No Morality

Today this post will center around Louise Erdrich's book, The Round House. Just in case you haven't read the book, it follows a thirteen year old boy named Joe who lives on an Indian reservation. One day Joe's mother is violently raped and she ends up suffering severe depression and refuses to leave her room afterward or talk about the crime with anyone. Now a vital part of what will come next will spoil the book for people who have not read every page. If you continue, I cannot be held responsible. You've been warned. As I was saying before, Joe's mother is tormented by the idea that her attacker, a white rich man named Linden Lark, is walking free, untouched by the law. To escape the constant danger that he believes his family, friends, and especially mother, to be in while this man is on the loose, Joe decides to end the fear. He stakes out Lark on his favorite golf course and kills him with a gun with the help of his best friend Cappy.

Now Joe seems to be a consequential thinker throughout the book as he worries about the future and not necessarily the actions it takes to get there. He kills Linden Lark to protect the people that he loves. Lark is a dangerous man who had already attacked his mother and could easily do it again if he was not stopped. I would like to imagine myself as a consequential thinker like Joe. I strongly believe in receiving punishment for wrong actions that were committed. I assume that many other people feel the same. While I do believe in punishment, I don't necessarily know if this punishment should be death. For example, if there was a serial killer  who was arrested and put on trial, I would most likely would not be compelled to spare their life. I feel like they would deserve to die for causing so much suffering. The difference with Linden Lark is that he didn't kill Joe's mother and yet still Joe killed him. I am not completely convinced that the outcomes were equal. Now if Lark continuously threatened Joe's family or friends, and even attacked someone again, then maybe I would reconsider, but this didn't really happen. I guess that one could make an argument that Lark actually killed his romantic interest Mayla, but Joe doesn't really connect to Mayla. What I'm trying to say is that Lark should have been convicted of her murder and then killed by officials rather than having Joe murder him and not really considering Mayla's death, but his mother.

I know that these thoughts are a little confusing and not straightforward, but that's how my mind is perceiving these situations. I don't think that I will ever be completely convinced that Joe killing Linden Lark was the right thing, and maybe that makes me a categorical thinker. I  mean even Joe wasn't even sure if what he was about to do was the best idea: "Murder, for justice maybe. Murder just the same. I had to say this a thousand times in my head before I said it out loud" (280). I guess this makes him a categorical thinker as he tries to convince himself that murder is the only answer, but is clearly not sure by his decisions.

Overall I think that you could be both a consequential and categorical thinker and that it always depends on the situation. I feel like people are always arguing that immoral actions should never be performed, but what if the other person isn't innocent.