Zombie-killing, morally right or wrong?

By: Elizabeth Pearl

Posted: 10/15/09

For centuries, humans have puzzled over life's many unsolved questions: "Why are we here? What is the meaning of life?" and now, with a wave of zombie-slaying movies entering theaters, "Is it morally acceptable to kill an elderly woman if she is trying to eat me?"

Zombie movies have been a part of cinema culture since the 1930s. According to visionszombielist.com, over 1200 of them have been made since then. The most recent, "Zombieland," appears to be much the same as the rest: a group of humans must destroy as many of these creatures as possible in order to survive.

But if a zombie attack to really happen, many of us might find ourselves questioning our abilities to kill these creatures, asking whether or not they have feelings, or are still our friends, neighbors, and loved ones. Could we kill them guilt-free, or is zombie murder a terrible crime?

Zombies seem to lack consciousness, or what is broadly referred to as the soul. This lack of self-awareness could mean that to kill them would be equivalent to killing a rock, but according to Luis Espinasa, an associate professor of biology, "You do not need consciousness to feel pain." Dogs, for example, are widely believed to also lack consciousness, or soul. And yet despite this deficiency, dogs can feel pain; a lack of self-awareness is not equivalent to a lack of feeling. Therefore, Espinasa concluded, "It would be inhumane to kill a zombie because zombies without consciousness still feel pain."

Then if zombies are lacking in this self-awareness and control, can they be held accountable for the crimes they commit? Or is killing them like killing animals? Beth Quinn, an associate professor of psychology, said that the person who becomes the zombie "is not responsible because the person is not really there." The zombie is no longer a human, according to Quinn, and it therefore is not accountable for itself. Like the criminally insane, zombies cannot be given responsibility for their actions, but they certainly should not be allowed to run free, she said.

God, however, might not feel the same way about the zombies' unconscious innocence. Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies Henry Pratt argued that from a religious perspective, zombies might be considered an "unholy abomination." After all, vampires are defeated with holy water and crosses, seeming to suggest, as Pratt stated, "that there is something about vampires that is sinful." Zombies, with their similar thirst for human flesh, might fall under the same category in God's book.

If this is the case, and zombies are nothing more than dead, blood-thirsty bodies, another issue is that of possible corpse abuse. These creatures are akin to the bodies of former human beings, after all, and smashing their heads in might be considered a crime like grave robbing. Pratt believes that "it's morally obligatory to kill zombies. It's a requirement like saving a drowning child or giving to charity." However, he continued, "you're obligated to kill zombies, but you're also obligated to kill zombies in a way that fully respects their status as former human beings." But, he reaffirmed, they must be killed in order that they will stop killing.

Zombie genocide could prove more complex than that. If confronted with the possibility of having to kill family members or friends turned undead cannibal, people could suffer psychological damage. In fact, Quinn said that "the whole notion of killing anything is contrary to human beings." She believed that a human's mental ability to kill these zombies would depend on whether or not they can grasp the idea that the zombie is no longer a friend or loved one, it is a killer. She said that, "We have a tremendous capacity to do what we need to do to live," in our evolutionary hardwiring, and that killing something that is trying to harm you is "morally appropriate."

Pratt, however, felt that severe psychological trauma could occur from murdering former companions, and that, most likely, a few heroes would rise up to commit numerous zombie murders, when others found themselves unable. But, Pratt counters, the problem with this is that, "if it's easier to off a zombie who you aren't familiar with, that runs the risk of trivializing human life. What does that do to [the zombie slayer's] attitudes toward living people?" The hero could lose his or her sense of value of human life, and start to become the monster.

So if such a long list of horrible possibilities clings to the idea of a zombie world, why do we love zombie movies so much? Dr. Paula Willoquet-Maricondi, Chair of the Media Arts Department, said that violence speaks to a human's most fundamental drives; violent movies "appeal because we act out our own violent impulses without committing violence." Zombie movies, she said, remain popular because, "they deal with a threat we know not to be real. Zombies are not like real people. They're an easy target." There are no zombie rights groups to protest these movies or make us feel guilty, so we project our deepest animal urges onto them- for now, anyway.

Whether zombies are misunderstood, trapped souls of family members or creatures of death and destruction, as long as they keep dying onscreen, we will keep watching. Let's just hope these fantasies don't become realities. Zombie-slaying morality could become a controversial topic if it ever took effect in the real world - one more thing for Democrats and Republicans to argue about.