Brett Coppenger is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Tuskegee University. He co-edited Intellectual Assurance (2016) and contributed chapters to Conspiracy Theories: Philosophers Connect the Dots (2020) and Arrested Development and Philosophy: They've Made a Huge Mistake (2012).

Contents

It's Showtime, Folks! 000

I Slippin' Jimmy with a law degree is like a chimp with a machine gun 000

1. Scamming for Fun

Patrick Clipsham 000

2. Don't Go to Lawyers for Moral Guidance

Shane J. Ralston 000

3. Can It Be Right to Defend the Guilty?

Daniel Cook 000

4. Better Call the DEA?

Amy E. White 000

II You can be on one side of the law or the other 000

5. The Sovereign State of Salamanca

Walter Barta and Thomas Paul Barnes, Esq. 000

6. The Morality of Mike's Manifesto

Jakob R. Gibson and Tobias T. Gibson 000

7. Saul Goodman Stands before the Law

E.F. Haven 000

III Put on your big boy pants and face reality 000

8. Self-Hatred as Identity

Conall Cash 000

9. The Prequel versus Free Will

Landon Frim 000

10. Slippin' Identity

Kristina ?ekrst 000

11. The Self-Deception Road

Darci Doll 000

IV Confidence is good?facts on your side, better 000

12. A Cave of His Own Making

Timothy J. Golden 000

13. Chuckrates v. The Saulphists

Walter Barta and Thomas Paul Barnes, Esq. 000

14. Salvaging Sunk Costs

Joshua Heter 000

15. Saul's Bullshit's Not All Good, Man

Joshua Luczak 000

16. Better Call Saul Because Chuck's Condition Is Real

Amber E. George 000

V See, that's your problem?thinking the ends justify the means 000

17. Is Morality for Suckers?

Abe Witonsky 000

18. Dissenting Opinions

Callie K. Phillips 000

19. Can We Blame Jimmy for Being Jimmy?

Daniel Carr 000

20. Why Is Breaking Skateboarder's Legs Wrong?

J. Spencer Atkins 000

VI Never make the same mistake twice 000

21. Finding the Good in Nacho

James Rocha 000

22. Breaking Bad Promises

F.E. Guerra-Pujol 000

23. Why Does Jimmy Get to Determine Chuck's Healthcare?

James Clark Ross 000

Bibliography 000

The Hostile Witnesses 000

Index 000

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.