Imagine your life as a nurse returning
home from a long shift to your husband at your quiet suburban home. All is normal when you fall asleep, but you
wake up to your spouse being attacked and bitten by the zombie form of your
young neighbor. You can do nothing to
save your husband and he reanimates into a zombie as well, leaving you alone to
face the zombie apocalypse that you soon realize has taken over your town. After crashing your car in an effort to
escape the takeover, you meet a few other survivors and together you break into
a nearby mall, trading weapons with the guards in return for a place to seek
refuge. In the midst of searching for these guards,
though, one of the other survivors, pregnant Luda, fought through a minor brawl
with a zombie, surviving with only a small bite wound. Time passes and more survivors show up. The mall provides much protection, but one of
your acquaintances falls to the zombies when they find a way in. When you hear shooting in the distance, you
run to a store in the mall to discover a dead, zombified Luda, her husband
mortally injured after mentally breaking down, and their newborn child wrapped
in a blanket. You open the bundle to
reveal a baby who was born as a zombie. What is your next
move? Would it be an ethical decision?
In the 2004 remake of Dawn of the
Dead, this is the dilemma that the main character, Ana, is faced with. In the horror of the moment, she pulls out a
gun and a single shot resonates through the corridors of the mall. While killing a baby would most commonly be viewed as
unethical, saving the other survivors from future attacks could redeem this
action. Many theories from different
philosophers seem to support similar viewpoints on the ethics of Ana’s
decision.
Based on the theory of
utilitarianism, Ana made the correct decision in shooting the newborn. Utilitarianism focuses on the greatest
happiness for the greatest number of people.
If the baby was allowed to live, she would be given the opportunity to
attack humans and reanimate them as zombies, causing pain to those afflicted,
their loved ones, and all of their future victims. Also, both of the infant’s parents were
killed, so growing up an orphan would cause pain to her and whoever would be
deemed responsible for raising this zombie child. In Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics, Blackburn writes, “Utilitarianism
is consequentialist. For
consequentialism, an action that might be thought wrong, or undutiful, or
unjust, or a trespass against one’s rights, might apparently be whitewashed or
justified by its consequences, if it can be shown to be conducive to the
general good” (Blackburn 87). Although
most, if not all, people would agree that killing an infant is wrong, the
action can be justified by the fact that it is the best decision for the
largest number of people in this situation.
 |
| Luda's newborn in Dawn of the Dead |
As Salazar states in Kantian Business
Ethics, “The Kantian approach to business ethics, like Kantian ethics in
general, emphasizes acting with respect toward all autonomous beings. It claims
that we all have duties toward one another that depend on our relationships
with one another, the most basic and all-pervasive relationship between persons
being that of a fellow member of humanity” (Salazar 3). Autonomous beings respond and grow
independently of the whole and have the ability to self-govern. Zombies, however, do not have this
ability. Their desire and need for human
flesh controls their every move and they slip into a trance-like state upon
reanimation. Disregarding zombies as
autonomous beings, would leave only living humans to respect using the Kantian
approach. Ana’s best option would therefore
be to kill the baby, giving it no chance to attack fellow members of her
society.
Another group of philosophers use an
approach to try to reconcile people to death, which would also support Ana’s
decision in shooting the newborn. By
their views, life is full of disappointment, instability, and sadness. Desires can never be fully achieved and
everything is eventually forgotten. Those
that believe in this theory argue, Blackburn states, that “Death is a
luxury. Best of all not to have been
born, but once born, better quickly dead” (Blackburn 76). According to this theory, the zombie baby
missed the ideal option to not have been born, but was given the next best
fate. Her death and leaving the
miserable world around her was truly a gift from Ana, rather than something
stolen.
Because newborns are rarely ever a
threat to the world around them, there are not any direct links to this situation
in the non-zombie world. One possibility
could be the birth of a child that would not allow the mother to live. Some issues that share some characteristics
and arguments could be infanticide and abortion, especially in a case where the
child has some terrible disease detected before birth. Still, there are many other arguments and
resolutions that would need to be taken into consideration, so the issues could
not be discussed in nearly the same way.
Blackburn, Simon. Being Good: An Introduction to Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. Print.
Salazar,
Heather.“Kantian Business Ethics,” in Business
in Ethical Focus, ed. Fritz Allhoff and Anand J. Vaidya. Broadview Press,
2008.
Definitely something to think about!
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