An Ethical Guidebook to the Zombie Apocalypse: How to Keep Your Brain without Losing Your Heart

by Bryan Hall

Overview

When your base camp is overrun by zombies, whom do you save if you cannot save everyone? Is it permissible to sacrifice one survivor to an undead horde in order to save a greater number of the living? Do you have obligations to loved ones who have turned?

These are some of the troubling ethical questions you might face in a zombie apocalypse. Bryan Hall uses situations like these to creatively introduce the foundational theories of moral philosophy. Covering major thinkers such as Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, and John Stuart Mill, this is an introduction to Ethics like no other: a practical guidebook for surviving a zombie outbreak with your humanity intact. It shows you why moral reasoning matters as long as you still walk among the living.

The book is written entirely from the perspective of someone struggling to survive in a world overrun by the undead. Each chapter begins with graphic art and a “field exercise” that uses a story from this world to illustrate an ethical problem. By considering moral controversies through the unfamiliar context of a zombie apocalypse, the morally irrelevant factors that get in the way of resolving these controversies are removed and you can better answer questions such as:

· Do we have a moral obligation to help those less fortunate than ourselves?
· Is it ever morally permissible to intentionally kill an innocent person?
· Are non-rational but sentient beings morally considerable?

Equipped with further reading sections and overviews of the theories that you would usually cover in an introductory Ethics course, this one-of-a-kind primer critically evaluates different procedures for moral action that you can use not only to survive but flourish in an undead world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350083622
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	12/12/2019
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Bryan Hall is Dean of the College of Contemporary Liberal Studies and Professor of Liberal Arts at Regis University, USA.

Table of Contents

List of Figures viii

Read First: A Message from the Archivist to the Reader ix

Introduction: Welcome to the End of the World 1

1 Coping with Chaos through Relativism 7

1 Field exercise: The fall 8

2 Cultural relativism 13

3 Field exercise: Congregation of the Living Dead 19

4 Divine command theory 22

2 How to Find Moral Value in the Apocalypse 29

1 Field exercise: The hunter 29

2 From subjectivism to egoism 33

3 Field exercise: Safe zone 39

4 Moral naturalism and intuitionism 42

3 Creating an Escape from the State of Zombies 49

1 Field exercise: Prisoner's dilemma 50

2 The state of zombies is a state of war 55

3 Cooperation and community 55

4 Objections to contractarianism 58

4 Understanding Your Rights and Duties during the Pandemic 65

1 Field exercise: Infected liar 66

2 Kant's ethical theory 69

3 Universal law formula 70

4 People and things 71

5 Humanity formula 75

6 Duties, rights, and moral worth 76

5 Do the Infected have a Right to Suicide from Altruistic Motives? 81

1 Field exercise: The choice 81

2 Perfect duties, imperfect duties, and Kant's view on suicide 86

3 Moral value and the distinction between doing and allowing harm 88

4 Suicide from altruistic motives 90

5 The problem of conflicting duties 91

6 W.D. Ross's solution to conflicting duties 92

6 When to Sacrifice Survivors to Hungry Hordes 97

1 Horde 98

2 Fleshy Friend 99

3 Spur 105

4 Loop 109

5 Second Horde 111

7 How to Maximize Pleasure in a World of Flesh-Consuming Anguish 117

1 Field exercise: The horde 118

2 Three tenets of utilitarianism 122

3 Bentham's act utilitarianism 126

4 Mill's rule utilitarianism 128

8 Are All Zombies Equal? 135

1 Field exercise: Trapped 136

2 The human criterion 140

3 Kantian personhood and rights 143

4 Conscious life criterion 148

5 Utilitarianism and zombie euthanasia 150

9 The Responsibilities of Strongholds to the Unprotected Living 159

1 Field exercise: Drowning in the dead 160

2 The case against helping unfortunate survivors 164

3 Utilitarian Greater Moral Evil Principle 165

4 Kantian stronghold ethics 168

10 What are Your Obligations to Undead Loved Ones? 175

1 Field exercise: The children 176

2 Personal identity 178

3 Are the undead morally responsible? 183

4 Care ethics 187

11 How to Cultivate Virtue among the Vicious 197

1 Field exercise: Ambush 197

2 Aristotle's virtue ethics 201

3 Hitting the mean 204

4 Objections to virtue ethics 205

Conclusion: A Guide for Flourishing in an Undead World 211

Glossary 216

Acknowledgments 220

Index 221

Editorial Reviews

[A] wonderfully engaging primer for students of philosophy, while also serving as a fascinating fiction novel for fans of the zombie genre. The ethical principles are firmly based in Kantianism, but often offer post-apocalyptic scenarios that would challenge even your most deeply held beliefs, and that’s a good thing! Because you should always be prepared and as we say; what you don’t know can eat you.” – Zombie Research Society

“Refusing to break the “fourth wall,” this book takes a refreshing approach to otherwise well-traveled material. A welcome addition for anyone seeking to engage the interests and imagination of students while also providing a substantive introduction to ethical theory and practice. Highly recommended.” —Robert Smid, Senior Lecturer, Curry College, USA

“A remarkable book, offering a highly engaging and original treatment of core issues in ethics and moral theory using zombie horror conventions. Hall has an excellent grasp of the normative ethical theories and meta-ethical views considered as well as a deep affinity for and familiarity with zombie horror writing. He deftly investigates an impressive range of substantive moral issues that are fruitfully explored by taking this novel approach to thinking about ethics and morality. This book would be a terrific ethics primer for an Introduction to Philosophy course, and it will undoubtedly attract a broader general audience, including horror genre fans.” —Anne Margaret Baxley, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Washington University in St. Louis, USA

From the Publisher