Breaking Bad and Philosophy Badder Living through Chemistry

by Koepsell, David R.; Arp, Robert

• ISBN13: 9780812697643
• ISBN10: 0812697642
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-07-10
• Publisher: Open Court

Summary

Breaking Bad, hailed by Stephen King, Chuck Klosterman, and many others as the best of all TV dramas, tells the story of a man whose life changes because of the medical death sentence of an advanced cancer diagnosis. The show depicts his metamorphosis from inoffensive chemistry teacher to feared drug lord and remorseless killer. Driven at first by the desire to save his family from destitution, he risks losing his family altogether because of his new life of crime. In defiance of the tradition that viewers demand a TV character who never changes, Breaking Bad is all about the process of change, with each scene carrying forward the morphing of Walter White into the terrible Heisenberg. Can a person be transformed as the result of a few key life choices? Does everyone have the potential to be a ruthless criminal? How will we respond to the knowledge that we will be dead in six months? Is human life subject to laws as remorseless as chemical equations? When does injustice validate brutal retaliation? Why are drug addicts unsuitable for operating the illegal drug business? How can TV viewers remain loyal to a series where the hero becomes the villain? Does Heisenberg’s Principle of Uncertainty rule our destinies? In Breaking Bad and Philosophy, a hand-picked squad of professional thinkers investigate the crimes of Walter White, showing how this story relates to the major themes of philosophy and the major life decisions facing all of us.

Author Biography

David R. Koepsell is Associate Professor of Philosophy, Values and Technology Section, Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. He is the author of numerous books, including Who Owns You? The Corporate Gold Rush to Patent Your Genes (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) and Science and Ethics (Prometheus, 2007). Robert Arp is a philosopher with a doctorate from Saint Louis University. He is the co-author with Jamie Watson of What's Good on TV: Understanding Ethics through Television (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and Philosophy DeMYSTiFiedD (McGraw-Hill, 2011). He is co-editor with Mark White of Batman and Philosophy (Wiley-Blackwell, 2008). He is author of Scenario Visualization (MIT Press, 2008) and author or editor of many other works.

Table of Contents

A Fine Meth We've Gotten Into	p. vii
Analyze This	p. 1
Walt's Rap Sheet	p. 3
Heisenberg's Uncertain Confession	p. 15
Was Skyler's Intervention Ethical? Hell, It Shouldn't Even Be Legal!	p. 27
Equations Must Balance	p. 41
Finding Happiness in a Black Hat	p. 43
Hurtling towards Death	p. 55
Macbeth on Ice	p. 65
There's Meth in My Madness	p. 79
Walter White's Will to Power	p. 81
Better than Human	p. 91
Nothing Here But Chemistry	p. 101
The Riddle of Godfather Gus	p. 103
If Walt's Breaking Bad, Maybe We Are Too	p. 113
I Appreciate the Strategy	p. 125
Now You're Cooking	p. 137
What's So Bad about Meth?	p. 139
It's Arbitrary?	p. 149
Does Cooking Make Walt a Bad Guy?	p. 159
Free Radicals	p. 169
Been through the Desert on a Horse with No Name	p. 171
You're Supposed to Be a Scientist	p. 181
Breaking Bonds	p. 191
Pink, White, and Blue	p. 201
Walter White's American Vice	p. 203
Meth, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness	p. 213
Spontaneous Reactions	p. 223
The Bad Elements	p. 231
Index	p. 237
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