Better Call Saul and Philosophy - (Pop Culture and Philosophy) by Joshua Heter & Brett Coppenger (Paperback)

About the Book

"Better Call Saul and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam is a collection of twenty-three essays exploring the philosophical themes in the hit television show Better Call Saul, a prequel to the TV show Breaking Bad. The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul, with thirteen episodes, began airing in April 2022. The central character is Jimmy McGill, whom we know from Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman. In Better Call Saul he first takes the name of Saul Goodman from the phrase "S'all Good, Man!" Jimmy/Saul is a natural con artist who not only scams from self-interest but also because he enjoys it. He has a strange relationship with his brother, the distinguished lawyer Charles McGill, who resents Jimmy's delinquency and advantage in parental affection. Jimmy/Saul becomes a lawyer for a drug cartel, and most of the people he meets are criminals and other kinds of villains. Like Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul raises a wide range of philosophical issues including the nature of good and evil, personal identity, free will and determinism, the law as it relates to morality, the ethical implications of the war on drugs, death and dying, and many more."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

Better Call Saul
and Philosophy: I Think Therefore I Scam is a collection of twenty-three essays
exploring the philosophical themes in the hit television show Better Call
Saul, a prequel to the TV show Breaking Bad. The sixth and final season of Better Call
Saul aired from April to August 2022.

The central character is Jimmy
McGill, whom we know from Breaking Bad as Saul Goodman. In Better Call Saul he first takes the
name of Saul Goodman from the phrase "S'all Good, Man!" Jimmy/Saul is a natural
con artist who not only scams from self-interest but also because he enjoys it.
He has a strange relationship with his brother, the distinguished lawyer
Charles McGill, who resents Jimmy's delinquency and advantage in parental
affection. Jimmy/Saul becomes a lawyer for a drug cartel, and most of the people
he meets are criminals and other kinds of villains.

Like Breaking Bad, Better
Call Saul raises a wide range of philosophical issues including the nature
of good and evil, personal identity, free will and determinism, the law as it
relates to morality, the ethical implications of the war on drugs, death and
dying, and many more. Better Call Saul and Philosophy offers thoughtful
fans of the show deeper and more provocative insights into the story and the
characters.

Topics covered include: the morality
of keeping promises to wrongdoers, the nature of psychosomatic illness,
difficult moral choices facing lawyers, just how good or bad are some of the
compromised characters in the show, the unintended consequences of the War on
Drugs, the similarities between drug cartels and governments, whether bad
people are just unlucky, the perils of self-deception, and whether we ever
really have much of a choice.

Better Call Saul and Philosophy
is Volume 8 in the path-breaking series, Pop Culture and Philosophy.

Review Quotes

"The landscape of Better Call Saul, where each character is
cultivated with great subtlety and humanity, is fertile ground for focused
examination. This collection is an insightful--and often surprising--look at the
show's big players, how they preen and strive, grow and fail."

--Peter Diseth, a.k.a. DDA Bill Oakley

"This is a great read
and I swear I'm not just saying that because I'm on the show! Like the other books
in this series, Better Call Saul and
Philosophy carries on the tradition of examining the complexity of character
or, in this case, characters. What motivates them? What inspires them?
But, most importantly, what inspires and motivates us to like them? This is a terrific
read for those who have any interest in seemingly decent people doing terribly
unseemly things. You know, like a vet who loves animals but is okay with people
being murdered."

--Joe DeRosa, a.k.a. Dr. Caldera, the
animal-loving vet

https: //www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/3-books-read-better-call-saul-finale.html

About the Author

Brett Coppenger is the co-editor of Intellectual Assurance: Essays on Traditional Epistemic Internalism. He is also a contributing author in Conspiracy Theories: Philosophers Connect the Dots and The Mystery of Skepticism: New Explorations, both titles from Open Court Publishing. Brett is currently an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tuskegee University in Alabama.