Human Beings, Vampires, Zombies, Pigs, and Fools
As neither of the main views regarding the badness of death is able to account for the badness of Undeath or to explain why Undeath is generally considered to be a worse state of affairs than death, we’ll shift our focus to an account of the badness of Undeath that focuses directly on the state of being Undead. Since death is thought by philosophers to be an experiential blank, accounts of the badness of death can’t focus on the qualitative aspects of death; that is, they can’t focus on the way death feels. If death is an experiential blank, it doesn’t feel like anything. Undeath, however, is not an experiential blank. Perhaps the key to identifying the badness of Undeath has to do with the qualitative aspects of Undeath—the way that being Undead feels.
It’s not obvious that being Undead feels bad, in itself. As I stated above, vampires are able to have a variety of positive experiences, and it’s quite possible that zombies derive great amounts of pleasure from eating human flesh and brains. That being said, it is possible to suppose of some beings that don’t experience bad feelings such as pain that one still wouldn’t desire to have their experiences. This would hold true whenever the beings under consideration had experiences that are generally less desirable than the experiences that one typically has. John Stuart Mill said, famously, “It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied. And if the fool, or the pig, are of a different opinion, it is because they only know their own side of the question.”6 According to this line of reasoning, even though pigs don’t necessarily have bad experiences from their own perspective—they appear to enjoy lounging in the sty and slopping around in the mud—it would be bad to be a pig in comparison to being a human being. Similarly, one might argue that, while vampires and zombies are capable of positive experiences, their experiences, when compared to the experiences of human beings, are less desirable. Hence it is bad to be a vampire or a zombie.
There are a few problems with this move. First, if successful, this argument only serves to explain why being a zombie is a bad thing. Zombies are clearly lower “life” forms. There is not a whole lot of cognitive activity going on with zombies. Vampires, on the other hand, are frequently portrayed as being quite intelligent, and having a wide range of experiences that humans don’t have, such as turning into a bat or a wolf. It is not implausible to suppose that vampiric experiences are more desirable (even from a human perspective) than human experiences. It would appear that the pig analogy just does not hold between humans and vampires. A second and deeper worry about this argument is that it doesn’t maintain that Undeath is an objectively bad state. At best it establishes that Undeath is bad when compared to certain alternatives, such as being a living human. Here I want to make a distinction between a state’s being objectively bad as opposed to its being comparatively bad. A state is objectively bad when features of that state are bad in virtue of either some qualitative aspect of that state, such as feeling pain or being depressed, or when there is some good lacking in that state that one would not lack under normal circumstances, such as vision or hearing. A state is comparatively bad when it has less total goodness than some other state one might find oneself in. Those who have the intuition that it would be bad to be a zombie or a vampire don’t think this because they are comparing it with being a normal living human. In other words, Undeath is not bad because it is thought to be comparatively bad (even though it may well be comparatively bad). Rather, they believe that there is something objectively bad about being Undead, in the same way people think there is something objectively bad about being in pain.
Here an analogy might be useful. If I am battered by some thug on the street, with the result that I suffer a broken leg, I am in a bad state because I have a broken leg. It is objectively bad to have a broken leg. On the other hand, if the thug robs me, with the result that I am left with $6,984.00 in assets, I am only comparatively worse off than before. Having $6,984.00 in total assets is not in and of itself a bad state to be in. Many persons would be happy to be in that state.
A third worry about this line of reasoning is that it doesn’t account for the fact that most people would prefer death to Undeath. Almost everyone, if given a choice between being a pig or being dead, would choose to be a pig. Similarly, this argument generates the result that it is better to be Undead than dead. It may well turn out to be the case that Undeath is preferable to death, but a satisfactory account of the badness of Undeath can’t yield that result. An argument to the effect that Undeath as a state is preferable to death as a state is for all intents and purposes an argument for the view that Undeath is not bad, since death as a state is essentially neutral.
Evil, All Too Evil
One source of the badness of Undeath that we’ve not yet considered is the fact that the Undead are evil, or, at minimum, perform acts that we tend to view as evil. Vampires and zombies do unspeakable things: they eat human flesh, they drink blood, they destroy property, they maim, they kill, and they cavort with the dregs of hell. The fact that people don’t like to imagine themselves doing such things serves to explain why Undeath is generally regarded as being worse than death. Most people would rather be dead than to become some monster that might potentially kill a loved one or burn down their own village. So we’ve satisfied one of our two criteria that a successful argument for the badness of Undeath must fulfill: we’ve explained why Undeath is generally regarded as being worse than death. We now must consider whether the fact that the Undead are evil (or do things that are generally regarded as evil) entails that Undeath is bad.
It doesn’t follow from the fact that people view certain behaviors as evil that those behaviors are evil. Nor does it follow from the fact that people view certain states as bad that they are bad. As a matter of logic, premises in arguments that refer to people’s attitudes don’t by themselves lead to conclusions about what is objectively the case. For example, from the fact that many people at one time believed that the earth was at the center of the universe, it did not follow that the earth was in fact at the center of the universe. So the fact that people don’t like to see themselves doing things they regard as evil doesn’t mean that it is bad to be the sort of being that does those things.
Still, the brute fact that vampires and zombies behave in bad ways (regardless of how we view them) may account for the badness of being Undead. In other words, we need to consider the possibility that the objective badness of Undeath can be accounted for by the actions and nature of Undead beings. Recall that a state is considered to be objectively bad when it either contains some qualitative badness or it lacks some good thing which one would not normally lack. We’ve already dismissed the argument that being Undead involves being in a qualitatively bad state, so let’s consider the possibility that being Undead involves lacking some good thing which one would not ordinarily lack.
Behaving in good ways is generally held by moral philosophers to be a good thing. Some philosophers value performing good acts because of the consequences they bring. Others value good acts because they believe that good acts have intrinsic value—they are valued purely for their own sake. So if being a vampire or a zombie involves lacking goodness in general or lacking the ability to perform good acts, then it seems that being a vampire or a zombie is a bad thing, in virtue of lacking something of value that one would not ordinarily lack.
Notice, however, that any number of creatures may be viewed as lacking goodness or the ability to perform good acts. Crickets, for example, are not able to do good deeds. Yet we don’t consider it objectively bad to be a cricket (though for most people it is comparatively bad). The reason it is not objectively bad to be a cricket is because the ability to perform good deeds is not something that crickets ordinarily have. The important thing to note here is that one can’t discuss things that are ordinarily experienced (or one can’t discuss lacking things that are ordinarily experienced) without relativizing the discussion to a p
articular kind of thing. It’s bad for human beings to lack vision, since it is something we ordinarily have, but it’s not bad for bats to lack vision. Conversely, it’s bad for bats to lack sonar, but not bad for humans to lack sonar. Thus lacking goodness or the ability to perform good acts would point to an objectively bad feature of being a vampire or a zombie if and only if being good or being able to perform good acts is a feature that vampires or zombies usually have. Of course vampires by nature are not good and are compelled to do evil things (it’s part of their being cursed or damned), and zombies are hard-wired to be flesh-and brain-eating predators. One might object that humans are good and upon becoming Undead begin to lack these goods that they ordinarily have otherwise. This, however, only points to a comparative badness. Presumably the person who is committed to the view that it is bad to be Undead would hold that even for an inanimate object (such as a rock) that suddenly gets transformed into a vampire, there is still objective badness, in virtue of the evil acts the vampire would perform. It would appear then that we can’t account for the badness of being a vampire or zombie by appealing to the fact that they are evil or do things that we generally consider to be evil.
Not to Put Too Fine a Point on It
Let’s take stock of our discussion. We’ve been attempting to do two things: explain why Undeath is generally regarded as a worse state than death, and answer the question of why Undeath is bad for the person who is Undead. We’ve succeeded on one count: Undeath is generally regarded as a worse state than death because of attitudes people have toward evil things. People don’t like to see themselves as potentially performing evil acts or bringing misery to their loved ones and neighbors. We’ve not, however, been able to satisfactorily answer the question as to why Undeath is bad for the person who is Undead. The badness of Undeath couldn’t be accounted for in terms of the things that make death bad, it could not be accounted for by focusing on the qualitative aspects of Undeath, nor could it be accounted for by appealing to specific properties that Undead beings possess (such as having an evil nature or being compelled to perform bad acts). Thus we have no alternative but to reject the claim that it is bad (in the objective sense) to be Undead. This of course doesn’t mean that one should run out and join the legions of hell. Being Undead may well be bad in comparison to being a human being. On the other hand, if one finds oneself sleeping in a coffin, drinking blood, shape-shifting into a bat or a wolf, or clawing one’s way out of a grave in hopes of dining on fresh brains tartar, one might as well try to make the best of it. It could be worse, blah.7
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Res Corporealis: Persons, Bodies, and Zombies
WILLIAM S. LARKIN
The highpoint of horror in Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead has to be when little Karen Cooper, newly Undead, proceeds to devour her father’s arm and lay waste to her mother with a trowel. There is something uniquely disturbing about an innocent child turning into a brutal flesh-eating monster. Scenes like this unearth intuitions that bear significantly on the philosophical problem of personal identity. In particular, zombie movies provide a distinctive blend of terror and tragedy that helps reanimate the view that persons are most fundamentally corporeal objects.
Persons
The philosophical problem of personal identity is to determine what, most fundamentally, creatures like us are. We can say that creatures like us are essentially persons, but that just gives us the label and not the explanation we are looking for. The question becomes, “What exactly is a person?” Or better: “Under what conditions exactly does a person continue to exist?” Is a human body lying in a coma a person? Is a human body lying in a casket a person? It is tempting to respond to such questions with something like, “Well, it depends on what we mean by ‘person.’” That’s exactly right; and that’s just what we are trying to figure out. We are trying to determine just what we mean when we say that something is a person. The point of philosophy is not to figure out what we should say about extraordinary cases given the various things we might mean by certain terms. The point is rather to use what we are spontaneously inclined to say about extraordinary cases to figure out what we do mean even in perfectly ordinary cases by those terms. I want to consider the extraordinary case of the walking dead to figure out just what we mean by person.
René “I think therefore I am” Descartes is famous for ultimately holding the view that a person is fundamentally a res cogitans—a thinking thing, a certain kind of mind. But he tells us earlier that when he first applied himself to the “consideration of (his) being” what most naturally sprang up in his mind was the following:I considered myself as having a face, hands, arms, and all the system of members composed of bones and flesh as seen in a corpse which I designated by the name of body.8
On this alternative view a person is fundamentally a res corporealis —a bodily thing, a certain kind of material object. Here in Descartes we have the two competing views on personal identity that I want to consider.9
The view that a person is fundamentally a certain type of thinking thing takes a psychological approach to personal identity. This view claims that a particular person continues to exist so long as her thoughts, memories, character traits, and so forth continue to exist. Granted, one’s mind changes from moment to moment; still, there is a clear sense of psychological continuity when a human being at some later stage has all the thoughts that it does precisely because some earlier stage had all the thoughts it did. On the psychological approach, psychological continuity is both necessary and sufficient for personal identity. Psychological continuity is necessary in the sense that if there were a permanent break in psychological continuity, then a perview son would cease to exist: A person could not survive, for example, in a permanent vegetative state in which she has irretrievably lost all higher brain function and all of the psychological contents and capacities that go with it. Psychological continuity is sufficient in the sense that if there were no break in psychological continuity, then a person would survive no matter what else might happen: a person could in principle survive, for example, in a nuts-and-bolts robot body with a supercomputer brain into which all of her particular psychological contents and dispositions were downloaded.
The view that a person is fundamentally a certain type of material object takes a bodily approach to personal identity. This view claims that a particular person continues to exist so long as some critical mass of her material composition does. Granted, one’s body changes from moment to moment; still, there is a clear sense of bodily continuity when a human being at some later stage has all the physical traits that it does precisely because some earlier stage had all the traits it did. On the bodily approach, bodily continuity is both necessary and sufficient for personal identity. Bodily continuity is necessary in the sense that if there were a permanent break in bodily continuity, then a person would cease to exist: A person could not survive, on the bodily view, in a nuts-and-bolts robot body. Bodily continuity is sufficient in the sense that if there were no break in bodily continuity, then a person would survive no matter what else might happen: A person could survive, on the bodily view, in a permanent vegetative state. A person could even survive on the bodily view as a relatively intact corpse—the kind of corpse that might be able to get up and lumber around in search of living flesh.
Bodies
I want to argue for the bodily approach to personal identity over the psychological approach.10 But before I try to disinter the intuitions that I think support the bodily view, I need to do some ground clearing. I think it is fair to say that the predominant view among ordinary folk and philosophers alike is that some form of the psychological approach to personal identity is correct. In this section I want to weaken the intuitive appeal of that consensus position and motivate the appeal to zombie films that will occupy the rest of the chapter.
The main positive support for the psychological approach comes from the fairly widespread and strongly held intuition that a person could “switch bodies.” The idea star
ted when John Locke imagined a cobbler waking up in a prince’s body, distinctly perceiving his royal surroundings but clearly remembering his humble past. In an updated version we can imagine a successful cerebral transplant, where a patient wakes up in a new healthy body with memories of her agonizing decision over whether to submit to this new fangled procedure or live out her few remaining days in a body dying of some debilitating disease. Concerning these cases, most people claim that a person will follow her memories, thoughts, and character into a “new” body. If psychological continuity is sufficient, as the psychological approach contends, then that is exactly what will happen. But if bodily continuity is necessary, as the bodily approach contends, then the person will stay with the “old” body while the other body would get a “new” psychology.
I don’t think this body-switching intuition settles the issue in favor of the psychological view. First of all, it’s a single case, and there might be something funny going on; like a deep-seated survival instinct clouding our metaphysical intuitions. Second, and more importantly I think, one can see through these cases rather easily. It is pretty easy to see what the psychological approach should say about the case. Thus we may be “finding” in these cases just the intuition that we want to find. In other words, philosophically contrived cases are apt to give us biased intuitive data. Instead of people genuinely reacting the way they would were the case real, they may simply be figuring out what the view they unreflectively hold ought to say about the case. It would be better if we could tap into our more natural and spontaneous intuitions, which are at least less likely to be biased by prior theoretical commitments.
Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy Page 3
