Part 1, Chapter 3

Schur invites readers to recall times when they used small lies as social excuses. He raises the question of whether these little mistruths are ethical or not. For instance, when deciding whether to tell a friend that we dislike her shirt, a utilitarian <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Literary Device" href="https://www.supersummary.com/perspective/">perspective</a> may suggest that pretending to like the shirt will increase happiness, though it is difficult to be sure. Here, Schur introduces the third major school of moral philosophy: <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Index of Terms" href="https://www.supersummary.com/how-to-be-perfect/index-of-terms/#552446">deontology</a>. According to deontological ethics, certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of consequences. The most prominent figure in this school of thought is German philosopher <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Character" href="https://www.supersummary.com/how-to-be-perfect/key-figures/#552412">Immanuel Kant</a>. Kant’s most famous argument, known as the categorical imperative, suggests that people should only act in a way that they would wish for everyone else to act. Under this consideration, lying is wrong because a world in which everyone lies would be chaotic and destructive. According to Kant, the <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Literary Device" href="https://www.supersummary.com/motivation/">motivation</a> for acting morally should be a sense of duty to such universal rules, not any particular emotion. A second key tenet of Kant’s <a data-internal-link data-link-type="Index of Terms" href="https://www.supersummary.com/how-to-be-perfect/index-of-terms/#552443">categorial imperative</a> is that people should always be viewed as ends, not used as a means to accomplish something else.

Part 1, Chapter 3 Summary: “Should I Lie and Tell My Friend I Like Her Ugly Shirt?”

Part 1, Chapter 4

Part 1, Chapter 4 Summary: “Do I Have to Return My Shopping Cart to the Shopping Cart Rack Thingy? I Mean…It’s All the Way Over There.”

Part 1, Chapter 3-4

Part 1, Chapter 3-4 Analysis

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “In Which We Learn Various Theories About How to Be Good People From the Three Main Schools of Western Moral Philosophy That Have Emerged Over the Last 2,400 Years, Plus a Bunch of Other Cool Stuff, All in Like Eighty Pages”

Introduction-Part 1, Chapter 2

How to Be Perfect Introduction-Part 1, Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Part 1, Chapters 3-4

How to Be Perfect Part 1, Chapters 3-4 Summary & Analysis

Part 2: “In Which We Take Everything We’ve Learned, and We Start Asking Some Tougher Questions, and We Use the Stuff We’ve Learned to Try to Answer Them, and We Also Learn a Bunch More Cool Stuff”

Part 2, Chapters 5-8

How to Be Perfect Part 2, Chapters 5-8 Summary & Analysis

Part 3: “In Which Things Get Really Tough, but We Power Through and Complete Our Journeys, Becoming Perfectly Virtuous and Flourishing Deontologically Pure Happiness-Generating Super-People, and Also There’s a Chapter With Some Cursing in It, but It’s for a Good Reason”

How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question

Part 1, Chapters 3-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1: “In Which We Learn Various Theories About How to Be Good People From the Three Main Schools of Western Moral Philosophy That Have Emerged Over the Last 2,400 Years, Plus a Bunch of Other Cool Stuff, All in Like Eighty Pages”

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