Let the Right One In (novel and movies)
libertarian political philosophy
life, as context-sensitive
Locke, John
Lomasky, Loren
Louis (vampire)
The Lost Boys (movie)
Lost Skeleton of Cadavra
Louis (vampire) as morally accountable
Love at First Bite (movie)
Lugosi, Bela
Malloy, David (character)
Malthus, Reverend Thomas Robert (vampire)
Marcuse, Herbert on civilization and instincts on nonrepressive civilization
Martin Heidegger and the Holocaust
Masters of Horror (TV series)
materialism, and zombies
Medusa
metaphysical dualism
metaphysics
metrosexual
Meyer, Stephenie Twilight
Meyers, Michael
Mill, John Stuart
mind, materialist theories of
mind-brain identity theories
Mises, Ludwig von
Mohammad, K. Silem
moral accountability
moral agency, conditions for
moral consistency
moral personhood and vampires
moral responsibility: and empathy and free choice
Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls 3 (video game)
motives, noninstrumental
Nagel, Thomas
Nietzsche, Friedrich
“nietzsche26”
A Nightmare on Elm Street (movie)
Night of the Living Dead (movie) Ben in bureaucratization in communitarian position in individualist position in Mr. Cooper in
Nimoy, Leonard
nonconceptual truths
nonrepressive civilization, possibility of
Nosferatu
Nosferatu (movie)
Nozick, Robert
Nussbaum, Martha C.
Olivier, Lawrence
ontology
“other minds” problem
Outer Limits (TV show)
pagan imagery, Christian appropriation of
pantheism
Paole, Arnold
Parfit, Derek (mortal)
Patric, Jason
Pearl, Bill
Pegasus
personal identity: bodily approach to and idea of switching bodies problem of psychological approach to
Pet Sematary (novel and movie)
Pfeiffer, Michelle
phenomenal zombies
philosophical zombies as amoral and consciousness and materialism mental abilities of and qualia and thought experiments about brains versus Hollywood zombies. See also zombies
Pickering, Bill
Pico della Mirandola, Giovanni
Pirates of the Caribbean (movie)
Pitt, Brad
Plato on beauty
pleasure and pain: as bodily or mental higher and lower
pleonexia
political philosophy
Polley, Sarah
Preacher (comic book)
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (novel)
property dualism
psychological continuity, degrees of
Pythagoras, on beauty
qualia
Queen of the Damned (movie)
Rachel (character)
Ramsland, Katherine: Piercing the Darkness
Rasmussen, Douglas, B.
Rawls, John
Reiniger, Scott
religious taboos, function of
Renfield (character)
Replicants
res cogitans
res corporealis
Resident Evil (movie and video games)
Return of the Living Dead (movie)
return of the repressed
revenants
Rice, Anne Interview with the Vampire The Vampire Chronicles The Vampire Lestat
Rice, Jeff: The Night Stalker
robots
Rodriguez, Michelle
Romero, George Dead films —on civilization—and Freudian theory—individualism/communitarianism in—and political philosophy —portrayal of instinct —satire of consumerism —and social contract theory —“us versus them” in
Roosevelt, Franklin D.
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques On the Origin of Inequality On the Social Contract on politics, role of fear in
Royce, Josiah
Samhain
Sardanapallus
Sauron
Scharpé, Michiel
Schelling, Friedrich
Schmidtz, David
Schumacher, Joel
Scott, Dave
Scream (movie)
Searle, John
self, as fiction
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus: Epistulae Morales
Shaun of the Dead (movie) conscious decision in personality change in
Sherman, Cyndi
The Simpsons (TV show)
Singer, Peter
Six Feet Under (TV series)
Smith, Adam
Snyder, Zack
Socrates
Spike (vampire)
Spinoza, Baruch on body and mind on death Ethics The Emendation of the Intellect on good and bad on good and evil
St. Clair, Widow (character)
Stackhouse, Sookie (character in True Blood)
The Stepford Wives
Stoker, Bram Dracula —interpretations of—vampire slaying in—innovations of—on self —true-false dichotomy in
substance dualism
Tenzin Gyatso
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (movie)
Thirty Days of Night (comic book series)
Thanatos
Thoreau, Henry David: Walden
Tocqueville, Alexis de Democracy in America
To Kill a Mockingbird (movie)
Tom and Jerry (cartoon)
Tourneur, Jacques
Trevor-Roper, Hugh: The European Witch-Craze
“True Blood” (synthetic blood in True Blood)
True Blood (TV show)
Turing, Alan
28 Days Later (movie)
Twilight. See Meyer, Stephenie
The Twilight Zone (TV show)
the uncanny, theory of
the Undead: conceptual truths about dead or alive? definition of and evil, question of graspingness of human instinct in kinds of as lacking motives and malevolent evil natural examples of as nominal origins of political significance of as return of the repressed special examples of
Undeath: definition of and deprivation view and desire-frustration view evilness of and lack of goodness question of badness of as wide range of states as worse than death
Underworld (movie)
Unger, Peter
universal machines
vagina dentata
vampire aesthetic
vampire brothel
vampire epidemics: horror and fascination of as political phenomenon
Vampirella (character)
vampires: and acts of violence and beauty, standards of boredom of and character and choices; compulsion and restraint in and dualism and empathy in eighteenth century and evil, ques tion of and fear of invasion feminine traits in and free will; and sex norms and hedonistic paradox and human blood and humans, morally comparing food choices of and humans, possible peaceful interactions between; as immigrants immortality of as inauthentic and junkies, comparing justifications of, for eating people; lesbian and moral accountability and moral personhood and moral principles moral questions about and noninstrumental motives pleasure and pain in political significance of protagonists psychoanalytic view of and question of rights as rational creatures as selfless sexual associations of subordinate as victim. See also female vampires
vampirism: as addiction moral questions about
Van Helsing (character)
Van Helsing (movie)
Varney the Vampire (book)
vegetarian athletes
vegetarianism opponents of
&n
bsp; vigilantism
viroids, quasi-living status of
voodoo zombies
welfarist political philosophy
Wells, H.G. (mortal): The Time Machine War of the Worlds
Westenra, Lucy (character)
What Lies Beneath (movie)
The White Zombie (movie)
Williams, Bernard
Williams, Paulie Dori (vampire)
Williams, Ted
witch craze, political function of
Wolfman, Marv
women’s bodies, and beauty practices
World Trade Center, as Undeath
Yarbro, Chelsea Quinn
The Zen of Zombie: Better Living Through the Undead (self-improvement book)
Zola, Émile: Thérèse Raquin
zombie animals
Zombie CSU (book)
zombie gladiators and desensitization moral question of
Zombie Haiku (poetry book)
zombie movies and bodily approach to personal identity as challenging dichotomies and psychological approach to personal identity rejection of zombies as human in scariness of as tragic violence in, moral questions about
Zombie, Rob
zombies: and altered personal identity as amoral and bodily approach to personal identity classic model and cognitive capacities and composition /decomposition and consciousness as consumers dead or alive? degree of similarity to normal people as erotic and evil motives fast hunger of and industrial automatization lack of subjective experiences and late-capitalist culture as martyr and materialism memory in and moral accountability moral devaluation of and morality and moral rights as people and personal identity personality change in philosophical challenge of psychology of and qualia radicalized postmodern radioactive as return of the repressed slowness of stillness of super-smart as task-oriented and Thanatos as tragic voodoo
The Zombie Survival Guide (practical manual)
zombie termination, justifications for
Zombieland (movie)
1 Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that among those who consider Undeath to be a bad thing, it’s generally regarded to be worse than death. I have a number of students who think it would be cool to be a vampire. Pretty much nobody, however, wants to be a zombie.
2 Based on an informal and highly unscientific survey conducted in June 2005 at Southern Oregon University.
3 Epicurus, “Letter to Menoeceus,” 124b-127a, in Epicurus: Letters, Principal Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings, edited by Russel M. Greer (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1997).
4 See Nagel, “Death,” in his Mortal Questions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
5 See Williams, “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality,” in his Problems of the Self (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
6 Mill, Utilitarianism, second edition, edited by George Sher (Indianapolis: Hacket, 2001), p. 10.
7 Thank to Nancy Balmert, Kasey Mohammad, and Rachel Robison for helpful comments on earlier versions of this chapter.
8 René Descartes, in The Philosophical Works of Descartes Volume I (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 151.
9 There are other views. Closely related to the psychological considered here is the memory view of Locke and the dualist view advocated by Richard Swinburne. See Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, p. xxvii (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975). See also Shoemaker and Swinburne, Personal Identity (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984). Closely related to the bodily view discussed here is the biological view advocated by Eric Olson in The Human Animal: Personal Identity Without Psychology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
10 Shameless self-promotion: For a different (more philosophically sophisticated, if not sophistical) defense of the bodily approach over both the psychological and the biological approach see William Larkin, “Persons, Animals and Bodies,” Southwest Philosophy Review, Volume 20, Number 2
11 Directed by Victor Halperin, 1932.
12 Granted, this is a rare case.
13 In White Zombie, zombies are not the cannibalistic killers we often take them to be today, but “dead” persons brought to life and controlled after application of a drug to fulfill a role as slaves on a sugar plantation on Haiti, murderous thugs, or a sex slave. This first zombie film was based on a non-fiction account of Haiti, The Magic Island by William Seabrook, 1929.
14 Directed by George Romero, 1985.
15 Directed by Danny Boyle, 2002.
16 Directed by Edgar Wright, 2004.
17 Except in Dawn of the Dead, 1978.
18 Directed by Don Siegel, 1956; remake directed by Philip Kaufman, 1978.
19 Clearly alien personality substitution is not the same as zombification, but it is nicely illustrative of a substituted personality that results in altered moral obligations.
20 We get this explicit analysis from the minister in White Zombie.
21 Robert Veatch, “The impending collapse of the whole-brain definition of death” in B. Steinbock, J. Arras, and A. London, eds., Ethical Issues in Modern Medicine, sixth edition (New York: McGraw Hill, 2003), p. 270.
22 This is also apparent in certain interpretations of Buddhist thinking.
23 David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (Chicago: Open Court, 1971), p. 259.
24 ‘The Unimportance of Identity’, in N. Rauhut and R. Smith, eds., Reading on the Ultimate Questions (London: Penguin, 2005), p. 237.
25 Ibid., pp. 227-28.
26 John Locke, ‘On Identity and Diversity’ in L. Bowie, M. Michaels, and R. Solomon, eds., Twenty Questions, fourth edition (Belmont: Wadsworth, 2000), p. 347.
27 In the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the psychiatrist Dr. Kibner, played by Leonard Nimoy, makes a direct reference to the “born again” phenomenon when after transformation he tries to convince Dr. Bennett that transformation is for the best. He argues that after transformation Bennett will be “born again into an untroubled world free of anxiety, fear, and hate.”
28
19 I would like to thank Walter Ott, who in discussion posed some of the philosophical questions raised by zombies, value, and personal identity.
29 For a groundbreaking piece of zombie ontology, and further reasons to think that philosophical zombies simply are not zombies in the Undead sense of the word, see David Chalmers’s classification of zombies at http://consc.net/zombies.html.
30 As I was writing this essay, news reports about re-animated dogs (“Zombie dogs!” screamed a few headlines) were surfacing, in light of work done at Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in Pittsburgh. The researchers were horrified that their work on resuscitation was being represented in this way. I wonder if part of the problem is that the researchers have prejudicial views about Undead, of the sort this essay is meant to dispel. The existence of these dogs and the headlines they provoked lend credence to the idea of there being Undead by artificial means. For a useful summary of the media flurry about it, see Jennifer Bails, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (18th July, 2005), available at: http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/trib/regional/s_348517.html.
31 My thanks to Diego Nieto for advice on some of the biological issues I raise, and to Katherine Denson, Shaun Nichols, and the editors of this volume for helpful discussions or comments about the material in this paper.
32 All quotations and references to characters and situations refer to Blade Runner (directed by Ridley Scott, 1982) a film adaptation of Dick’s 1968 novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
33 The first to actually give the name “zombies” to the unconscious or soulless automata philosophers have imagined was Robert Kirk, in “Zombies v. Materialists,” Aristotelian Society Supplement 48 (1974), pp. 135-163.
34 Meditations on First Philosophy, Discourse on Method, Meditation. II, in Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, eds., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volume 2 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984).
35 Discourse on M
ethod, Part 5, in Cottingham, Stoothoff, and Murdoch, eds., The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, Volume 1 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
36 Naming and Necessity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1972). To imagine the stuff filling our lakes and streams to be other than H2O, Kripke pointed out, is not to imagine water not being H2O; it is imagining the stuff so described (and so called) not being water! To imagine the presence of H2O is ipso facto to imagine the presence of water, and vice versa.
37 The Rediscovery of the Mind (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press 1992), pp. 66-69.
38 The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 94-96.
39 And if she has some such feeling, but wishes him ill, wants him gone, and betrays and despises him ever after, has she spoken truly?
40 Parts of this paper are based on a paper, “Revenge of the Zombies,” that I presented at the American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Colloquium: Philosophy of Mind, December 29, 1995 (accessible online at http://members.aol.com/lshauser/zombies.html).
41 This quotation from Varney the Vampire comes from the “Contexts” section of the Norton Critical Edition of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (New York: Norton, 1997). All my quotations from Dracula are from this edition.
42 All my quotations from Heidegger’s Being and Time are from Joan Stambaugh’s translation (Albany: SUNY Press, 1996).
43 Christopher Frayling provides this list in “Bram Stoker’s Working Papers for Dracula” in the Norton Critical Edition of Dracula.
Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy Page 33
