In his essay “The Badness of Undeath,” published in The Undead and Philosophy, Richard
Greene argues against the notion that the Undead, meaning both Vampires and
Zombies, are objectively bad. His philosophical examination of the question
about whether or not the Undead or the state of Undeath is in and of itself bad
ends with the conclusion that Undeath is not inherently bad, but comparatively
bad. In other words, there is nothing wrong with Undeath, but in comparison to
being Alive it is not a desirable state of existence.
To achieve his basic arguments in “The Badness of
Undeath,” Greene must necessarily set limits to what we can define as “the
Undead.” Though technically the term can apply to Frankenstein’s Monster, the
Mummy, or any number of demon-possessed ghouls, Greene limits his discussion to
vampires and zombies. He further eliminates the various “experiments” within
the subgenre, such as the sparkling vampires of the Twilight saga or the politically motivated zombies of Zombies Anonymous. He sees these various
“stages of the Undead” as changes that must be set aside when they’ve moved too
far from the essential qualities of Stoker’s Dracula or Romero’s Bub from Day of the Dead. For the
purpose of philosophical debate, his focus is only on vampires and zombies as either
evil or behaving in ways that support notions of evil (6).
Having set these parameters, Greene then attacks the
question of why being Undead is thought to be worse than being dead (3-4). This
requires the question be asked: What’s so bad about death? Death “is not a
state in which some part of us lives on after our physical bodies have died,”
he says (6-7). If it were, then Undeath would be bad because it holds us back
from Paradise, though it would be good if it held us back from the fire and
brimstone. But in fact, we cannot qualitatively prove or disprove the existence
of an afterlife, so “it is appropriate to address the question of death’s
badness by assuming that death is an experiental blank” (7). If death is just
the end of life, and a post-mortem experience is free of pain, then this is not
why death is bad.
What if death is bad because it denies us the good
things that life has to offer [see Thomas Nagel] or if it stops our engagement
with the world as agents of progress and action [see Bernard Williams] (7). But
these do not explain the badness of Undeath, though the deprivation view would
better contribute to understanding the bad element of being a zombie. After all,
zombies seem to derive so little pleasure from life. Still, we don’t know for
sure if they suffer—the possible exception being the comment from the “backbone
zombie” in The Return of the Living Dead
who complains of the pain of death, and Ernie’s observation that “Apparently it
hurts to be dead.”
Also, the Undead do seem to qualify for the
desire-frustration argument. Their previous desires as living beings are
obviously frustrated: loss of sunlight, loss of socialization, loss of
intellect, and so on. But looking at the unfulfilled desires of the living
leads to disregard of this argument for the Undead. After all, just because for
the living person a desire goes unfulfilled, we cannot say this is “bad.” Life
is full of unfulfilled desires. Indeed, we often change our desires. That’s
good because we may often desire something that will eventually make us
unhappy.
Dead is inarguably bad because it cancels out all
unfulfilled desires. Undead, however, is not so bad: we merely substitute our
desires as living beings with other desires. Thus, our craving for wine becomes
a vampiric thirst for blood, while our appetite for a steak becomes the craving
for flesh that drives the zombie in us. “Changed desire is not necessarily a
bad thing,” Greene says.
Next up for consideration: Death is an “experiental
blank.” So how does Undeath “feel?” Says Greene: “It is not obvious that being
Undead feels bad, in itself” (10). We just don’t know for sure. (Though in many
films the Undead zombie does not seem especially happy; and in many novels the
zombie’s moan is a sign of discomfort.)
Some argue: “Better Alive than Undead.” For
instance, it is better to have bad experiences as a human than have happy experiences
as a pig. This is the argument made by John Stuart Mill (10). But this argument
holds only for zombies, which Greene sees as “clearly ‘lower’ life forms” (11).
The vampire, on the other hand, can be said to enjoy an enhanced experience of
being.
Undeath is also only comparatively bad, not objectively
bad. Objective badness means the state of being is qualitatively bad or forever
lacking in good (11). Most people assume
Undeath is objectively bad, but this cannot withstand argument.
So why do most people prefer death to Undeath? It is
logical that being Undead would be better than being dead. So why do we fear
Undeath? (12)
To understand this, we need to consider the notion
of evil. Vampires and zombies do unspeakable things. “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” (12).
However, just because people see certain acts as
evil doesn’t mean that these acts are either evil or bad. “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 these things” (12).
Still, vampires and zombies do behave badly. “…We
need to consider the possibility that the objective badness of Undeath can be
accounted for by the actions and nature of Undead beings” (12-13). Remember, a
state is considered objectively bad when it either contains some qualitative
badness or it lacks some good thing which one would not normally lack.”
So what good thing from Life is missing from
Undeath?
Moral philosophers see “behaving in good ways” as a
good thing, either because of the good consequences or because of some
intrinsic value. So if being Undead “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 normally lack” (13). But vampires or
zombies do not by nature have the ability to do good. “Thus, lacking goodness
or the ability to perform good acts” is a feature that would be objectively bad
“if and only if being good or being able to perform good acts is a feature that
vampires or zombies usually have” (13). The
objection that good-behaving humans begin to lack the ability for goodness only
upon becoming Undead is therefore a comparative badness, not an objective
badness (13-14).
