CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: JUSTICE OF THE MURDER
Abstract
This essay raises a question of an advantage of moral punishment over juridical and also morally ethical reasons for crime made by the main character of the novel “Crime and Punishment” of Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Also states a point that a punishment is inevitable. Even if not always everyone who has committed a crime, shall be brought to stand before the law. No one can hide from his own conscience. No one can escape from himself.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT: JUSTICE OF THE MURDER
Crime is an offense which always followed by a punishment. But could such crime as murder be justified even it was made with good intentions according to the murder’s theory.
Ethics of human behavior in Crime and Punishment
Our parents, relatives and surrounding community bring up in us ethics and morality of human behavior which are based on Ten Commandments according to the religion Christianity. Some of them were violated by Raskolnikov (Crime and Punishment, 2002). The reason of such behavior could be explained by public morality fall. Crumbling old ideals in which many generations of people have been brought up, life produces a variety of social theories that promote of the idea of revolutionary struggle for a beautiful bright future. It becomes popular atheism. As a result, Raskolnikov has built his own theory of an ideal world divided on man of worth and lice. He tried to resolve the issue which people should live and who is to die according to this theory.
Only this could be an ethical crime by publishing this theory, because someone could use it like a motivation paper. But that didn’t stop Raskolnikov, so he tried to apply his creed and thoughts in real life. He made a crime of an old woman intentionally and what the worst he allowed himself to do it, ignoring all ethical norms and morals. He imagined himself a man who is allowed to decide who will live and who is not. The main character tried to justify his actions with good intentions for the sake of a bright future thus trying to mute his conscience. He lied in the first place to himself. This is the main idea of Mark Twain’s essay (Advice to Youth, 1882) that you can lie but never to yourself.
Moral punishment
The actions of Raskolnikov can’t be justified because he tried to take place of God by choosing who allowed living and who is not. But a legal punishment accepted in society does not make sense. By itself, it can only lead to even greater sense of rancor. That is why the moral punishment described in the novel is torments of conscience, constant feeling of moral dissatisfaction of the made action. By committing a murder, which was to be fully justified by "theory", Raskolnikov feels separated from his mother, sisters, cannot find the strength to deal with them on equal terms. He started to think about himself as a criminal, a man who no longer has the right for a …
