Recovering lost moral ground
can Walt make amends?
pp. 143-160
in: Robert Arp (ed), Philosophy and breaking bad, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
In this chapter, we argue that there are two ways to immunize yourself from accusations of wrongdoing, namely, defenses and excuses, and two ways to recover lost moral ground, namely, correct the record so that no moral ground was lost, or make amends. We argue that Walter White has no excuse for his wrongdoing in Breaking Bad, since he was not immature, or mentally ill, and was not coerced, and that it is not possible to defend him from the most serious accusations of wrongdoing, since these acts were not acts of self-defense or defense of innocent others. Further, we argue that his attempts to correct the record by claiming that he never intended to harm anyone fail, and that he is guilty of bad faith. We conclude by arguing that Walt does recover some moral ground by making amends in his final days, and that he is right to think that it is possible for wrongdoers to recover lost moral ground.