Why could Doug Forcett earn points?

Question

After Janet and Michael accidentally revealed the nature of the Afterlife to Chidi, Elinor, Jason, and Tahani, Michael stated that their newfound knowledge meant that they could no longer earn any points towards entry to the Good Place because any positive action they took would be corrupted by the fact that they were doing it in an effort to get into the Good Place.

However, Michael later visits Doug Forcett, who discovered how the point system works in 1972 and has been trying to live an extremely good life in the interim. He's revealed to have 520,000 points and was briefly deemed by Michael to be a possible prototype for how to get people into the Afterlife, in spite of the fact that all of his actions are explicitly motivated by a desire to get into the Good Place (edit: or, at least, to avoid going to the Bad Place; whether that distinction is relevant is actually a fascinating question in and of itself).

Why was he able to continue to earn points after 1972?

Answer 1

It's a good question. While I've already forgotten this particular part of the show (other parts I just can't forget because of this se site. Lol), I think the bottom line is that Doug didn't get extra dimensional/supernatural/divine confirmation the way main characters did.

I figure it's like actual Heaven and Hell in, say, Christianity. Consider the parable The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31). The rich man goes to Hell (or purgatory?) and has much regret, but it's not like the rich man didn't already know about Heaven and Hell. (Of course this is the opposite outcome of Doug. Doug goes to Heaven, but the rich man went to Hell [or purgatory?].)

Edit:

The explanation in the first episode was that Doug got high one day and told his friend what he thought the afterlife would be like, getting it 92% correct, much higher than anyone else in history. This is still effectively a lucky guess though so definitely falls into "belief" rather than "certainty". – Princess Ada

Answer 2

All of his actions are explicitly motivated by a desire to get into the Good Place.

I disagree:

1. When old, he only mentioned that he does not want to risk going to The Bad Place;
2. Not wanting to go to The Bad Place ≠ being greedy to enter The Good Place;
3. Being greedy to enter The Good Place → always bad. Wanting to avoid The Bad Place → usually not bad.

Answer 3

The distinction is that Chidi, Elinor, Jason, and Tahani couldn't know about the afterlife because they were on trial to prove that they were genuinely good people who deserved to be in the Good Place. That was the rule set in place by the Judge and Shawn*. Likewise, this was also the rule set in place when they were trying to recreate the Good Place experiment with new humans.

Doug Forcett was not on trial so he didn't have to follow that rule.

Under normal circumstances, motivation doesn't seem to actually be a determining factor for how one accumulates points in The Good Place. One example in a later season compares two people, a medieval peasant who picked flowers for his mother and a modern day man who bought flowers for his mother.

The peasant got positive points because he did a good thing by making his mom happy. The modern day man got positive points for the same thing, but then received many more negative points because the money he bought the flowers with went to a large corporation which pollutes the planet.

Their intent and mindset where not taken in to consideration. The only thing that mattered was the outcome that there actions brought about.

*If I remember right, it was Shawn who brought this up. Potentially to make it more difficult to win the trial, and he knew Michael is too much of a coward to speak up and argue.