Great Questions of Speculative Moral Theology - Zombies

Like you, my sad and lonely reader, I find myself dwelling on the subject of zombies.

I am, of course, speaking of real zombies, not those unfortunate victims of Haitian voo-doo, doomed to a life of unending slavery and toil for their overlords, nor do I speak of those eponymous philosophical thought experiments, beings indistinguishable from normal humans but totally lacking qualia and conscious experience who exist solely to torment grad students. Real zombies... undead creatures (either by supernatural means or some virus that causes the dead rise), animated solely by their hunger for human flesh are what consume our thoughts.

Here are a few salient facts about zombies that I wish to place before us at the outset:

• A zombie will, without exception, attempt to devour the living.
  
• Zombie-ism is contagious. A person attacked by a zombie will, invariably, become a zombie. If the person was killed by a zombie, zombification will be almost instantaneous. Persons wounded by a zombie will take longer to zombify but will, in the end, do so.
• Zombie-ism is incurable.
  

Bearing this in mind, I would like to speculate on some moral questions.

First, would it be sinful to kill an attacking zombie, intent on feeding on your flesh? It is quite possible that this zombie attacker is simply a human infected with some viral or bacteriological agent that drives him to kill, thus making the zombie an innocent pawn, the unwitting victim of forces beyond his control. Fortunately, St. Thomas seems to have anticipated the question:

Accordingly the act of self-defense may have two effects, one is the saving of one's life, the other is the slaying of the aggressor. Therefore this act, since one's intention is to save one's own life, is not unlawful, seeing that it is natural to everything to keep itself in "being," as far as possible.

Let us now consider another possibility, which if zombie movies are to be believed (and I don't think we can assume otherwise), is a frequent situation in zombie attacks: That is, a companion has been wounded by a zombie. This unfortunate person's zombification has yet to occur, however this wounded fellow will, at any moment, turn into a flesh eating fiend. Is it morally licit to kill this person before they try to eat your brains? There are no easy answers from St. Thomas here. In fact, he is quite silent on the question. However, I think concept of double effect is in play. Were I to kill my soon-to-be-a-zombie friend in anticipation of his change in appetites, my intention is still to save my own life, not end that of my doomed friend.

A similar, but more difficult question, regards the licitness of suicide in the case of one's own impending zombification. Ordinarily, suicide is a shot that is not on the board of Catholic moral theology. But in this case, suicide is being considered to keep ones self from becoming a murderous fiend, an almost heroic action. However, as is apparent in many zombie movies, the unfortunate victim often considers suicide, not to save the lives of others, but to avoid the humiliation of becoming that which he would not. Here we may compare the case of Samson, who caused his own death and the death of many Philistines yet remains listed among the Saints, with the case of Razias, who takes his own life out of pride. Apparently intention is the key.

Finally, what responsibility does the zombie bear for it's actions? If truly undead, then its soul has presumably left for the here-after and is not responsible for the actions of his corpse. But if the poor soul is infected with some agent that controls his actions, the guilt for the murders committed while in this state would presumably fall under the category of involuntary sin.