"We are responsible to all for all"
an intersubjective analysis of Breaking bad
pp. 217-232
in: Robert Arp (ed), Philosophy and breaking bad, Berlin, Springer, 2017Abstract
In describing the "larger lesson" of Breaking Bad, series creator Vince Gilligan appeals to "karma": every action has a consequence, and each consequence is bound up with a dynamic nexus of other conditions and subsequent causes. Hence, the Buddhist philosophical notion of "dependent arising": all things depend upon, and are the product of, a previous set of conditions. In this chapter I argue that this ontological claim depends on a more fundamental claim about the nature of reality, one that is a feature of thinking in both Eastern and Western philosophical traditions, and that is intersubjectivity. Drawing from the phenomenological insights of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Hegel, Kierkegaard, and Levinas, I provide an intersubjective analysis of the action of Season Two, and why it is, in Dostoyevsky's words, that "we are responsible to all for all."
