At What Point Between Human and Zombie Does it Become Ok to Shoot?
In The Walking Dead, nobody hesitates to blow a zombie's brains out. There's no debate about whether it's ethical, whether zombies are some new form of life that we don't have the right to exterminate blah blah. People just point, shoot, then bury or burn the remains.
Likewise for 28 days later zombies, even though they aren't corpses. These are living, breathing people who are simply violent and irrational because of a brain parasite. Yet nobody hesitates to shoot them.
Is it okay to shoot them if they are alive, but infected by a virus that makes them mindless and aggressive? Is it okay if they are undead, but still conscious and intelligent? Where is the line? What degree of "zombification" makes somebody no longer human, and thus ok to kill on sight?
What if zombies were alive and intelligent, but still under the control of something which compels them to pursue the uninfected and spread it to them?
For example, I wrote a pair of novellas in which humanity is rapidly assimilated by a sort of mechanical parasite. It's simply a device you wear on your neck.
It is marketed as a "wellness" and mood improver, like those new agey holographic or magnet bracelets that were a fad a few years back. What it actually does is to reinforce with dopamine all thoughts and actions which cause the host to seek out and place more of the device on people who don't have one on them yet, and makes them violently hostile to any effort at removing it or inhibiting its spread. (It also kills them if successfully pulled off.)
Is this type of zombie ethical to shoot? They are intelligent and for the most part retain their personalities, they are just under the control of something they don't realize is influencing them and it cannot be removed safely. It will also eventually overtake every human on Earth if not stopped.
I think any degree closer to human, and we would agree it's unambiguously wrong to shoot. Brain slugs from Futurama for example, since you can easily remove them and the person immediately returns to their former self.
But where is the line drawn, before which you can shoot, but after which you cannot?
Stay Cozy!
Well if there is no treatment for it so when you are infected its only a matter of time before you lose control of your mind then i believe a threshold must be set so once the infection passes through a point which will be indicated by the device won on the neck, the person is deemed danger to the society and can be rightly and legally shot. Just my opinion buddy @alexbeyman
Zombies life matters! You opened a very important theme!
We should open a discussion and let zombies speak too and defend their rights!
Shoot a zombie please!!
You see in walking dead , we have some that always tend to be merciful to those things called zombie if it was someone they knew before .
If zombies were to be intelligent, if they can build a defense against us and that’s what we have now , modern zombies with their personality and able to think . Monsterized by some attachment to their neck
If zombies get intelligence and apply these they will be undefeatable..they will tear apart any comes in his way.
Do ethics really matter in a life or death situation.
It's not a single individual which can be helped or cured, it's a complete army and when they're coming at you with the intention to kill, what are you supposed to do.
To shoot is the only option
@alexbeyman,
I don't believe on Zombies, but I heard some genius "Men of Mantra" can bring death people to live as their salves to kill people! In that case, yeah we must kill all b!tches :D
Cheers~
Brain slugs from Futurama for example, since you can easily remove them and the person immediately returns to their former self.
I think it's difficult in case of zombies, I don't know that much of science but I think zombies are difficult to be controlled, as if they are in control of some super human force.
I don't think that they are any form of life let alone a new form of life. There is no life, zombies are not considered to be living,if they existed of course, there is no blood flow only the brain is alive and that too is infected. How can not it be ethical to shoot them, if they know just one thing to kill and eat the living.
You can die if you don't shoot, what choice do you have.
Most of us would shoot in a scenario like this because it's more like a war. It's us vs them.
Are these just stories or zombies exist? From my part of the world we never hear or discuss these stories but I hear this mostly on the internet. I saw a movie which mentioned that some illegal drug taken for pleasure resulted in converting humans into zombies. Still not sure if this is just a term or reality of the world.
Just stories, of course. There are drugs which create zombie-like effects, but they wear off in time. The origin of the zombie legend was a real ritual in Haiti which was performed on captured prisoners from enemy tribes. They were deprived of oxygen not long enough to kill them, but long enough to cause severe brain damage. This made them dull, easily controlled and suitable for use as a docile laborer.
Thanks for solving the enigma, you have good control on the topic by the way. I am happy to e-meet you on steeit.