Bannon

Yes, this is why moral debates are important; to illuminate, via reason, false moral assertions which are primarily motivated by self interest.

If you and your spouse have done what Kim and Saul have done, it's not even close. Turning yourself in is the only ethical choice. I'll avoid a debate in this forum about your assertions pertaining to the economic activity of the citizens of the United States.

I know you confidently believe this. I'll humbly suggest that the evidence which would lend support to that confidence is more sparse than you think.

Now you are misinterpteting me. The sentence "x is a shitty person" is not synonymous with "x has chosen to be a shitty person". If you are contending that there is a real conumdrum, as to which is ethically worse, inflicting huge pain on Cheryl, or forcing yourself and your husband Saul Goodman to be held accountable for your deliberately hideous behavior, we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Sure, I understand why Jimmy chose his path, and I've said several times that different stimuli, most importantly in the form of a truly supportive brother, might have resulted in rather different behaviors from Jimmy. In the end, however, we are only left with what Jimmy did choose, and the undeniable fact that many people, when faced with circumstances every bit as unfavorable as Jimmy's, made ethically superior choices.

Being asked to make ethical choices in no way resembles being able to physically survive swimming in the open sea. I am truly puzzled by this analogy.

To be an ethical person will nearly always entail being asked to do very difficult things. Everyone fails at some point. Some rise to the challenge more consistently than others.

He was more than an A-hole. Jimmy overheard him blatantly bragging about cheating his clients by churning their accounts; that's how Jimmy knew how to play him. The brilliance in this writing is how, over several years, it has shown how making cheap moral rationalizations can, over time, start small, and then grow into something hugely monstrous. Jimmy starts with cheating greedy, dishonest, A-holes he meets in bars, for relatively small stakes. Saul will end up participating in schemes that destroy thousands of innocent lives, including a young boy on a bicycle.

Never said or implied it was easy. The fact remains that some people choose, sometimes without 2nd thought, to do the hard thing, and some of them have had disadvantages every bit as significant as Kim's or Jimmy's.

I'm not an expert, but I'd be shocked if her behavior with regard to Mesa Verde didn't constitute criminal fraud/deprivation of honest services, and because it entailed Mesa Verde's operations in multiple states, it likely rose to a Federal offense Beyond legality, I think it's been a little undrerappreciated how ethically awful her Mesa Verde behavior was. It's good writing to make Mesa Verde Kevin a somewhat tediously pompous ass, because it supplies an easy rationalization to Kim, but, no, blatantly cheating someone isn't less terrible if the cheated is a tedious pompous ass.

Every discussion of ethics ultimately is reduced to whether free will exists or not. Nobody can empirically answer that question with confidence, but what can be empirically established is that humans respond to incentives, and a society in whuch it is agreed that there is no free will would have awful incentives, with awful outcomes. Sure, external stimuli affect human behavior, but two individuals can receive the exact stimuli, and behave entirely differently, with an entirely different ethical component, in response. Organizing society as if indivuduals have agency, choose their behaviors, and thus can ethically be made to experience the consequences of those choices, pròduces an incentive structure that serves society in a far better manner.

Yes, in other words, Kim, like so many in this universe, deliberately chooses to be a shitty human being.

What's inappropriate about voicing displeasure at the man who vandalized your dead husband's car, and did other things to harrass him, lied about doing so, never atoned for that behavior, and now is pretending none of that happened, as he expresses condolences?

Jimmy has the option of doing the right thing as well. Cliff does appear to be pretty much a dim bulb in this episode, apparently not even curious enough to follow up with Howard's assistant with regard to how the contact number for the PI firm was changed. I don't know where the writers are going to go with this now, and if they don't take it any further, this episode provided enough weight to the consequence of Howard's murder to not affect my enjoyment of the story. Having said that, if they leave it here, I will kind of see it, in terms of a rare instance of weaker plotting by these writers, like I saw Walt being able to have the Aryans simulteaneously assassinate multiple witnesses in multiple prisons in multiple states. Cheryl's an intelligent woman, a doctor or lawyer herself, I believe. She thinks the story of Howard's drug addiction is a lie. Certainly she would realize that Howard's hair, in his hair brush at home, or even recovered from the Jag, would establish that it was extremely unlikely that Howard was a drug addict. Like I said, they've given sufficient weight, in terms of consequences, to Howard's murder, to make it work for me, and when the end of a very long story like this is in sight, it can be hard to resolve everything in the time available. Not the most airtight plotting they've done, however.

The biggest factor is that Cheryl doesn't believe Howard was a drug addict, and any intelligent person who kept up on such things (and I think Cheryl is a lawyer or doctor herself) would know that hair samples taken from his hair brush, or, hell, the Jag, would establish that it was almost impossible that Howard was a drug addict. I dunno if the writers are going to do anything with that, and if they don't, there's enough in this episode for me to give weight to the consequence to Howard's murder, but I kind of see this the same way I saw how credible it was that Walt could have the Aryans carry out simulteaneous witness assassinations in multiple prisons in several states. It doesn't ruin anything for me, but it's a rare instance of some weaker plotting.

That's not the standard for what constitutes ethically acceptable behavior. That's a rationalization people frequently employ in order to justify not doing what is ethically demanded.

Kim had all sorts of choices. She could go to the Feds, and tell everything she knows, which is quite a bit, in return for witness protection (especially since she doesn't want to practice law anyways). The Feds don't know Lalo is dead; they'd see her eyewitness account of Lalo murdering Howard as being extremely valuable. She could tell them of a house where she was ordered to travel to, to kill someone who answered the door. That blows the cover that Gus has constructed as charitable businessman; why does a drug capo want the person who answers the door killed? Who is this Mike Ehrmantraut? Kim still has plenty of opportunity to do what is right. She just doesn't want to.

Cheryl doesn't believe Howard was addicted. The fact that he is being portrayed this way, to the point that cocaine was all over the interior of the Jag, raises her suspicion. Cheryl thinks something terrible has been done to Howard, even if she can't put her finger on the details.

Yeah, I really disagree with the conclusion that, from observing one cold interaction, in the morning, before someone departs to work, that Howard was dead to Cheryl. Marriages end, and people are often cold as they are ending. That doesn't necessarily, or even most of the time, mean that the person displaying coldness has lost all affection for the other party. What I saw at the HHM gathering was an angry woman who doesn't believe that her husband was a drug addict who committed suicide, and the fact that she no longer wanted to be in the marriage doesn't mean she can't be genuinely enraged that Howard had something morally awful visited upon him.

I vehemently disagree about any benefit offered to Cheryl through "closure", by lying to her, thus making it seem as if Cheryl didn't see signs of Howard being in the throes of a terrible addiction problem.

To each their own, of course, but when somebody has that many lines and scenes, and they're horrible, the rest of it doesn't matter. I stop watching, because it's a big world, with other stuff to do.

I truly don't understand why someone would watch dozens of episodes of a drama, over many years, while thinking that one of the two or three most significant characters was being portrayed by a horrible actor.

An excellent example of how your children are their own agents, and how even the best parenting efforts don't always result in good outcomes.

I disagree that she only cares about Jimmy. She's not a sociopath, incapable of moral reasoning. Her entire good bye speech to Jimmy is an expression of guilt for the harm inflicted upon undeserving others. She's still unwilling to acknowledge, however, that feeling guilty, changing her career and ending her marriage is not enough, to atone for what she's done. She still hasn't taken responsibility, really.

Yeah neither one of them is a psychopath or sociopath. That's what makes their awful behavior interesting. They actually DO know better.