Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy

by Richard Greene; K. Silem Mohammad

  This is where I think the value of good fiction comes in. Good fiction can take us off our theoretical guard and thereby allow us to gather better intuitive data. I will argue that good zombie fiction in particular can catch us off our metaphysical guard and thereby reveal some intuitions that weigh strongly in favor of the bodily approach to personal identity over the psychological approach.

  One of the biggest problems for the bodily approach, and so one of the biggest considerations in favor of the psychological approach, is another fairly widespread intuition—that people do not continue to exist as corpses. The bodily approach says that bodily continuity is sufficient for personal identity. There is bodily continuity between me and my corpse. Therefore, on the bodily approach I am identical to my corpse. This is something a lot of people just cannot accept. On the psychological approach, I am not identical to my corpse, since that approach claims that psychological continuity is necessary for personal identity, and there is no psychological continuity between me and my corpse. Indeed, my corpse has no psychological properties at all. So it appears we have a pretty strong consideration in favor of the psychological approach.

  My main goal in the remainder of this chapter is to defend the bodily approach by urging that, in spite of your initial denials, you really do think that you will survive as a corpse. I know it sounds odd to say that a person will survive as a corpse. But notice how it doesn’t sound odd at all to say that a person will one day be dead—be a person who is dead. Of course, a person does not survive as a corpse in the sense that it continues to live as a corpse; but on the bodily approach a person does survive as a corpse in the sense that it continues to exist as a corpse. On the bodily approach, people can continue to exist without continuing to live. The intuition that people do not survive as corpses may be widespread, but I hope to show that it is not very deeply held. On the contrary, I think that deep down we believe that we will survive as corpses, and I think this comes out when we get sucked into a good zombie movie.

  A good piece of fiction draws us in until we find ourselves subtly mirroring the thoughts, emotions, and even some of the actions of the most sympathetic characters. These reactions manifest our natural and spontaneous intuitions regarding the content of the fiction. Our reactions to a couple of the characteristic ploys of zombie movies in particular reveal our deep intuition that people do survive as corpses.

  Zombies: The Terror

  Zombie movies are distinctively scary. It is not a simple fear of death that a good zombie film exploits. It is not even the horror of being eaten that accounts for what scares us the most about the walking dead. It is rather our fear of being turned into one of them. In addition to our fear of dying and our fear of being eaten, there is our fear of becoming a zombie. That is what really gets to us and provides the distinctive thrill of Undead drama. It is frightening and grotesque when Tom and Judy get burned up when trying to put gas in the old pick-up in Night of the Living Dead and then zombies line up to feast on their charred flesh. But a richer chord of fear is struck by the idea, suggested by her catatonic state and awkward reaction to Helen Cooper lighting a match, that good girl Barbara might turn into good ghoul Barbara.

  Our fear of being turned into a zombie is brought nearest the surface by the quintessential zombie movie scene in which one of the protagonists pleads with another to not let it happen to him or her. In Dawn of the Dead, Roger exhorts his buddy Peter:You’ll take care of me won’t you, Peter? I mean, you’ll take care of me when I go. . . . I don’t want to be walking around like that!

  And in Resident Evil:RAIN: I never want to be one of those things, walking around without a soul.

  ALICE: You won’t.

  RAIN: When the time comes you’ll take care of it.

  We identify with these characters and completely understand their preference for being shot in the head by a good friend over becoming one of the walking dead relentlessly driven to consume the warm flesh of living human beings. We, like them, would rather be simply dead than Undead. But if that’s right, then we must think that we would become zombies—we wouldn’t prefer death to Undeath if we didn’t think it would be us “walking around like that.”

  The distinctive terror that grips us when we surrender to quality Undead fiction manifests our deep-seated intuition that we could become zombies. But if it is possible for a person to become a zombie, then a person must be able to survive death. A person could not become a walking corpse without first becoming a corpse. If persons cease to exist when they die, as the psychological approach to personal identity would have it, then it would not be us that rise from the dead with a taste for human flesh. But that is precisely what we fear; and so deep down we must believe that people can survive as corpses.

  Zombies: The Tragedy

  Zombie movies are distinctively tragic. It’s not just the travesty of countless innocent deaths that a good zombie movie dramatizes. It’s the tragedy of lost innocence that really gets the pathetic juices flowing—the fall from the mild and the mundane to the monstrous. It’s disheartening to think how many people would, like Harry Cooper, be reduced to a paranoid, pusillanimous prick in the face of an encroaching horde of monsters. But it is truly harrowing to think of how many mothers and daughters there are, like Helen and Karen Cooper, swelling the rotting ranks of that monstrous brigade.

  We are made aware of the tragic dimension of the Undead by another characteristic device of the genre—populating the zombie crowd with recognizable characters and costumes. The zombie crowd is not faceless. The faces may be scabby and decaying, but they are faces we recognize. People from earlier in the film reappear. Barbara’s brother Johnny who taunts her playfully at the beginning of Night comes back as a zombie to deliver his sister up to his hungry cohorts. We see old ladies in their nightgowns and middle-aged men in their underwear. We see naked people, nurses, and peewee football players. Not too long ago these creatures were on their way to a supermarket or a softball game. Now they are monsters.

  It would not be so much tragic as silly to see monsters dressed up like ordinary folk—a funny kind of reversal of Halloween revelry—if these flesh-eaters were not so recently our family and friends. So if zombies are properly pathetic, we must think that these creatures were once quite different from what they are now. That is, if zombies are proper objects of our pathos, we must think that these very same individuals were once something immeasurably better than what they are now. Tragedy requires a fall; but there can be no fall without continuity of person. If zombies are tragic figures, then we must think that it is the very same individuals who were once our neighbors that are now out to gnaw on our entrails.

  The distinctive tragic element of Undead drama again reveals our deep-seated intuition that creatures like us could become zombies. But again, if it is possible for a person to become a zombie, then a person must be able to survive death. A person could not become Undead without first being dead. If persons cease to exist when they die, as the psychological approach to personal identity would have it, then it would not be our friends and neighbors that rise from the dead with a taste for human flesh. But that is precisely what we find so tragic about the Undead; and so deep down we must believe that people can survive as corpses.

  “They’re Just Dead Flesh”

  I have urged that our natural and spontaneous reactions to some of the characteristic dramatic devices of zombie films reveal an intuition that persons can become zombies and that this intuition supports the bodily over the psychological approach to personal identity. I want now to consider a couple of objections.

  First, it might be insisted that zombies are not identical to the people they once were, that those people are gone and have been replaced by the flesh-eating monsters that populate the zombie horde. It might be insisted that there is merely a superficial resemblance between the people who died and their walking corpses. This view is expressly voiced in both Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead. In Night, a newscaster is asking a supposed e
xpert, Dr. Grimes, what information they have about the creatures that are going around killing and eating human beings. After Dr. Grimes notes that the time between death and “reactivation” is only a few minutes, the newscaster draws what is to his mind the troubling consequence that people will not have time to make any kind of funeral arrangements. Dr. Grimes retorts sharply:The bodies must be carried to the street and burned. They must be burned immediately. Soak them with gasoline and burn them. . . .

  The bereaved will have to forego the dubious comforts that a funeral service will give. They’re just dead flesh, and dangerous.

  In the good doctor’s mind, zombies are not people who are due any kind of respect; they are just so much “dead flesh.” We get the same idea, expressed even more forcefully, by the scientist being interviewed on television in Dawn who exclaims,These creatures cannot be considered human. . . . We must not be lulled by the concept that these are our family members or friends; they are not.

  Here is a clear rejection of the view that zombies are identical to the people they once were. Zombies cannot be considered human, and they cannot be considered as the same people they once were. Those people are gone, and for our own good we must not be taken in by the superficial resemblance between these monsters and the people whom we cared about.

  I think these scenes, however, actually serve to draw our attention to and even reinforce our gut-level reaction that these zombies really are our family members and friends. For we intuitively think that the scientists have got it wrong here. These so-called experts are looking at the zombie phenomenon from a safe and clinical distance. They are not out there trying to board themselves up in an old farmhouse or clear out a shopping mall full of monsters. We do not sympathize with the scientists’ point of view. We sympathize instead with Ben’s hesitation in Night when he has to shoot Helen Cooper in the head and with his subsequent remorse. We sympathize too with his relish when he gets to shoot Harry Cooper in the head. It’s pretty awful watching zombies gnaw on the burnt-up bits of Tom and Judy, but it’s nothing compared to seeing Karen Cooper with a mouthful of her father’s forearm. It’s pretty frightening when Johnny gets overcome by the graveyard zombie, but it’s nothing compared to when Barbara gets done in by her own brother. No matter what the cold logic of the removed scientists tells them, our tingly entrails tell us that it matters who these zombies are that are doing the killing and the eating of the people we identify with.

  Zombies are dead flesh all right, but not merely so. Just because they are dead flesh doesn’t mean they aren’t also our family and friends.

  “This Was an Important Place in Their Lives”

  The second objection I want to consider concedes that zombies are people but argues that this does not favor the bodily approach to personal identity. This objection insists that there is psychological continuity between the living and the Undead. People survive as zombies on this view thanks to the preservation of psychology. In Dawn, when our heroes first arrive on the roof of the shopping mall and look down through the skylights at the zombies within, there is the following exchange:FRANCINE: What are they doing? Why do they come here?

  STEPHEN: Instinct, memory, what they used to do. This was an important place in their lives.

  If we emphasize the idea that the zombies have a memory of how important the mall was in their lives, then Stephen seems to be claiming that there is psychological continuity between the living and the Undead.

  I think this scene, however, actually serves to drive home the idea that there is no real continuity between the living and the Undead with respect to the kind of high-level psychological features that are distinctive of people. The emphasis in Stephen’s line belongs on the idea that we are dealing with an instinct here. The sharp satirical edge of Stephen’s comment about the zombies in the mall can only be appreciated if we understand that zombies are not psychologically continuous with living humans. The implication is that going to the mall even in living humans is nothing more than a matter of mindless animal instinct.

  There is, no doubt, brain activity and some kind of psychology in zombies—they want to eat warm flesh, and they learn how to use rocks and table legs as tools. But it is not the psychology distinctive of people. Zombie psychology is more like that of a non-human animal that is pretty far down the phylogenetic scale. They are driven solely and relentlessly by a single appetitive desire. Moreover, there is really no continuity of psychology from the living to the Undead. Zombies don’t remember their family and friends. Johnny shows no sign of recognizing Barbara before he drags her off to eat her. Zombies have to relearn some of the simplest skills or those they were most familiar with. Bub from Day and the gas station attendant in Land have to relearn what a gun is and how to use it; a softball player in Land has to relearn how to swing the aluminum bat that she has been carrying around with her through the whole movie.

  What is important to zombies now is very different from what was important to them when they were alive—they probably hardly ever had a hankering for human flesh while they were alive—even though there may be some residual animal instincts compelling them in a purely mechanical way. Just because zombies have some kind of psychology doesn’t mean that there is psychological continuity between them and the people they once were.

  Dead People

  Land of the Dead is the latest in George Romero’s genre-defining series of zombie films, and on Romero’s authority I am going to take it as the last word on the status of zombies. The distinctive devices to which I have drawn your attention are there in somewhat exaggerated form (an indication, I think, that the genre has reached a fairly late stage in its development). The movie opens with a humorous survey of zombies in their daily routine, including a trio of musicians playing in a gazebo band-stand, a gas station attendant who instinctively responds to the distinctive ding of the pneumatic bell, and a pair of teenagers out for a lover’s stroll. A little later on a zombie-bitten protagonist takes the burden off his buddies by shooting himself in the head to avoid turning into a zombie.

  When we first meet our hero, Riley, he tells a neophyte zombie hunter and the audience that zombies have started to adapt to their new situation and behave “just like us.” The zombies end up organizing after a fashion and proceeding on something like a mission to take down the last bastion of power and privilege for the select few living at Fiddler’s Green. Indeed, the zombies and some of the less-than-select living humans have this mission in common. At the end of the movie Riley is faced with a dilemma. A zombie horde has overtaken a crowd of humans clamoring to get out of the gated city and one of Riley’s gang is wondering whether to shoot into the crowd. She is unsure what to do because there are “people out there,” and it is clear that she is referring to the humans and means to exclude the zombies. Our hero decides she should not shoot into the crowd and replies with perhaps the best line of the film:RILEY: Those people are all dead.

  It’s clear in contrast that Riley means to include both zombies and humans under the heading “people.” So here the most sympathetic character in the most mature treatment by the undisputed master of the genre refers to zombies as people. And it feels right. We are relieved that Riley chooses not to fire into the crowd at the security fence or to pursue the Undead who are slowly escaping across a bridge out of the city in search of place to call their own. We are relieved because we too think those zombies are people.

  We are attracted to zombie films by the distinctive terror and tragedy that the Undead evoke. Zombies are peculiarly scary because we think that we could be turned into one, and zombies are peculiarly tragic figures because we recognize the innocent people that these monsters once were. Our responses to the distinctive ploys of Undead drama reveal our intuition that zombies are people—our intuition that people who were once alive and relatively innocent could continue to exist as walking corpses.

  This intuition that zombies are people too betrays our preference for the bodily over the psychological approach to personal
identity. If zombies were once our friends and neighbors, then bodily continuity must be sufficient for personal identity and psychological continuity must not be necessary. If creatures like us could turn into zombies, then persons must be able to continue to exist so long as their bodies do. To the extent that we can be taken in by a good zombie film, we must think that a person continues to exist so long as some critical mass of her material properties does and that a person can survive without any distinctively human psychology. To the extent, therefore, that we can appreciate the distinctive terror and tragedy of the Undead genre, we must think that a person is most fundamentally not a res cogitans but rather a res corporealis.

  3

  “She’s Not Your Mother Anymore, She’s a Zombie!”: Zombies, Value, and Personal Identity

  HAMISH THOMPSON

  The Value of a Zombie

  Why do we have so few qualms about killing zombies? The Undead’s aggressive anti-social behavior usually involves an insatiable lust to eat, kill, or transform us. This no doubt creates a justification for zombie decapitation on the grounds of self-defense. Another reason, retribution, hardly seems a relevant justification given their largely mindless state. Retribution as a justification for punishment presupposes some kind of moral agency that at a minimum requires some substantial notion of self that zombies appear to lack. In White Zombie,11 some of the zombies are guilty of hideous crimes before their transformation. If zombies possess a minimal self and their zombified identity is continuous with their prior identity, and the zombie in the pre-zombie state is guilty of a heinous crime, we might think that we are still justified in punishing him or her on the grounds of retribution.12 But what if the zombie before zombification was an innocent child, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a fiancé, or your mother?