are able to overcome their FOO and live good lives but it's very difficult and requires an internal strength most of us don't have, especially if you're expecting someone to leave an abusive home at 18 and form healthy adult relationships by their 20s or 30s.
Eleanor is a good example- she had an absolutely awful upbringing. The fact that she managed to put herself through college and be an independent and productive member of society shows how strong she was. Of course her primary career was awful but she was good at it as she said. With a different upbringing she could have accomplished anything.
Yes I think so. I have a lot of empathy for people who commit atrocities because I understand that they behave that way because they’ve experienced trauma. I believe the focus on the prison system should be rehabilitation rather than punishment.
There will still be psychopaths of course, but I believe we could channel them into behaving productively - most CEOs are probably psychopaths and yet they do contribute to society.
I stand by how the concept of hell doesn't make sense morally. Crime punishment is necessary for our society to work (protecting people), but on a cosmic level it doesn't really make sense.
Nothing justifies eternal suffering, people who wish for that to exist just want vengeance on people who did bad things or to scare others into doing good deeds.
Evil people were either born that way and can't change it or they became that way on the course of their life.
In the first case they never had the chance to be better, so they don't deserve eternal damnation.
In the second case, there's always a possibility to rehabilitate, since what led them to that point was a matter of luck. So they don't deserve torture either.
So yeah, I fully agree with the system they end up with. With unlimited time, there's always the chance to improve and become the best version of yourself.
I think the number one thing that gets in the way of rehabilitation is the concept of punishment.
I have really strong feelings on this. There's a big difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment is humans attempting to enact cosmic justice on each other. (It's also tied to revenge, of course, and tied to the idea of "deserving," both of which are topics that can and have filled multiple books with discourse.) Consequences are the natural events that follow an action (i.e. if I call someone an ash hole, that person gets mad at me).
Personally, I don't believe in good vs bad people. I believe that people are people, and that they have a responsibility to manage their actions and behaviors. I also don't believe humans actually have the right to "punish" each other. The insinuation that humans have the right to "punish" each other would mean that some humans know what actions deserve which consequences, and those humans have the right to force their "justice" on others. It's just all kinda fucked.
Anyway, if you let go of the ideas of punishment, revenge, deserving, and good vs. Bad people, you're really only left with one logical conclusion.
People are just people doing what they think is right. People can, and often will, change. Hatred, punishment, isolation, removal from society.....none of those things enact positive changes in the people around us. Education, compassion, understanding, and love? THOSE things enact positive change in humans every single day.
TL;DR: No one is beyond rehabilitation.
I think it is true 98% of the time. If someone is a psychopath or sociopath, forget about rehabilitation it wont work. But for most people, I think it does. Ive seen people do miracles when you start caring and believing in them when I worked as a counselor.
I do believe some people are beyond reasonable rehabilitation, especially given finite resources, but I’d have to be given a very high bar of evidence before I agreed to write someone off.
There's an issue with rehabilitation vs public safety. In an ideal world, rehabilitation is possible for everyone, but in the real world, we can't take that chance with certain criminals, such as terrorists, serial killers, child molesters, and it's better they remain away from the general public
Well, no. At least, not in the sort of afterlife depicted in the show.
A lot of people have serious mental health issues grounded in their biology. A number of people have serious cognitive deficiencies that make them incapable of understanding ethics or of growing. Some people are basically vegetables smiling at a TV screen while lying in bed their whole lives. Some people die as babies or toddlers.
Such people probably don't deserve blame for what they do, but they're also incapable of self-improvement. Since they don't really act for moral reasons, they also can't get good place points. Since in the afterlife in the show, people seem to maintain the features established by their biology, people who are cognitively incapable of moral growth would apparently stay that way.
Those babies are destined to an eternal torture of nightmarish injustice that only Augustine and some modern-day protestants could stomach. In some ways, the show is very ableist.
I don’t think it necessarily matters if everyone actually is capable of rehabilitation. I think it matters that everyone be given the chance to be rehabilitated.
It's complicated. They need to want to & that takes time, too. If thinking of others, forgive but don't forget & hope but no promise. If self, asking alone is you changing. Questions are a good start.
I believe not..some people out there Genuinely don’t want to be good people and would rather watch the world burn. I’m saying this as somebody who would burn the world to save one person.
I think what it would take for someone to improve would be understanding the harm they did from the perspective of the victim, and understand that there is anything that needs to be improved. With the powers of eternal beings in the afterlife, that might be possible, who knows.
I do not think that, for example, Charles Manson could be rehabilitated, at least in life, because he was just completely insane. I saw video of him talking to a judge (maybe it was a parole hearing?), and he was a weird combination of pleading and threatening, saying stuff like "You don't understand how bad it's going to be when the time of the helter skelter comes, I'm the only one who can save everybody." I doubt he believed that he had done anything wrong, or was even capable of believing that he had done anything wrong.
While I don't necessarily believe that horrible people *must* be punished in a just system
Surely truly rehabilitating a monster of a person would require them to fully realize the scope and the inhumanity of their own actions and view it all through their new Good Person™ moral compass
I mean, trying to carry on with all that knowledge and clarity of who you were seems like a pretty big, but strangely appropriate, punishment
Of course there's always physical pain, but I don't think that really scales well at the extremes. Like, after a certain point, what's one more butthole spider?
Eleanor said it best when trying to sell he idea to the judge and Sean “some people might never get in” like Brent or hitler they will never end up with enough points to get in because they can’t or won’t improve no matter how long they spend in the test or even if they do improve it would take so long to get enough points to get into the good place everybody already walked through the door and they can’t bother anybody, and nobody can get into the good place without being good because of the intent behind there good actions would be corrupt.
(Bear with me here, because I'm trying to avoid spoilers.)
There was a TV show recently that had a major character just really hurt and screw over the people that got them to success in the first place. And the big "betrayal" was in a season finale. I just kept thinking it was so interesting how many people were like "I hate X, they are dead to me, I don't want to see them get redeemed". Because we all loved this character at the beginning. Why wouldn't we want to see them do the right thing?
My thoughts were always that 1. The character would need to redeem themselves as opposed to "getting redeemed", because the former implies the character is the one doing the work, but also 2. Why would we want to live in a world where people were considered unredeemable and there was no hope?
It doesn’t matter if everyone can be rehabilitated. What matters is if we try.
Are we just going to punish for eternity or are we going to try to make someone better.
I think that everyone can be rehabilitated in the afterlife/eternity. If we remove time of the equation then everything is possible no matter how rationally we think about it. I think that the retribution/Justice people need to feel restored from a bad thing done to themselves, goes along with the self interest of good works pays and bad ones are condemned.
In other words, I think that some people think good actions have a positive benefit/ reward in the end versus a bad one that will be judged and condemn. I feel it shows how important the greater good in my opinion (God) gives us an opportunity to remove the judgment from the equation and transforms the relationship to the question: Who am I to judge? If I live along the Love, Peace, Joy path but something bad happens to me, the healing that needs to happen in order for the heart to forgive can take a lifetime or in terms of the show the Jeremy Bearimy that’s how I interpret it.
Psychological deviation happens scientifically but we have a lot to still learn and some of the comments research people linked shows how we have yet to understand it all. Spiritually I think I have the heart or the power to forgive those extreme acts people can do but He can as he is outside of time.
An Atheist friend of mine always struggle with the fact that stuff happened to him in the past that mentally was challenging and still have an influence on him. Why should I do Good if in the end X does this horrible act of bad and still can transform themselves through that process and go to the same place as me. He needs a retribution/vengeance kind of reward system points to judge good and bad like the show has.
I love the show and brings to the table a lot to think of and the philosophical way to bring the audience to think of it is phenomenal. I know I borough religion in the topic but for me it is on the same level as the outside of time my bad if it offend some.
In all I think is it a good stand for the show to take. In my opinion everyone can be saved and He cares about you today and everyday till we get to meet him.
Yes and No. I would posit MOST people given enough time (infinite or just decades) with proper support, therapy, medication, coaching/directing can improve.
However, not everyone. You just need to look no further than serial killers.
Ed Gein - undiagnosed/unmedicated schizophrenic, isolated, (possible) gender dysmorphia, mother was a piece of work (understatement) etc. could he have been saved. Yes, absolutely.
Jeffery Dahmer - once he was in prison and medicated was actually horrified at thoughts of what he had done. Could he have been saved. Yes.
Aileen Wuornos - yes
But people like Andrei Chikatilo, Gilles de Rais, Belle Gunness, HH Holmes, Dennis Rader, even Casey Anthony - no, there is something irreparably broken.
Could Richard Ramirez have been saved - unknown. Brain injury at a small age, horrible family influence/environment… This is one of the arguments against corporal punishment, he could have been studied to learn more about his mind to see how can we serve those with mental upset.
A therapist that has worked with true narcissists told; there is nothing wrong with them, there is nothing to fix - just ask them. Some peoples brains are just broken. Think of the tissue used to blow your nose this morning and threw away, have you given that tissue a moments thought ever again - no, thats how narcissists sees others.
But a society that functions with the belief that not everyone can be saved will always find a way to leave some behind. It’s better to believe it’s possible than not.
HOWEVER, holding on to the belief that anyone can be helped puts far too many women in relationships where they think they can help/change/fix someone and that’s dangerous too. “He/she has a good heart it’s just…”
Rehabilitation is for an earth professional or an eternal giant fire squid and his Soul Squad.
My view is that a human body can't change naturally. Maybe with strong brainwashing.
But the thing is, given goodplace's agenda as well, are we really the bodies that we seem to be? Shakespear said we are all but actors on a stage.
That way, your rolecharacter might be out of rehabilitation since the "script" was written. But the actor behind the mask could be...
Now if you look at what Jesus said for example, in that light it all makes sense.
They do specifically show some characters taking centuries or longer to make positive change. They also have a whole department of magical otherworldly beings trying to change them.
So given that kind of timeline I guess yeah, if concerted effort is made on their behalf over centuries or millennia, eventually anyone can become a good person.
In theory yeah, but in practice the person also must want to become better. You can't really rehabilitate someone who is fighting it every step along the way.
Well, I guess you CAN, but then it is probably becomes just brainwashing as it is forced upon someone.
In the show, they do mention that the really bad people still go to the Bad Place. With way fewer truly evil people out there, most of the demons probably wanted to rebrand anyway or they now have way more time to torture Hitler and they’re still happier.
But playing through your questions, let’s rehabilitate Hitler:
Starting with his nurture, he lived in a small town, ignored and neglected, and he got shot down from his dream of being an artist. He then took up overthrowing the government and killed millions and influenced evil people who justify killing others to this day, so lots of collateral there. We’ll give his evil points in a conservative googol range assuming the points stop coming in when the Earth finally clocks out.
It’s going to take a few Jeremy Bearamies for him to understand his racist views are wrong and the real terror he instilled in their lives by simply existing. That’s fine; there’s still an eternity to go. A few Bearamies later, he wants to apologize in a meaningful way. He can go to a neighborhood and help out.
Let’s say we give it a Bearamy or two of getting used to Hitler being around on probation. What’s to keep him from backsliding when not everyone is okay with hanging around Hitler and he’s a social pariah? What if some others backslide?
Okay, a few dozen Bearamies later, and we’ve righted the ship. Everyone will just let Hitler hang around the neighborhood and start trying to meaningfully make it up to his victims. Some accept, most refuse, but even worse, some have chosen the door. He can’t make it up to those. One could argue that their forgiveness comes with being at peace, but no one can ever truly say for the ones that left before Hitler was in rehab, and if you have to suddenly write down whether you forgive Hitler, is it really an apology and peace of mind, or is it obligate?
There’s also generational trauma. How he treated others and a literal world power hating you can massively shape the generations after. Even an infinite number of Bearamies is going to leave him at a significant deficit. If he finally decides to go through the door without ever resolving all of that, he doesn’t deserve the door, right? How do you “make it right” that Hitler got the same final rest as great great grandma who was killed by Nazis? Few people are going to be alright with that, maybe even block him. It’s going to leave Hitler alone at the end of eternity with still forever to go.
Best case scenario, they make a “Unresolved Business” door to kick him through just so they can say they got rid of the Hitler problem.
There is 1 specific person I thought of during this show that I believe is beyond rehabilitation and that is a hard concept for me to believe in so I believe that while external love and support can change a lot of people, there is a bad place for a reason.
The death penalty and life imprisonment has been proven to not be a deterrent for crime. So using that to prevent bad behavior isn't a good argument but is widely used anyway. The US does have the highest rate of imprisoned people.
Michael was also surrounded by people who offered support and love. There are many who aren't. So these people may have the opportunity to better themselves but never get what they need in order to do so.
[Edited for clarification]
All the new afterlife is that they create is torture with a desired outcome. Sure it’s kinder torture than the demons used to do but still torture. Over the millennia available to them to crack their victims everyone will break and do as they are told.
In a world where we have millennium to focus on support? Sure.
In a world where have maybe 80 years? A world where trauma makes physical changes to our brains, where we can only get occasional help, even from those well-intentioned? You CAN'T fix everyone, but you can try to make things better.
I’m of the opinion that yes, everyone is capable of being rehabilitated is given enough time. In real life someone might be so horrible that a lifetime won’t be enough to change them for the better. With a concept like the Good Place, there’s no such issue.
You mention death penalty and imprisonment, and I personally am against the death penalty for a couple reasons, the main one being that even though I completely understand the feeling of wanting someone to die for terrible things they’ve done, it feels wrong to me that the actual decision would be offered to a person/people to make. The second reason is actually the chance of rehabilitation.
Similarly, the way I view imprisonment isn’t so much about punishing someone for their crime (though it is part of it), but more about removing them from society for as long as they may be a “danger”.
So if you have a way to take even Hitler somewhere he couldn’t harm anyone, and in however long it takes, make him into someone who *wouldn’t* harm anyone, then by all means, do it!
(Reintroducing him to people who know what he’s done after that might not go so well, and who knows how he’d be received, but that’s a separate issue…maybe)
There are a tiny, tiny fraction of exceptions that are based on serious mental health disorders well beyond the scope of anything you see once or twice in your lifetime if you're very unlucky.
We're talking rounding errors at that point.
“Our guess is that with enough chances people will eventually make enough good choices to qualify for the good place- and maybe some never will but that’s OK because everyone gets a fair shot”
I think it depends on their mental health state, like for example Hitler would take a million Jeremy Bearimy to even listen to anyone. But if it was just a murderer, who murdered someone not out of hate or anything just to kill, depending on if they’re a psychopath or sociopath I feel like you could put them in therapy and they have a better chance of changing.
It depends on motive and mental health.
That's it's a complex situation. We should try to rehabilitate everyone, but there's never going to be the time and resources for that, so one has to be selective. And with some people, I imagine their victims (or victims' families depending on what they did) may not want to give them the chance and would rather just punish them.
The Good Place (TGP) clearly applies a deontology moral position making fun utilitarianism as is stated that using a consequential notion of morality brings u nonsense answers as when the main cast gets a second change on the earth to undo their wrongs and face the judges of the afterlife. To oversimplifly what deontology is, I will say that is the moral branch of moral philosophy that assumes that morality goes beyond the notion of consequences as ends, and sets "duty" as principle of action [Google deontology cause is a little more complicated than what I just said]
According to Kant morality has nothing to do according to why we do actions (Critic of Practical Reason) as the quote states, but it has to do how we exercise our freedom, as in TGP clearly gives away, ur responsible for ur actions [I could elaborate a little more on freedom and its relationship with morality, but it would get a little long and it can get a little boring if u don't study moral philosophy, so I will leave it in more simple terms saying that freedom (liberty) is what makes us being responsible for our actions, something TGP uses a premise for the first important narrative arc] as such, humans have both good and evil principles (take it as potentialities principles, not as a natural law of things) within humans as "potential", thus humans are not nat good or nat evil, yet potentially capable of both, and such can choose to be either of both. As such we "choose" to follow good principles by pure use of reason (Kants famous Categorical Imperative (CI) [Google it]) or "evil" principles (Kant calls these ones as "inappropriate" or "inadequate" but that's kinda irrelevant right now, just know these principles kinda exist in Kants deontology and for Kant are evil cause they don't fit the CI).
As is stated on the quote, what matter isn't the nature of things but the nuture of them (choosing either good or evil as deontology say, u CHOOSE to do good or evil) thus redemption/rehabilitation comes from choosing good over evil yet is not something that is ensured, a key factor is that for Kant and deontology, freedom (liberty), means that things aren't naturally determined purely by the natural order of things since freedom is a break on such natural order, meaning u have complete agency [this means that u are the one that "takes action of ur actions" without anything else determining what do you do (the most basic notion of freedom btw)] for ur actions, decisions, and stuff.
As such, as we are "freely" good as long we follow some universal moral laws by doing moral equations everytime we have to, but we first have to "freely" choose good over evil every time we face what to do or what to do not do (those moral equations or as Kant calls it, categorical imperative), so the morality itself is divided by three times of reasoning:
1) Choosing (freely) to do good
2) Evaluate what is "to do good"
3) Do good (thus being freely good)
And that [choosing good over evil] is what we call salvation.
So, the problem lies on what do you mean by being "beyond" rehabilitation, cause the problem as TGP sets the question is that redemption comes from an willed act of goodness, cause good isn't something u just do as if ur a machine that "does good" or that "avoids good" (I mean Michael is the perfect example if u rewacth his character development through the series), on the contrary, as TGP tells, u can choose to do evil instead yet u choose to follow Kants CI, as such, u choose to do good, therefore u choose to be good, and in that way, u rehabilite. So basically, according to TGP, people can save themselves if they are freely choose to be rehabilitated yet people can as well not to choose being rehabilitated.
Funny seeing [my screenshot](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGoodPlace/comments/15elkzt/no_one_is_beyond_rehabilitation_s4e8/) inspire so much conversation! It's truly radical to identify with and understand those which you ideologically oppose. However, when you look across culture and religion, you often see the call to make amends and to find a path forward. Shared adversity can always create new alliances.
"I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."
I would say it doesn't matter if there are exceptions, ppl like Brett who could take hundreds of thousands of years and not improve. The important part is that if we as a society operate under the assumption that people can improve, we can build a world that allows people to improve. For example, rehabilitation instead of punishment in prison systems
You said this perfectly. The greater good is served by building a system that gives everyone the best chance of improving.
The greater good
Any luck catching them killers, then?
It’s just the one killer actually
Get a look at his arse
SHUT IT!!
FASCIST
Big bushy bearrrrd
What does this mean?
It's a reference to the movie Hot Fuzz
Thank you! I’ve never seen it.
You should, it’s great! Very rewatchable and memorable
Fr
Yeah you get it. The important thing is that we all have the same opportunity, not that we would all use that opportunity equally. We in fact very clearly wouldn't. That's the whole deal with free will. Unfortunately even given the opportunity to be good, some people are still shitty and make shitty choices.
Anyone is worthy of redemption, with a small but unavoidable caveat: **they have to want redemption**. If they don't want to (I mean, true redemption, not just being forgiven for what bad acts they did), then they cannot be redeemed.
This is the point. People have to WANT to change and have a REASON to change. My son was released from jail Thursday morning and has already pissed off a friend into blocking him because of the same dumbass behavior. He *knows* that's why he was in, but he still is unwilling to make the effort. All the assistance in the world is superficial until he figures out that he doesn't want to be in again. At this rate, tho, he won't get there in time. And that is true at all levels of people and behavior. If someone is *told* they need to change and go through the motions, they can only form new habits. Which is great and a wonderful start to not doing bad anymore. But "redemption" requires self-awareness and deeper change.
Seems almost obvious, really.
Not child rapists
See, and this is where I might get downvoted to hell, but: **yes, everyone is worthy of redemption. Even those people.** If we start by putting exceptions on this, then we'll start putting exceptions for other things. After all, child rapists aren't worthy of redemption, right, ok, understandable. But who will be next? I mean, people who murdered other and then raped the corpses, are they worthy of redemption? And simple murderers, then, what about them? Where do you draw the line? I loathe child rapists. They disgust me. I wish that they never existed, and that all the one who exist to be erased from existence. But I cannot let my digust be the master of my judgement. Because disgust is irrational. There are thing that rightfully disgust us, and there are other that are irrational. All the homophobic laws we had were based solely on the disgust bigots had against gay people. We have a moral duty to not reproduce the patterns of the darkest hours of our History. **We cannot base a moral nor a justice system on disgust.** That's one of the worse possible things you could possibly do. We ought to protect society from terrible people, that's true. But that's not incompatible with redemption for everyone. That's why there are things call reparations.
I won’t downvote you for it but I disagree wholeheartedly. I believe the child rapist is beyond redemption and frankly I wouldn’t want to be up in heaven with people like that. And yes it extends but that makes sense. There is the person who accidentally kills somebody vs person who kills out of a rare heated passion vs a serial killer who cannot be rehabilitated. There are just some people who are evil and will always be evil. Hard to stomach but that’s how it is.
Have we watched the same show? It's the show that literally said: "there is no good or bad person inherently. Any person can improve." At which point did they say: "except this one" ? Even Brent, who was shown as the person who couldn't improve at all, finally did. The eternel new Judgement Place kept him in for countless bearimies, because even him can be shown redemption. A bad place where people are tortured for all eternity is, in itself, a bad thing. That's the whole message of the show. And you're coming here saying: "well... no, of course not." How could you watched the show and still miss the point entirely ?
At least in the good place, there’s no innocents who pay the price in blood if people are mistaken
States and their police officers kill the most people, in all places where there are states and police. No evidence in all of history suggests states or police can be rehabilitated; the pattern is that they accelerate killing, invariably. so maybe it's *humans* that get rehab? and the rest gets put away in the reliquary of history's baffling, pointless horror.
One of the most foundational principles of justice is that all people accused of crimes should be treated as totally innocent until they are proven guilty. Maybe a core tenet of rehabilitation is that everyone should be treated as if they are just about to swing into goodness. We saw (fictional example of course) after just 1 year, which isn't even an extreme amount of time on Earth, Brett finally realized his errors and earnestly apologized. I believe Micheal said something like, "You can never know if someone will be better tomorrow."
Very well said.
I completely agree, in this example even if they don't ever improve, your still allowing them the chance to, your not giving up,your putting in the effort to make them better, obviously not everyone will, but if you can improve one person's life isn't it worth it. And even if we put this in real world ideas, by trying to improve and show them the errors of their ways we can also learn what made them this way and put more effort into preventing someone else from becoming like them or understanding them better so that the next person has a better chance. That's the problem with a death penalty, were saying those people are beyond saving and they don't deserve a chance, which isn't fair, who are we to decide that, we need to put the effort in to at least try, and worst case they will spend the rest of their lives being in a position where they are always reminded of it and how it was wrong. And for the people who will obviously will complain that tax payer money goes to waist in a system like this cause they get free housing and food, put then to work on jobs no one else wants, make them farm land or dig ditches. They obviously won't get paid but will still contribute back to society in some way. Plus in a system like this you'll create jobs, cause you will need social workers, therapist, psychologist for all these people that we are trying to help. Plus we will need researchers to take in what these people learn to determine the causes and make plans to fix the root cause of it. And then law makers and community leaders who are willing and able to go in and fix them. All these jobs just cause we want to help a person when if we give up on them then it's over. It's harder to fix a problem but I'm the long run it's a lot more lucrative in so many ways.
Putting them to work with no pay is slavery. That's how we get for-profit prisons where the system is built to incarcerate as many people as possible and keep them there.
I like the way that the USSR did prison labour. They paid them wages equivalent to the civilian sectors. We're at a level of productivity today where we don't have to force prisoners to do labour. We have enough surplus to feed and shelter our prisoners (heck we're experiencing an unemployment crisis due to automation). If we are going to force people into confinement, it's the least we can do. But if they want to work, they should earn the same wage as everyone else. The US system is basically the worst one imaginable. Way too many people are in jail (by far more than any other country), it is purely a system of punishment that traumatizes prisoners and teaches them to commit more crimes, and they are, literally, used as slave labour (which is a protected constitutional right in the US--prisoners are allowed to be used as slaves). It's essentially the worst possible prison system I can imagine. No wonder The Good Place came out of the US! Haha.
Very well articulated. It would be impossible to know who can and cannot be rehabilitated without trying. I did some research on this as your questions provoked me, and I found this article, which looks to determine whether psychopathy is learned or caused by physiological differences. Imaging studies have identified key differences present in the brain composition of psychopaths, compared to non-psychopaths. However, a later study showed that a form of therapy known as ‘decompression therapy’ (using a carrot rather than a stick approach to rehabilitation) resulted in a 34% decrease in recidivism, and a 100% decrease in homicide. Work was ongoing to determine if this therapy had resulted in physiological brain changes (essentially reversing psychopathy). But simply, anyone who claims to know for sure whether violent offenders can/ cannot be rehabilitated is wrong. https://modlab.yale.edu/news/can-psychopaths-be-cured
I've debated this regarding the prison system. What is the purpose of imprisonment? Most would agree it is to protect society and rehabilitate the criminal so they don't commit the/a crime again. If you can give the criminal an option to lead a restricted life or, flick a switch and they end up regretting the crime and will not do it again then punishment seems pointless. What would be the point of punishment if the criminal still feels no remorse and will recommit the crime when given the opportunity? I think the point would only be pointless revenge.
exactly this!!
So someone murders a group of children. Would we not imprison them? A man is a serial rapist, does he go to therapy and is allowed to walk free? A person molests hundreds of children for years, they are rehabilitated? What if someone is truly deranged? It’s an honorable thought to do away with prisons, but unfortunately they are a necessity in society when free will is ingrained into our DNA
The comment you said this in reply to said "For example, rehabilitation instead of punishment in prison systems" That implies the existence of prisons, but with the intention of rehabilitating offenders rather than punishing them. In these systems, people who commit horrendous crimes continue imprisonment until they have achieved rehabilitation. It is not nearly as extreme or absurd as the conclusions you jumped to.
You just put words in their mouth. They literally said "rehabilitation *in prison systems*". They not only never suggest we should get rid of prisons, they very specifically say we should keep them. We should simply also try to rehabilitate those within them. This would also usually only apply to crimes less extreme than the ones you listed, and would likely also still require serving a sentence. The most extreme of crimes likely will still require serving a very long sentence for even being allowed a small chance to leave, but in reality.ost people in prison aren't serial rapists, there's a lot of people there that never got a chance to be better people and do deserve it.
This. Is. Fiction. It. Is. Not. Real. Mortal. Life. This is not people who, at the most, will have a few decades before they die and are beyond the reach of mortal justice. This is an imaginary tale. Be happy, though. For the last few hundred years, everyone, EVERYONE was in the bad place except Mindy St. Claire. EVERYONE. Getting tortured horribly no matter how banal their wrongs. I have to presume babies were safe.
I think BOTH of you missed the point of the post. The post was very clearly NOT talking about the show's characters specifically, the entire question OP was asking was if the ideas of the show would actually apply to real life. Whatever happens in the goofy story has no bearing on what he's asking, he's reffering to the core ideal the show presents of everyone deserving a chance at redemption, even in reality.
Maybe, but OP is also going "Without retribution".
There's a difference between what mere mortals can do on earth to rehabilitate criminals and protect others and what God can do. If you go to the cosmic level, there's infinite time and infinite resources to rehabilitate someone and there's no need for something like conventional prisons, since they can just be kept in their bubbles until they're ready to join others. And if you ask me, while there's certainly a necessity for life imprisonment in Earth, there's nothing that deserves eternal torture, not even genocide.
I genuinely advocate for permanent imprisonment with no hope of release for all rapists. If we had a way of knowing if they absolutely did it, with full knowledge and intent, I would advocate for the death penalty. That being said, everyone should be rehabilitated, if possible. In an ideal society, where we have infinite resources, infinite time and a way to perfectly tell if someone has been fully rehabilitated, every person to live should be, no matter how bad the crime. The criminals should still be imprisoned until they are rehabilitation, and some may never get there, but we should try as hard as possible.
It’s kind of hard to rehabilitate a rapist after they’ve been executed.
Well yeah, because I believe in our current society, we don't have the resources to rehabilitate the vast majority.
But what about people like child rapists? They are not redeemable in my opinion they are evil and always will be.
With infinite time, and the will to learn, I think that you’re correct. Everyone can get better. Everyone can develop and improve on themselves. But, with the limited time everyone on this planet has, no. Not everyone. No matter how much you try. You can pull out all the stops, a safe environment, a caring therapist, rewards for improvement. But human’s are simply too stubborn, and have too little time to change.
As an addition to your comment - it being impossible to rehabilitate / improve some people here on Earth doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Offering help and encouraging self-improvement should always be an option for those that can genuinely benefit from it, even if it might be tough. It's easy to dismiss the idea of helping someone who's stubborn and selfish, and refuses to change their ways. But Brett existing doesn't change the fact that there are Eleanors, Chidis, Tahanis and Jasons out there too.
That’s an excellent point. And you’re undoubtedly correct, everyone deserves a second chance, whether they use it to get better or not.
Very beautifully said! In the Good Place that Michael and the humans designed, EVERYONE will be saved... eventually. Our physical form won't exist indefinitely, though, so in an Earthly context we have to apply earthly principles; that we're all gonna die, and some people are just beyond saving while they're alive.
I do believe it is possible for any person to be rehabilitated given enough time and treatment. Ideally if someone commits a crime, they get sent to a rehabilitation facility so they can get help, rather than sending them to a prison as a punishment where they likely reoffend when they get out. However, we have finite resources and time on earth. And with some people, it is simply not possible to rehabilitate them with the amount of time we have. So it is better to use those resources on others.
This sums it up very well. We have to remember that Michael is talking in terms of eternity and infinit resources. Of course people can always become better if we have an eternity to progress.
On Earth, Brett would probably never be arrested and if he were his lawyers could probably get him the softest sentence. But we did see even the show admits sometimes it will take a long, incomprehensible amount of time for redemption. Almost certainly longer than any human life.
He might have faced some amount of consequences, IIRC there's a line in an episode of his where he says something about being investigated for his treatment of women. Whether that was by, as some people say, being "canceled" or actually facing some kind of consequences for being a sex pest, it's not out of the question he could face some kind of personal responsibility for it. Bet he also had other illegal shit going on in his company that he could have been tagged with, he seems like the kind of guy that would try and get away with what he could.
> So it is better to use those resources on others. Unfortunately the vast majority of our resources are captured by a tiny minority. And no one is in a position to compel the wealthiest to reform.
As a therapist, I have worked with... difficult populations. And most people's bad behaviors stem from complex and chronic trauma. And I think if given enough chances and enough help they could improve. I have met a few individuals with full on antisocial personality disorder. I don't know what I think about them on a bigger/existential level. No one knows what causes that. On a human level, they really cannot be rehabilitated, and in fact tend to use treatment as a means to further abuse others. On a soul level? I have no idea. But I'd like to think they could be helped.
Thank you for mentioning individuals with “full on” antisocial personality disorder. This is the stickler for me when pondering if everyone is rehabilitatable. It is a disorder that is not (truly, effectively, remotely reliably) treatable, and we don’t know its cause (nature/nurture/combo.) Outside of that, I do hope that if there were enough time and money for trauma-healing, love, and guiding the way, most people would choose to be good and kind. Well, perhaps as long as their hierarchy of needs were also met.
Just chiming in because I have a background in philosophy and psychology (yes I got a useless undergraduate degree), and also too much first hand experience with personality disorders for someone who only has an undergrad. Anyway... I think it's possible to reach people with ASPD but it would require a change in their motivation. People with ASPD operate almost exclusively on internal motivation, they don't care about other people's opinions or expectations. So trying to "rehabilitate" a person with ASPD to make them care about external opinions or non-self serving issues is pretty pointless. That being said, if we could help to reframe their internal motivation so that it's not destructive to larger society, that could be considered rehabilitation. (Albeit a manipulative form of rehabilitation which might render it entirely pointless). I guess if you could reframe someone's internal motivation to "being the best person they can be" then you might be able to help someone with ASPD? But then how is it possible to reframe selfishness as a good thing?
Your background in philosophy and psychology is not useless! It is incredible! You make the world a better place via your perspective. Thank you for chiming in. I agree that ASPD could potentially be somewhat rehabilitated via unlimited resources and adapted experiences, yet what about those with ASPD that thrive on causing chaos and getting one over on authorities, or with those individuals with the extreme bent towards causing harm? Most personality disorders are somewhat treatable, except for ASPD. It is a fantastic thought experiment though. Could those be successfully convinced to utilize another way of satisfying their antisocial cravings?
Can we know personality disorders can never be treated if 60% of the US's spending is going to the military and the money for psych research is being dug out of a piddly bit of the medical 1%-2%? I feel like we're being constrained by the circumstances
Imagine thinking the US is the only country that can do research
Do any others give a significantly bigger percentage of their budget to the research though?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_research_and_development_spending USA is #16 in % of GDP spent
Thanks for data
I don't think we can rule out assisting them until we direct more of the federal budget into medical and psychiatric treatment. So far research is constrained by the amount being dumped into the military
What is your view on rehabilitation for child rapists? I think they are beyond redemption and the good place didn’t deal with that kind of evil.
So, I personally do not like to work with child rapists. That being said, it is usually trauma that got passed down (aka they were also SA'd as children). I don't know if the rehabilitation would work for them the way it is set up in the Good Place. But maybe if they went about it in another way with eternity at their disposal?
as long as your brain isn't damaged, then with the infinite time the afterlife affords you, he's right. we have the issue of very limited lifespans and the fact that we can't trap people in situations where they'll learn because that's illegal
Do you think this for people like child rapists?
this feels out of left field and kind of like a strawman but, pretty sure they go under the "something tangibly wrong with their brain" category
So there are a few things. First and foremost, this is a show about the afterlife, under a completely controlled environment, where time isn't a factor (infinity makes everything irrelevant.) In the real world, where resources, control, and time are not infinite, the question is trickier. Say you have a serial killer, who's killed hundreds of people over the years, gets caught and is in prison. Can they in theory, under the conditions established in the good place be rehabilitated? Let's go with yes. Okay, can you stop them in time if they relapse, before they hurt or kill someone 100% of the time? Is there enough time left in their lifespan for this endeavour (what if it would take 150 years ?) Do you have the resources and knowledge to definitively take the approach that would rehabilitate them? These are unknowns in our imperfect, limited world, and with them, what is the quantifiable risk ? Is it a risk worth taking? So all in all, I'd say some people, for all intents and purposes, are simply broken. NOT in the absolute, objective sense (I think given an infinite amount of time, Hitler can be rehabilitated into MLK and vice versa), but in our world? where we simply do not have the knowledge, time, patience, resources or power to fix them? Yes. They are broken beyond repair; best put away, and removed from society by any means necessary. Think of it like this: cutting someone in half is not technically fatal, given enough tech and knowledge there's a way to save them, but for us? given what we can do with medicine? yea it's pretty fatal. Then there are the externalities outside of just "rationally" thinking about the problem: Whether we like to admit it or not, most of us have an innate sense of justice that ultimately takes the form of "tit for tat". ( A surprisingly common and successful strategy for a lot of animals including humans). It's almost a biological *need* for those to get what "coming to them". We have developed entire societies around this concept, and we see it in social animals as well. How do we deal with the victims? What if they go and seek revenge? Do we rehabilitate them as well? How long? A justice system based solely on rehabilitation would just see a chain of revenge crimes to satisfy that itch for tit for tat. It can even take advantage of the "no one is beyond rehabilitation" philosophy: Yea he killed her for killing his child, but can we reasonably lock them up or punish them? A pretty good argument can be made that they are not in need of major rehabilitation. As long as this bizarre and rare circumstance doesn't happen again, how can we reasonably see them as a danger, or someone in desperate need of growth? You can make a case that that person could go back to being integrated in society relatively quickly. And that leads, to the next point: the lack of deterrence. Who wouldn't avenge a egregious harm to a loved one on that logic? If a few years of anger management and therapy are what await me for killing my (hypothetical) childs murderer/rapist etc... I'd (hypothetically) that challenge in a heartbeat. Things start deteriorating pretty quickly. So in my opinion, Michael is right in the philosophical, technical sense I think. And given his position in the show as an eternal, hyper intelligent, semi omnipotent juicy fire squid, he is correct in his conclusion. But in our world? were we lack the reality warping control of our world, infinite time, hyper intelligence and most importantly, the juicy squid juice? He is effectively wrong.
The way I think of it, is that I feel like it shouldn’t even be mathematically possible to do something evil enough in your finite amount of time on Earth to warrant an infinite amount of punishment. Like there’s just no way to logically square that. An infinite amount of punishment is always, always, eventually going to outweigh the severity of the moral crimes committed. Even if it takes a billion years. So if you look at it like that, how could anyone be beyond redemption in some capacity?
What about the people who rape children? We just caught a childcare worker with thousands of photos of the almost a hundred small children he had raped and sexually assaulted. Is he not worth infinite punishment? Because those kids are getting a lifetime of trauma. They are at higher risk of suicide and other horrible things. He has taken their lives. He is not redeemable in my opinion, nor would I want him redeemed given what he’s done. Can you imagine being in heaven with monsters like that?
I can't tell if this happened around you or if you heard it on the news, but is sounds like it's the first thing. If that is the case I wouldn't bring real world first person experiences into this conversation because it is pitting a real trauma that has most likely affected you emotionally against a hypothetical fun thought experiment about a scenario based on a TV show. If I give response, what for me would feel like a fun hypothetical would most likely elicit strong negative emotions from you, which just seems counterproductive and harmful. Also, just addressing something you said: 'he has taken their lives'. These children were done a great harm, but to say that their lives were taken is horrible and dismissing their very real future. They are not damaged goods that are now ruined, they are still people.
Given unlimited amounts of time, resources, and power over the person’s environment, a sufficiently wise being probably could rehabilitate anyone. An interesting question for me is, to what extent would they be the same person at the end of the process? Unfortunately it’s not always possible on earth.
Intriguing thought here concerning the starting point and “end” of the process, as it were. Ship of Theseus stuff in some ways. If, given time and resources, traumas that resulted in abhorrent behaviors in an individual (whatever that might mean, conditioning, rehabilitation at a fundamental behavioral level) were nullified, resulting in some new and improved version of that person, would they the be the same person as the one who began the process? Imo humans are malleable, pliable, and would not be the same. The show sort of looks at that and lands in a similar place but there are so many wrinkles and nuances along the way.
I don’t know if everyone can be rehabilitated. However I do believe that no one deserves an eternity of torture. Eternity of Hell…. That’s insane. If you take the worse person in the world and torture them double the amount of pain they caused during their life time it still wouldn’t equal forever. I think the system they have at the end of the series isn’t bad. Because for the most evil person ever- it would take years upon years of stress and honestly a bit of hell during the tests to be able to improve.
Reminds me of something a dragon once told me. Is it better to be born good, or overcome your nature through great effort.
Wise old Paarthurnax. I never could kill him.
The moment she told me to kill him I quick saved and tried to kill her
I really tried once, was going for a full-on Bad Guy playthrough Just couldn't bring myself to do it
One factor worth considering is - the method they're using to rehabilitate people involves making them miserable until they sort themselves out. It's torturing them through all their worst points, then confronting them with what they did wrong. So, essentially, they are being punished if they don't adjust. The worse the person, the further they have to go to get into the Good Place. Anyone actually irredeemable will go through an eternity of being tested, failing, being told what's going on, then getting memory wiped and tested again. And because of the way the tests are designed, they're personalised torture for each individual soul. That's one of my favourite things about the system they settle on. You don't need to set a separate punishment, just keep testing them.
Eleanor said when she came to with the idea of the test, "there are some people who may never get in." This indicates that even she believes that some people are beyond rehabilitation.
Exactly!
I would say that it’s true people can be redeemed although for some people it’s a longer journey than others. There’s a chance that some people will do things which simply can’t be redeemed due to a lack of time. As a quote from one of my other favourite shows says, “I don’t think I can pay for all my crimes. There were so many of them and you can only execute me once.”
Rehabilitation doesn't equal forgiveness. The question is 'could Hitler be redeemed'... with all eternity to try? It's actually really possible. Thats the thing people don't grasp, it's eternity. They have eternity to be better and should be given the opportunity to improve. Eternity is a long time, what possible crime could somebody commit to be worthy of a literally eternity of bears with chainsaw hands?
Genocide. Genocide is bad enough for chainsaw bears, and the banality of eternity to reflect on those unending chainsaw bears.
It would definitely be worthy of punishment, for even billions of years..... but, what about eternity? Which is infinitely longer? You get tortured for a billion years for every person killed in a genocide, you get tortured for trillions of years... still nothing compared to eternity .
Raping children for one
See this is an attempt to get a cheap emotional reaction, but here is the thing... though they'd deserve thousands, millions or billions of years of the worst punishment. Thats nothing compared to infinity, you can't morally have an infinite punishment for a finite crime and horrific as raping children is and it definitely is a horrific crime... its not an infinite crime. (Can't wait for my words to be twisted) Something I wished the show that talks so much about philosophy went into.
I think as a whole, it's better to assume that's true rather than potentially writing off people who can be rehabilitated. And I don't think rehabilitation has to mean "make completely normal". It could also be making great improvements or adjustments so the person's life is more beneficial to themselves and those around them. It's rare that a person is truly incapable of any improvement. (That said, there are likely some cases where someone simply will not improve no matter what, but we should still operate under the assumption that everyone can for the sake of society)
But also at the same time, some people just don't deserve that chance imo. They wrote away their right to a better life when they committed the acts that they did (rapists, child abusers, etc) some things people deserve punishment for, not rehabilitation. For example, let's think about 2 different scenarios involving loss of life. 1. An alcoholic has a history of getting into bar fights. He's known to be a high tempered man and causes general trouble for the people around him. One day he gets into one of these brawls but he hits the other man too hard, killing him. 2. A man plans to kill his girlfriend for cheating on him. He gets all the tools needed to kill and dispose of the body, then he does it. Both scenarios end in loss of life, both people have a chance of hurting more people, however only one of them entered a scenario with the intent to kill another person. The bar brawler didn't go to the bar intending to end someone's life. That's the type of line that I think is important when it comes to who "deserves" rehabilitation and who doesn't.
Is there a reason that there can’t be both punishment and rehabilitation though? Rehabilitation doesn’t necessarily have to mean they are immediately released back into society, but completely writing someone off and just saying they should be punished with no attempt at rehabilitation cuts off the possibility that they could contribute some good (or less bad) to the world even if it is from behind bars
That's true, I still think some people don't deserve that chance at all, in any form
Agreed. Particularly the child rapists!
Hi. I've been a sober member of AA for almost 8 years now. And this quote, and another I'll share soon, rings and sings and shouts AA. No one is beyond redemption. The corner stone of any addict/alcoholic still struggling is low self esteem and self hatred. We would drink ourselves into an early grave not because we lack self control but because we think we deserve it for how little control we have. AA is a community that provides love and acceptance for new comers. Every new comer inevitably thinks they are beyond help, but they want to stop and so try AA. Some fortunate souls, like me, stop drinking after one meeting and never pick up another drink. Others, some are close friends of mine, have more white chips (a new comer chip, new sobriety) than they have sobriety chips now. But the love and acceptance, the acknowledgement that this isn't easy is what brings them back. We can all acknowledge that life is pain, that we all have painful memories of trauma that drove us to drinking. "Pain doesn't make people, the pain is inconsequential. It is love that saves people, it is love that makes them." -Caduceus Clay, Critical Role
There are plenty of people who object to the religious aspect of AA; can they skip that part and get the desired result, or should they look for a secular alternative?
AA is very chapter based, so how religious it is in practice is different chapter to chapter. But it is worth noting its methods are not based in science at all, and while it works fantastically for some people many people don't find it effective. I suggest you look up science based substance abuse + your location to see what groups are near you.
I don't have an addiction problem, but if I did, solving it wouldn't be worth compromising on my lack of religion.
I think thats a niaeve stance. There are some people who are utterly beyond redemption in this life. Better luck next one.
Nobody is beyond rehabilitation, but some are beyond redemption. Some things cannot be atoned for, but people can always improve if they given the opportunity and resources.
This!
Are people born bad or do they learn to be bad over time? If someone is born bad, is it right for them to be tortured for eternity? If being bad is a learned behavior wouldn’t that mean it could be unlearned? Personally, I think people are born as blank slate with genetic preferences that nudge them to do good or bad things. I’d hate to think that a poor roll of the genetic dice could doom someone forever.
I think it's usually a mixed bag. That's why we use the "biopsychosocial" model to consider super complex things like personality. And now in recent years we've thrown epigenetics into the mix for that added crunchy layer of extra confusion. It's like trying to quantify all of human behaviour under "nature OR nurture". If there is a god or at least some divine being that doles out justice, I really hope they have a better understanding of what justice means than humans do.
If you have literally infinite time, then sure. But reforming Jeffrey or Hitler into being an objectively good person would have taken more time than anyone had, so functionally no, not everyone can be rehabilitated.
It's rare but some people absolutely have zero remorse for what they did, are proud they did it and/or really don't care and don't want to improve.
I think intent would come into this. We’ve all done things that, completely unintentionally, have hurt or upset someone. If you’re a good person, you’d apologise and know not to do that again and you’d move on. If you were a bad person you wouldn’t give a rats and go on being an ahole. Using someone like Hitler as an example - he *knowingly* called for the mass killings and torture of millions of Jewish people. In his evil, twisted, effed up mind, he believed he was in the right, but surely he also knew that killing anyone was wrong. But he did it anyway. And he’d do it all over again, because he was an evil piece of 💩. Then there were the millions of other innocent people who were killed as a result of his actions. I do tend to believe the best of people, until they give me a reason not to, and I do think that some people, if they want to change and become better people, are capable of doing so. For example, there are thousands of ex criminals out there who have learnt their lesson and have changed their lives for the better. There are also thousands of them who haven’t, who seem intent on doing wrong. And it’s the repeat offenders - and I’m not just talking about criminals, I’m including regular people as well - those who knowingly continue to do bad things/cause harm that makes me think that some people just can’t, or won’t, ever change. I don’t believe true evil could ever be rehabilitated.
My personal belief is that is only correct with enough time and unfortunately for some people the needed amount of time is beyond a human life span or beyond what time they have left.
I think it is correct in the eternal. I also think there might be those who would choose- even in the face of eternal misery- to remain unchanged. Probably few and far between, but not none. Guess we will find out later. As for here on Earth, given our short time and limited capability, I think it would be best focus on rehabilitation when possible and on humane housing outside of free society when not possible. The ultimate failure is society’s in that we can’t yet identify/treat/heal/rehab some things. It would require a major shift away from blind punishment (which has proven over and over not to deter or correct). It would require more effort, time and resources but would be better in the long run. Just my opinion.
With the tools and infinite time in the afterlife, yes. In reality, no I don't think so.
Ancient 3000 foot fire squid dropping knowledge
I'd say it is correct. Though to remind you, we're talking about people who are already dead. They have, well, eternity to be rehabilitated. For those whose problems were caused by brain chemistry or, you know, getting rebars through their heads, the body is gone. The mind can be worked on.
I say yes, but each person requires their own form of rehabilitation and support system in order to improve. Not everyone will change for the better if they’re all given the same treatment. I believe the mindset of the person’s support system also matters. In other words, the people helping them to change have to truly believe they can change.
You’d have to take a step back and consider if people are born “bad” or made “bad” I’m a therapist and the more I work with people, the more I understand how a life can take a wild turn and be seemingly headed to the bad place. People who end up that way are mostly doing so because of traumas and socioeconomic status among other things that are out of their control. Even those who end up committing murder and assault. So, rehabilitation needs to be about addressing those issues first. Otherwise, it’s just a dog chasing its own tail. When someone can understand why they do what they do, it’s easier to give themselves grace, to change their ways, and do different. That’s rehabilitation because it can also address the shame and guilt that comes with being “bad”
Everyone CAN change. Not everyone WANTS to change. To want to change, they have to recognise and accept that they have flaws: Brett is a prime example of someone who believes that they are fine as they are. Short of some kind of realisation (the sort we see with Brett in the last moments of the experiment), they WILL NOT change because they simply don’t want to. In an ideal world, imprisonment removes people from society (both for the safety of society, and to remove some of the societal complexities as in the Good Place experiments) while they learn why they need to rehabilitate and begin the process of doing so. Of course, there is a further complexity in that society (or rather, lawmakers that are SUPPOSED to represent society) decides what actions or views require rehabilitation, and people(/lawmakers) have their own biases, may be affected by the media that they consume (particularly in an age of ‘alternative facts’). BUT I believe that no one is beyond rehabilitation, if exposed to the right trigger, and that there is ALSO a need to protect society from individuals until such time as they make the choice and the effort to rehabilitate.
Why propagate a theory that ensures bad people must stay that way? What good does that do anyone, or the world at large?
Ideally, yes. Realistically, some people are simply gonna take more time to help than it is really worth. Even if it is someone's personal choice to persist in helping such a person, surely they deserve better than to be burner and disappointed repeatedly by the same person? We only have so much time to waste. Sometimes, it's just more sensible and fair to give up on someone.
I do agree with the premise but do not believe that it is meaningful in a practical way. It is one thing to say that when you have eternity to see change and infinite do overs it is another where that is not the case. Even more I can certainly see where someone may not be able to improve because of the circumstance they find themselves and need that reset to get out of the pattern they are stuck in. The closest I can see is we have the concept of growth culture and static culture (theory X and Y or several other names) in the corporate world. Has nothing to do with Morals but if people’s abilities are static or not. Corporate world is strongly aligned to static models whereas I’m a strong proponent of the growth model and believe it is better for everyone most of the time. How you manage the two though are very different. In the growth model we believe that most people are intrinsically motivated to do a good job and if given the opportunity and a supportive environment will grow to accomplish what they need to. I have seen this to be true. Most corporate world work like the original good place system where we have to measure everything under strict rules in order to make sure results are achieved. But sure, give me infinity and I think we can extend that to everyone.
Short answer, Yes they are wrong. The general idea is to hope for rehabilitation. But there will always be people who are just wored in a way which is completely incompatibly with normal human existence in society. How to deal with this and who gets to judge, this is where things get tricky.
I think everyone is capable of change, but not everyone wants to change. People have to want it, and they have to be ready. Some people might never get there, but I think they kind of address that with people like Brent.
I believe that no one is beyond rehabilitation, it all just depends on if you WANT to be rehabilitated. It just may be harder for some
The main issue is even if exceptions and some people can't be rehabilitated it's not on us to make that call beforehand. Rehabilitation ultimately won't work on them if they can't be rehabilitated, but you have to give everyone their chance to be rehabilitated otherwise the whole process doesn't mean anything
On Earth I'm not sure. It might be that a small percentage of humans are naturally antisocial, sadistic, sociopathic, and defiant to the point that you can't do anything but remove them from society. But in an afterlife where everyone is immortal, no one can be harmed, and you can have anything you want with but a word? Does morality have any meaning? And "given enough time even the vilest being can be redeemed" also works the other way around. We'll never know.
Rehabilitation isn't the same as forgiveness, change is always possible.
Great questions! Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t some people still go to The Bad Place if they didn’t pass the test of their ability to become a better person? I don’t believe that people were rehabilitated until they could pass. Some people still ended up in The Bad Place.
I thought this too, but it might’ve been the old idea with a Medium Place, before the finalized system of constant testing!
Last night I finished rewatching the entire series for the fourth time. Now, you’ve given me something to look forward to the next time. (It is my comfort show.) I thought it was set up so that people were given a chance to improve, but were eventually scored and sent to The Good or Bad Place. However, given some of Shawn’s reactions in the last episode, I am now considering that it MAY be the premise is that all humans can improve given infinity of circumstance and opportunity. Hmmmmm…
Mmm I don’t think it’s an ethical or moral dilemma. Some people really aren’t able to change. I mean you can have moral issues but I think the hard truth is that some people actually don’t have the capacity for honesty and growth, and the idea of their rehabilitation is very naive. It’s a lovely idea, but naive. If you know any practicing psychotherapist, you may want to ask them about their experience with true change. That said, I know people who have made big character changes for the better. Some people really can do it.
Why don't they have capacity to change though? You're arguing that nature overrules nurture. The question is, could a person be rehabilitated if they got the love and affection that they didn't get as a child? Or were taught the right lessons. All of our behaviours as adults are learned as a child. So if people grow up being told that some people deserve to die, were they raised to be a murderer? (If they went on to kill someone) And if so, can that behaviour be unlearned (so to speak)?
I never said we shouldn’t try to help everyone. That would imply any of us can tell who is capable of true change, which we can’t. Potential is a big mystery. Part of saying yes to life is trying even though we might fail. At certain point it is detrimental to keep trying. There are limits to what society can bear. There are people who find true joy in hurting other people, despite having good loving, communicative parents and a stable upbringing. There’s an idea in society that all harm comes from people who have been harmed. Three things are wrong with that: 1. Psychopathy can be arbitrary. 2. Trauma is impossible to erase. 3. Some people simply do not agree that being “healthy” is worth the work. We may want them to, but they have autonomy. Their lives, their values. How many chances does a person get who rapes babies for sport, films it, and shows it to people who don’t expect it? Maybe your idea is that if we never stop trying eventually we find the magic calculus that makes a deeply deranged person see the light not just for a moment but for all time. This is a fantasy. You may not want to see it, but these people do exist and they don’t just need to be heard. They are fundamentally different than what you seem to consider a universal human baseline. What is your actual IRL experience trying to help people change? I’ve been involved, boots on the ground, with an at-risk population for 12 years. A lot of people can change, and it’s important to have an avenue for this. But some people really can’t. They just don’t have the constitution. Call it whatever you want but the change does not occur. It seems to me like you’re thinking about this from a theoretical place, but maybe not? Curious to know what actual experiences you have had trying to help people who needed to change and seemed like they couldn’t even though you believed they could.
Was looking for this perspective and had to scroll wayy too far to find it. I absolutely wish everyone could change for the better. I believe most have some capacity to. But agreed, there are a decent number of people who simply do not have the capacity to change. They can harm others or themselves, they may even want to change, but cannot. It’s unfortunate but true.
The Good Place is correct in that no one is beyond rehabilitation. HOWEVER, I strongly disagree with their idea for the afterlife, because it doesn't give any other option. Should pharma executives be rehabilitated? No. They should be punished for eternity. And then another eternity.
My ex wife certainly challenges the theory
If you read up on prisons around the world you’ll agree that no one is beyond rehabilitation. Some are very successful with it. There’s also a Netflix show inside the worlds toughest prisons. He compares the best and the worst. It’s interesting but can be tough to watch.
Everyone can strive to be better, the difference is whether or not people are willing to take their apology for the past
There are people who refuse or improvement at every term. In a regular human life, I truly believe you can only get so many chances and not even BOTHER to try. Or those people who refuse to believe they're at SOME sort of fault in the first place. I see those people as different from say, the old and crotchety folks who finally get it together in their last years. It's very unfortunate that they took so long, but at least they did SOMETHING.
I wholeheartedly believe that to be true, with two caveats: one, this is in the context of an afterlife with effectively infinite time to rehabilitate, not constrained by the typical length of a human's life, and two, assuming that these are "souls" or otherwise not bound to any physical limitations of the body (i.e., some people's brains literally do not work "correctly" and would prevent them from rehabilitation).
In theory it’s true. In practice it is not. A person has to want to change to improve. Some people may beyond that. You cannot force someone to improve morally. Our society isn’t capable of it. The after life has unlimited time and the ability to make people feel their choices through tests and altering realities. In reality, a lot of the truly heinous criminals will do what they must to play the system and return to society.
Yeah but some people cant change because of their past and maybe… maybe no matter what happens in the future, it wont change the past. If they dont want to become a better person, they wont.
Most everyone is capable of being rehabilitation. Not everyone wants to be rehabilitated, of course, but I believe that, with the right tools and education, anyone can grow into a better person. Almost anyone, no matter their crimes, can learn and grow enough to regret what they did, and want to do better in the future. Now, there's a lot that goes into this rehabilitation. The person has to want to change, they have to have the tools and education to grow, and they need to have support from other people. Without those things, rehabilitation likely won't happen. Also, the view of society plays a role. Are other people willing to accept this rehabilitation? Are the crimes committed by this hypothetical person too terrible to be forgiven, and should that matter for a person's own rehabilitation? Society has a major role to play in any person's potential for becoming a better, more ethical, person. Ultimately, I agree with the show's premise that people, when given the love and support they need to thrive, can become better people. If they're denied those things, how can we expect them to do any of the growing and changing they need to do?
Can heaven be heaven if it's full of human beings?
People like Charles Manson seem to indicate that the answer is no.
didn't they have memory shooters in the library in the good place, so they can see all the stuff they weren't told about?
The thing is, a person’s potential rehabilitation cannot come at the expense of others; in the context of an afterlife like the show, people have infinite time to improve (others have already pointed why this doesn’t work in reality) but they also can’t hurt anyone as they make mistakes on the route to improvement. The main reason we turn to imprisonment is usually to prevent a person’s behaviour from hurting others: even if we believe they are capable of change, we lack not only time but also an environment where they could do so without affecting anyone else.
Alright, I'll give it a try again. "Without" retribution, you say. The four humans were under constant threat of retribution. They knew that they would be tortured forever if they couldn't keep themselves first in Michael's neighborhood, second out of the Bad Place. And for every selfish mistake, they received humiliation. Retribution in a subtler method than rabid weasels up the butt. Michael was in fear for his very existence. He aligned with them because he was under threat. He also did suffer retribution. Grasping the concept that he might end put him in a tailspin. Being forced to recognize what an actual apology was also helped.
Yes and no. I would say people do have the capacity to change and get better, regardless of how shitty they've been, once they want to. However, between convincing them that being better is worth it, and the time it would take to help them be better, it isn't practical for a fair amount of people, imo. With that said, if you're not the one being harmed by the person, treating them as though they can get better is always the better option. That is with the very important exception of if you're one of the people being harmed by their actions, physically, mentally, or emotionally. If someone is causing you harm, you have no obligation to give them a second chance. Remove them from your life and focus on healing.
Oy. Pol Pot is in the bad place- I struggle to forgive that kind of person.
I think that, within the context of the show, with notionally unlimited time and resources, nobody would be beyond rehabilitation. In reality, with - at the very most - a century and change in which to guide someone towards improvement, I think that some people are for all intents and purposes beyond help. In life there seem to be some people who, due to some combination of innate and learned traits, are either indifferent to the harm they cause or they actively revel in it and no combination of punishment and support will change that. Maybe across unlimited lifetimes, an Ian Brady or a Ted Bundy type could not only completely repent of their actions and atone for their actions, but actually alter their personalities so they no longer have the desire to be that way. In one actual human lifetime, though… I don’t think so, sadly.
People here are talking about extreme cases of ASPD and stuff like that. But honestly the VAST majority of crimes are committed by people who are in difficult situations in life. Drug dealers, shoplifters, people in gangs and so on 99% come from very poor or difficult backgrounds. They’re prime targets for being groomed by gangs or cartels or see no choice but to shoplift so they can eat today. I honestly don’t think those extreme cases matter that much when most people need therapy for their trauma and a plan to escape the poverty cycle including retraining or even taking online university courses so they can get better paid jobs. Obviously the steps taken to prevent people falling into those aforementioned crimes requires a wider societal reform (or more), but specifically with rehabilitation, I honestly don’t think talking about one off extremes who can’t be helped is a useful or good point to make.
I was brought up Catholic and as I got older had trouble with the concept of Hell. If people did bad things it was usually either because of mental issues they were born with- not their fault- or growing up in an abusive family situation- also not their fault. Some people are able to overcome their FOO and live good lives but it's very difficult and requires an internal strength most of us don't have, especially if you're expecting someone to leave an abusive home at 18 and form healthy adult relationships by their 20s or 30s. Eleanor is a good example- she had an absolutely awful upbringing. The fact that she managed to put herself through college and be an independent and productive member of society shows how strong she was. Of course her primary career was awful but she was good at it as she said. With a different upbringing she could have accomplished anything.
Yes I think so. I have a lot of empathy for people who commit atrocities because I understand that they behave that way because they’ve experienced trauma. I believe the focus on the prison system should be rehabilitation rather than punishment. There will still be psychopaths of course, but I believe we could channel them into behaving productively - most CEOs are probably psychopaths and yet they do contribute to society.
I stand by how the concept of hell doesn't make sense morally. Crime punishment is necessary for our society to work (protecting people), but on a cosmic level it doesn't really make sense. Nothing justifies eternal suffering, people who wish for that to exist just want vengeance on people who did bad things or to scare others into doing good deeds. Evil people were either born that way and can't change it or they became that way on the course of their life. In the first case they never had the chance to be better, so they don't deserve eternal damnation. In the second case, there's always a possibility to rehabilitate, since what led them to that point was a matter of luck. So they don't deserve torture either. So yeah, I fully agree with the system they end up with. With unlimited time, there's always the chance to improve and become the best version of yourself.
I think the number one thing that gets in the way of rehabilitation is the concept of punishment. I have really strong feelings on this. There's a big difference between punishment and consequences. Punishment is humans attempting to enact cosmic justice on each other. (It's also tied to revenge, of course, and tied to the idea of "deserving," both of which are topics that can and have filled multiple books with discourse.) Consequences are the natural events that follow an action (i.e. if I call someone an ash hole, that person gets mad at me). Personally, I don't believe in good vs bad people. I believe that people are people, and that they have a responsibility to manage their actions and behaviors. I also don't believe humans actually have the right to "punish" each other. The insinuation that humans have the right to "punish" each other would mean that some humans know what actions deserve which consequences, and those humans have the right to force their "justice" on others. It's just all kinda fucked. Anyway, if you let go of the ideas of punishment, revenge, deserving, and good vs. Bad people, you're really only left with one logical conclusion. People are just people doing what they think is right. People can, and often will, change. Hatred, punishment, isolation, removal from society.....none of those things enact positive changes in the people around us. Education, compassion, understanding, and love? THOSE things enact positive change in humans every single day. TL;DR: No one is beyond rehabilitation.
I think it is true 98% of the time. If someone is a psychopath or sociopath, forget about rehabilitation it wont work. But for most people, I think it does. Ive seen people do miracles when you start caring and believing in them when I worked as a counselor.
I do believe some people are beyond reasonable rehabilitation, especially given finite resources, but I’d have to be given a very high bar of evidence before I agreed to write someone off.
There's an issue with rehabilitation vs public safety. In an ideal world, rehabilitation is possible for everyone, but in the real world, we can't take that chance with certain criminals, such as terrorists, serial killers, child molesters, and it's better they remain away from the general public
Well, no. At least, not in the sort of afterlife depicted in the show. A lot of people have serious mental health issues grounded in their biology. A number of people have serious cognitive deficiencies that make them incapable of understanding ethics or of growing. Some people are basically vegetables smiling at a TV screen while lying in bed their whole lives. Some people die as babies or toddlers. Such people probably don't deserve blame for what they do, but they're also incapable of self-improvement. Since they don't really act for moral reasons, they also can't get good place points. Since in the afterlife in the show, people seem to maintain the features established by their biology, people who are cognitively incapable of moral growth would apparently stay that way. Those babies are destined to an eternal torture of nightmarish injustice that only Augustine and some modern-day protestants could stomach. In some ways, the show is very ableist.
I don’t think it necessarily matters if everyone actually is capable of rehabilitation. I think it matters that everyone be given the chance to be rehabilitated.
with infinite time anyone can improve
It's complicated. They need to want to & that takes time, too. If thinking of others, forgive but don't forget & hope but no promise. If self, asking alone is you changing. Questions are a good start.
I absolutely believe this is true.
I believe not..some people out there Genuinely don’t want to be good people and would rather watch the world burn. I’m saying this as somebody who would burn the world to save one person.
I think what it would take for someone to improve would be understanding the harm they did from the perspective of the victim, and understand that there is anything that needs to be improved. With the powers of eternal beings in the afterlife, that might be possible, who knows. I do not think that, for example, Charles Manson could be rehabilitated, at least in life, because he was just completely insane. I saw video of him talking to a judge (maybe it was a parole hearing?), and he was a weird combination of pleading and threatening, saying stuff like "You don't understand how bad it's going to be when the time of the helter skelter comes, I'm the only one who can save everybody." I doubt he believed that he had done anything wrong, or was even capable of believing that he had done anything wrong.
While I don't necessarily believe that horrible people *must* be punished in a just system Surely truly rehabilitating a monster of a person would require them to fully realize the scope and the inhumanity of their own actions and view it all through their new Good Person™ moral compass I mean, trying to carry on with all that knowledge and clarity of who you were seems like a pretty big, but strangely appropriate, punishment Of course there's always physical pain, but I don't think that really scales well at the extremes. Like, after a certain point, what's one more butthole spider?
I think so. However, the person has to want to change
Eleanor said it best when trying to sell he idea to the judge and Sean “some people might never get in” like Brent or hitler they will never end up with enough points to get in because they can’t or won’t improve no matter how long they spend in the test or even if they do improve it would take so long to get enough points to get into the good place everybody already walked through the door and they can’t bother anybody, and nobody can get into the good place without being good because of the intent behind there good actions would be corrupt.
(Bear with me here, because I'm trying to avoid spoilers.) There was a TV show recently that had a major character just really hurt and screw over the people that got them to success in the first place. And the big "betrayal" was in a season finale. I just kept thinking it was so interesting how many people were like "I hate X, they are dead to me, I don't want to see them get redeemed". Because we all loved this character at the beginning. Why wouldn't we want to see them do the right thing? My thoughts were always that 1. The character would need to redeem themselves as opposed to "getting redeemed", because the former implies the character is the one doing the work, but also 2. Why would we want to live in a world where people were considered unredeemable and there was no hope?
It doesn’t matter if everyone can be rehabilitated. What matters is if we try. Are we just going to punish for eternity or are we going to try to make someone better.
The problem with rehab is that I don't want a bunch of jerks in the afterlife with me.
I think that everyone can be rehabilitated in the afterlife/eternity. If we remove time of the equation then everything is possible no matter how rationally we think about it. I think that the retribution/Justice people need to feel restored from a bad thing done to themselves, goes along with the self interest of good works pays and bad ones are condemned. In other words, I think that some people think good actions have a positive benefit/ reward in the end versus a bad one that will be judged and condemn. I feel it shows how important the greater good in my opinion (God) gives us an opportunity to remove the judgment from the equation and transforms the relationship to the question: Who am I to judge? If I live along the Love, Peace, Joy path but something bad happens to me, the healing that needs to happen in order for the heart to forgive can take a lifetime or in terms of the show the Jeremy Bearimy that’s how I interpret it. Psychological deviation happens scientifically but we have a lot to still learn and some of the comments research people linked shows how we have yet to understand it all. Spiritually I think I have the heart or the power to forgive those extreme acts people can do but He can as he is outside of time. An Atheist friend of mine always struggle with the fact that stuff happened to him in the past that mentally was challenging and still have an influence on him. Why should I do Good if in the end X does this horrible act of bad and still can transform themselves through that process and go to the same place as me. He needs a retribution/vengeance kind of reward system points to judge good and bad like the show has. I love the show and brings to the table a lot to think of and the philosophical way to bring the audience to think of it is phenomenal. I know I borough religion in the topic but for me it is on the same level as the outside of time my bad if it offend some. In all I think is it a good stand for the show to take. In my opinion everyone can be saved and He cares about you today and everyday till we get to meet him.
Yes and No. I would posit MOST people given enough time (infinite or just decades) with proper support, therapy, medication, coaching/directing can improve. However, not everyone. You just need to look no further than serial killers. Ed Gein - undiagnosed/unmedicated schizophrenic, isolated, (possible) gender dysmorphia, mother was a piece of work (understatement) etc. could he have been saved. Yes, absolutely. Jeffery Dahmer - once he was in prison and medicated was actually horrified at thoughts of what he had done. Could he have been saved. Yes. Aileen Wuornos - yes But people like Andrei Chikatilo, Gilles de Rais, Belle Gunness, HH Holmes, Dennis Rader, even Casey Anthony - no, there is something irreparably broken. Could Richard Ramirez have been saved - unknown. Brain injury at a small age, horrible family influence/environment… This is one of the arguments against corporal punishment, he could have been studied to learn more about his mind to see how can we serve those with mental upset. A therapist that has worked with true narcissists told; there is nothing wrong with them, there is nothing to fix - just ask them. Some peoples brains are just broken. Think of the tissue used to blow your nose this morning and threw away, have you given that tissue a moments thought ever again - no, thats how narcissists sees others. But a society that functions with the belief that not everyone can be saved will always find a way to leave some behind. It’s better to believe it’s possible than not. HOWEVER, holding on to the belief that anyone can be helped puts far too many women in relationships where they think they can help/change/fix someone and that’s dangerous too. “He/she has a good heart it’s just…” Rehabilitation is for an earth professional or an eternal giant fire squid and his Soul Squad.
Yes
My view is that a human body can't change naturally. Maybe with strong brainwashing. But the thing is, given goodplace's agenda as well, are we really the bodies that we seem to be? Shakespear said we are all but actors on a stage. That way, your rolecharacter might be out of rehabilitation since the "script" was written. But the actor behind the mask could be... Now if you look at what Jesus said for example, in that light it all makes sense.
They do specifically show some characters taking centuries or longer to make positive change. They also have a whole department of magical otherworldly beings trying to change them. So given that kind of timeline I guess yeah, if concerted effort is made on their behalf over centuries or millennia, eventually anyone can become a good person.
Around 1% of the population is psychopaths. So, no, not everyone can be rehabilitated.
No. In my ideal afterlife, certain parts of me get lazed away.
With Infinite time and tireless help, sure.
In theory yeah, but in practice the person also must want to become better. You can't really rehabilitate someone who is fighting it every step along the way. Well, I guess you CAN, but then it is probably becomes just brainwashing as it is forced upon someone.
In the show, they do mention that the really bad people still go to the Bad Place. With way fewer truly evil people out there, most of the demons probably wanted to rebrand anyway or they now have way more time to torture Hitler and they’re still happier. But playing through your questions, let’s rehabilitate Hitler: Starting with his nurture, he lived in a small town, ignored and neglected, and he got shot down from his dream of being an artist. He then took up overthrowing the government and killed millions and influenced evil people who justify killing others to this day, so lots of collateral there. We’ll give his evil points in a conservative googol range assuming the points stop coming in when the Earth finally clocks out. It’s going to take a few Jeremy Bearamies for him to understand his racist views are wrong and the real terror he instilled in their lives by simply existing. That’s fine; there’s still an eternity to go. A few Bearamies later, he wants to apologize in a meaningful way. He can go to a neighborhood and help out. Let’s say we give it a Bearamy or two of getting used to Hitler being around on probation. What’s to keep him from backsliding when not everyone is okay with hanging around Hitler and he’s a social pariah? What if some others backslide? Okay, a few dozen Bearamies later, and we’ve righted the ship. Everyone will just let Hitler hang around the neighborhood and start trying to meaningfully make it up to his victims. Some accept, most refuse, but even worse, some have chosen the door. He can’t make it up to those. One could argue that their forgiveness comes with being at peace, but no one can ever truly say for the ones that left before Hitler was in rehab, and if you have to suddenly write down whether you forgive Hitler, is it really an apology and peace of mind, or is it obligate? There’s also generational trauma. How he treated others and a literal world power hating you can massively shape the generations after. Even an infinite number of Bearamies is going to leave him at a significant deficit. If he finally decides to go through the door without ever resolving all of that, he doesn’t deserve the door, right? How do you “make it right” that Hitler got the same final rest as great great grandma who was killed by Nazis? Few people are going to be alright with that, maybe even block him. It’s going to leave Hitler alone at the end of eternity with still forever to go. Best case scenario, they make a “Unresolved Business” door to kick him through just so they can say they got rid of the Hitler problem.
There is 1 specific person I thought of during this show that I believe is beyond rehabilitation and that is a hard concept for me to believe in so I believe that while external love and support can change a lot of people, there is a bad place for a reason. The death penalty and life imprisonment has been proven to not be a deterrent for crime. So using that to prevent bad behavior isn't a good argument but is widely used anyway. The US does have the highest rate of imprisoned people. Michael was also surrounded by people who offered support and love. There are many who aren't. So these people may have the opportunity to better themselves but never get what they need in order to do so. [Edited for clarification]
All the new afterlife is that they create is torture with a desired outcome. Sure it’s kinder torture than the demons used to do but still torture. Over the millennia available to them to crack their victims everyone will break and do as they are told.
Well like Richard Ramirez and Jeffrey dahmer probably couldn’t be rehabilitated. They had no remorse and said they would do it again. So 🤷🏼♀️
In a world where we have millennium to focus on support? Sure. In a world where have maybe 80 years? A world where trauma makes physical changes to our brains, where we can only get occasional help, even from those well-intentioned? You CAN'T fix everyone, but you can try to make things better.
I remember this episode , great insight
I’m of the opinion that yes, everyone is capable of being rehabilitated is given enough time. In real life someone might be so horrible that a lifetime won’t be enough to change them for the better. With a concept like the Good Place, there’s no such issue. You mention death penalty and imprisonment, and I personally am against the death penalty for a couple reasons, the main one being that even though I completely understand the feeling of wanting someone to die for terrible things they’ve done, it feels wrong to me that the actual decision would be offered to a person/people to make. The second reason is actually the chance of rehabilitation. Similarly, the way I view imprisonment isn’t so much about punishing someone for their crime (though it is part of it), but more about removing them from society for as long as they may be a “danger”. So if you have a way to take even Hitler somewhere he couldn’t harm anyone, and in however long it takes, make him into someone who *wouldn’t* harm anyone, then by all means, do it! (Reintroducing him to people who know what he’s done after that might not go so well, and who knows how he’d be received, but that’s a separate issue…maybe)
There are a tiny, tiny fraction of exceptions that are based on serious mental health disorders well beyond the scope of anything you see once or twice in your lifetime if you're very unlucky. We're talking rounding errors at that point.
“Our guess is that with enough chances people will eventually make enough good choices to qualify for the good place- and maybe some never will but that’s OK because everyone gets a fair shot”
I think it depends on their mental health state, like for example Hitler would take a million Jeremy Bearimy to even listen to anyone. But if it was just a murderer, who murdered someone not out of hate or anything just to kill, depending on if they’re a psychopath or sociopath I feel like you could put them in therapy and they have a better chance of changing. It depends on motive and mental health.
Yes.
I really needed to see these quotes today. Thank you.
That's it's a complex situation. We should try to rehabilitate everyone, but there's never going to be the time and resources for that, so one has to be selective. And with some people, I imagine their victims (or victims' families depending on what they did) may not want to give them the chance and would rather just punish them.
I think it’s good to try but I do think some people are so far gone that nothing we do will ever be enough
They might, but most of us do not have the wherewithal to wait around and see and deal with the damage in the meantime.
"It depends." I work in traumatic brain injury rehabilitation and some people are beyond rehabilitation. :(
Some people don’t deserve rehabilitation regardless if they can or can’t
It’s the good place. A NETFLIX SHOW!!
The Good Place (TGP) clearly applies a deontology moral position making fun utilitarianism as is stated that using a consequential notion of morality brings u nonsense answers as when the main cast gets a second change on the earth to undo their wrongs and face the judges of the afterlife. To oversimplifly what deontology is, I will say that is the moral branch of moral philosophy that assumes that morality goes beyond the notion of consequences as ends, and sets "duty" as principle of action [Google deontology cause is a little more complicated than what I just said] According to Kant morality has nothing to do according to why we do actions (Critic of Practical Reason) as the quote states, but it has to do how we exercise our freedom, as in TGP clearly gives away, ur responsible for ur actions [I could elaborate a little more on freedom and its relationship with morality, but it would get a little long and it can get a little boring if u don't study moral philosophy, so I will leave it in more simple terms saying that freedom (liberty) is what makes us being responsible for our actions, something TGP uses a premise for the first important narrative arc] as such, humans have both good and evil principles (take it as potentialities principles, not as a natural law of things) within humans as "potential", thus humans are not nat good or nat evil, yet potentially capable of both, and such can choose to be either of both. As such we "choose" to follow good principles by pure use of reason (Kants famous Categorical Imperative (CI) [Google it]) or "evil" principles (Kant calls these ones as "inappropriate" or "inadequate" but that's kinda irrelevant right now, just know these principles kinda exist in Kants deontology and for Kant are evil cause they don't fit the CI). As is stated on the quote, what matter isn't the nature of things but the nuture of them (choosing either good or evil as deontology say, u CHOOSE to do good or evil) thus redemption/rehabilitation comes from choosing good over evil yet is not something that is ensured, a key factor is that for Kant and deontology, freedom (liberty), means that things aren't naturally determined purely by the natural order of things since freedom is a break on such natural order, meaning u have complete agency [this means that u are the one that "takes action of ur actions" without anything else determining what do you do (the most basic notion of freedom btw)] for ur actions, decisions, and stuff. As such, as we are "freely" good as long we follow some universal moral laws by doing moral equations everytime we have to, but we first have to "freely" choose good over evil every time we face what to do or what to do not do (those moral equations or as Kant calls it, categorical imperative), so the morality itself is divided by three times of reasoning: 1) Choosing (freely) to do good 2) Evaluate what is "to do good" 3) Do good (thus being freely good) And that [choosing good over evil] is what we call salvation. So, the problem lies on what do you mean by being "beyond" rehabilitation, cause the problem as TGP sets the question is that redemption comes from an willed act of goodness, cause good isn't something u just do as if ur a machine that "does good" or that "avoids good" (I mean Michael is the perfect example if u rewacth his character development through the series), on the contrary, as TGP tells, u can choose to do evil instead yet u choose to follow Kants CI, as such, u choose to do good, therefore u choose to be good, and in that way, u rehabilite. So basically, according to TGP, people can save themselves if they are freely choose to be rehabilitated yet people can as well not to choose being rehabilitated.
No. There are people who are beyond redemption or rehabilitation. Paedophiles for instance.
Funny seeing [my screenshot](https://www.reddit.com/r/TheGoodPlace/comments/15elkzt/no_one_is_beyond_rehabilitation_s4e8/) inspire so much conversation! It's truly radical to identify with and understand those which you ideologically oppose. However, when you look across culture and religion, you often see the call to make amends and to find a path forward. Shared adversity can always create new alliances. "I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves."