John Derrick
9/13/17
PHIL 2329
Prof. Ursery
Brains or No Brains: A Zombie Issue For my article to review I selected Dr. Brendan Riley’s “The Undead Gourmet”. He asks the question “is it okay to kill a zombie just because it wants to eat you?” Throughout this article he portrays his main point to the reader that when one understands ones reason for their actions they understand the thought process of that person (or zombie). He goes on to try and convince us that killing a zombie is highly based on circumstance. Riley’s five main concepts in this article are is it ok to bear arms on a zombie, what if zombies were intelligent, to “love your zombie neighbor”, brain addiction the same as drug addiction and Zombie’s justice. Brendan Riley begins …show more content…
He wants us to acknowledge the possibility of the intelligent zombie. His concept of bearing arms on a zombie is solely based on circumstance. This is pertaining to if a zombie is trying to attack you then you have the right to take forceful action and destroy the threat. They would still not be to blame for their actions because they are unaware of what they are doing. But if the zombie is not an immediate threat then the circumstances can change. Riley supports this claim by using an analogy from John Draeger, called the “nuisance analogy”. It compares farmers killing wolves to protect their livestock to a human protecting themselves from zombies. At the same time it is not right and just for a farmer to kill every wolf in the ecosystem just as hunting down and killing every zombie could cause the same effect. He also uses an example from Professor Dale Jacquette’s “Zombie Gladiators” that says “because zombies resemble people so closely, killing zombies would likely inure us to violence against people too…(Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy, p. 115)”. The next concept introduced is the question, what if zombies were intelligent? In this section Riley introduces us to three separate but
9/13/17
PHIL 2329
Prof. Ursery
Brains or No Brains: A Zombie Issue For my article to review I selected Dr. Brendan Riley’s “The Undead Gourmet”. He asks the question “is it okay to kill a zombie just because it wants to eat you?” Throughout this article he portrays his main point to the reader that when one understands ones reason for their actions they understand the thought process of that person (or zombie). He goes on to try and convince us that killing a zombie is highly based on circumstance. Riley’s five main concepts in this article are is it ok to bear arms on a zombie, what if zombies were intelligent, to “love your zombie neighbor”, brain addiction the same as drug addiction and Zombie’s justice. Brendan Riley begins …show more content…
He wants us to acknowledge the possibility of the intelligent zombie. His concept of bearing arms on a zombie is solely based on circumstance. This is pertaining to if a zombie is trying to attack you then you have the right to take forceful action and destroy the threat. They would still not be to blame for their actions because they are unaware of what they are doing. But if the zombie is not an immediate threat then the circumstances can change. Riley supports this claim by using an analogy from John Draeger, called the “nuisance analogy”. It compares farmers killing wolves to protect their livestock to a human protecting themselves from zombies. At the same time it is not right and just for a farmer to kill every wolf in the ecosystem just as hunting down and killing every zombie could cause the same effect. He also uses an example from Professor Dale Jacquette’s “Zombie Gladiators” that says “because zombies resemble people so closely, killing zombies would likely inure us to violence against people too…(Zombies, Vampires, and Philosophy, p. 115)”. The next concept introduced is the question, what if zombies were intelligent? In this section Riley introduces us to three separate but