Hey, what’s up? We are reblogging this analysis of “vampire re-ensoulment” for our vampire friends. The last paragraph below poses an interesting question: “Isn’t it problematic that vampires drink blood …?” Tell us how you would answer this question; then compare our own answer, which appears in the last sentence of the blog post below and here.
(cross-posted at the Volokh Conspiracy)
io9 contributor Greta Christina, after re-watching the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, raises serious questions about the ethics of vampire-slaying. SPOILER: At the end of Season 2, Buffy’s friend Willow casts a spell that successfully “re-ensouls” the vampire Angel, thereby rendering him no longer dangerous to humanity. Christina wonders whether vampire-slaying is still ethically acceptable when another means of stopping vampires is available. As she puts it, “Why don’t they just keep doing the re-ensoulment spell — on all vampires? Or at least, on all the vampires that they can?”
In the course of defending her position that re-ensoulment is morally superior to vampire slaying, Christina responds to an ecological concern: “Vampires are immortal: they can be killed, but if they’re not staked or decapitated or exposed to sunlight, they seem to live forever. So if every vampire on the planet were re-ensouled…
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prior probability 