Upon Crusoe’s discovery of the cannibals with whom he shares the
island, he begins a moral debate about whether or not it would
be just to attack them. He first plots to kill them, but later
decides instead to let God be their judge. This passage sparked
my own internal debate about whether or not Crusoe had come to
the ‘correct’ (or perhaps most moral) conclusion. Crusoe’s
morality is based entirely in his religious beliefs, and after
questioning his instinct to attack the complete ‘otherness’ that
he encounters in the cannibals, he realizes that he is in no
position to judge a culture that divine wisdom has allowed to
exist. Crusoe’s deference to a spiritual authority at first
struck me as a denial of what might be considered human nature;
war, especially motivated by fear and a lack of understanding,
seems to be a recurring theme in the history of humanity. Crusoe
solidifies his decision by stating that attacking the cannibals
would be much like the Spaniard’s slaughter of the natives in
America. This is w