Pros And Cons Of Zombies: To Kill Or Not To Kill

Zombies: To Kill or not to Kill

Aneet Bains
Philosophy 106

Zombies are pervasive in our contemporary culture; whether they are terrorizing attractive actors in movies or television shows, or they are being meticulously detailed in comics and books, zombies seem to have invaded the popular mediums of entertainment. To be clear, when I refer to zombies I am alluding to the reanimated undead corpses that are fueled only by their will to eat flesh, preferably human, and have absolutely no rational will or judgment. The assimilation of zombies into our culture has lead to many discussion topics being raised about the moral implications of the imminent “zombie apocalypse”. Besides the obvious question of whether killing zombies is ethical,
It is all done in the name of safety. For the suicidal person, we are trying to keep them safe from themselves, and for the homicidal person, we are trying to keep society safe. Of course, a future zombie is more similar to a homicidal person than a suicidal person, but safety is still the main concern. If the infected person became a zombie, it has the potential to wreak complete havoc on the group and kill many people before someone manages to kill it. For that potential alone, it does not make sense to let a person who has been bitten live for too long. Not to say that anything that has the potential to kill humans should be immediately killed. Bears and mountain lions can have the potential to kill, but that is not what their entire existence is based upon. Animals, though dangerous, have activities and families of their own, and many never interact with a single human their entire life. Also, bears and mountain lions only attack humans if they feel threatened, so the responsibility usually rests on our shoulders to know whether there are dangerous animals in the area we are in. The biggest difference between zombies and dangerous animals is that animals do not walk around hunting for humans to eat, nor is their entire existence predicated on consuming flesh. The fact that they are capable of pain,
The infected group member rationally deciding and willing to have his life taken would be characterized as voluntary active euthanasia, which Brock argues is morally permissible in his essay on Euthanasia. The arguments against this would be of course that is it actually euthanasia or just assisted suicide, and that it is still wrong to take a human being’s life, no matter the circumstance. Addressing the first concern, assisted suicide is illegal in a vast majority of the states and looked upon as morally reprehensible. I believe that is an error in gross generalization, since most people opposed to it consider it to be analogous to murder. Either way, killing an infected person is not assisted suicide, but rather voluntary active euthanasia because suicide implies the person would be killing themselves and euthanasia involves a rational person giving another person the right to end their life. Allowing someone to exercise their autonomy, especially when it does not infringe upon anyone else’s, cannot be considered an unethical or immoral act. Having the ability to make our own decisions is one of the most intrinsically valuable things we have in our lives, and should be protected and promoted at any chance. Letting someone who has been infected by a zombie be euthanized only serves to emphasize autonomy