timothya
Posts: 280
Joined: April 2013
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Barry's Inconsequentialism at UD:
| Quote | | Walter White is a consequentialist. Over the course of the show he justifies every evil act by appeals to a “greater good” that will result from the evil he commits. Producing illegal meth? How else is he going to get enough money to leave his family a little nest egg? Killing a captured drug dealer? I have to kill him to cover my tracks and provide for my family. By the end of the show Walt has committed numerous murders and even poisoned a young boy to further his own selfish ends, and every step of the way he says he is going it “for the family.” |
Is Barry really this obtuse? He is describing a character who is the opposite of a consequentialist. Drug dealing concentrates wealth in the hands of the dealer by spreading misery as widely as possibly among the addicted. What "greater good" is Walter pursuing? Even the benefit of his family doesn't stack up against the loss of benefit amongst his clientele.
If he wants to use analogies to argue for his sectarian brand of morality, Barry would do well at least to get them right.
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"In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread." Anatole France
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