Good And Evil Reasoned By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

1578 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: How religion impacts morality and ethics

If there is no God, everything is permitted - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Standing in a grand cosmic opposition to one another, the concept of good and evil has been intimately linked by many theists with divine scripture; the ideas of virtue and sin. The quotation by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, from the book The Brothers Karamazov, condenses the claim of theological naturalists that our perception of good and evil is essentially derived from the revelations of a supernatural lawgiver. Morality, according to the Cambridge dictionary of Philosophy, is defined as the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and those that are evil. Conducive to the claim of theological naturalists is the belief that divine commandments withhold humanity from plunging into lawlessness and anarchy, a state in which individual self-interest is the sole determinant of right and wrong. However, this dogmatic view proves insufficient when the false cause fallacy of assuming that godlessness necessarily leads to a moral vacuum is further …show more content…

This argument must be critically analysed by considering Euthypro’s Dilemma:

 (1) Is an action evil because God says it is evil?
 (2) Or does God deem an action evil because it is intrinsically evil?

If (1), then the content of morality is solely dependent on God’s whim; rendering morality nothing more than blind obedience to divine arbitration. If (2), then the action is evil independently of God, in which case God is simply redundant. Moreover, if the theist claims that morality is not arbitrary then God must recognize a moral code superior to Himself – in this case, God’s sovereignty devolves into subordination. Therefore, recognizing that humans have the agency of freewill, it must be the case that our motivations to be moral are independent of God’s

Show More
Related

  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment

    1920 Words  | 4 Pages

    As Rodya analyzes Luzhin’s character, he realizes that intellect unrestrained by moral purpose is dangerous due to the fact that many shrewd people can look right through that false façade. Luzhin’s false façade of intellect does not fool Rodya or Razumikhin, and although they try to convince Dunya into not marrying Luzhin, she does not listen. Rodya believes that Luzhin’s “moral purpose” is to “marry an honest girl…who has experienced hardship” (36). The only way he is able to get Dunya to agree to marry him, is by acting as if he is a very intellectual person, who is actually not as educated as he says he is. This illustrates the fact that Rodya knows that it is really dangerous because he knows that people can ruin their lives by acting to be someone they are not. Rodya also knows that people will isolate themselves from others just so that no one will find out their true personality. This is illustrated in through the fact that Luzhin tries to avoid Dunya and her mother as much as possible. The way he writes his letter, exemplifies his isolation, for Luzhin does not know how to interact with society. He has no idea how to write letters to his fiancée and his future mother in law. This reflects on Rodya’s second dream because he is unable to get Dunya married off to a nice person. He feels isolated from everyone else because his intellect caused him to sense that Luzhin is not telling the truth about his personality. However, it was due to his lack of moral purpose that Rodya berates his sister’s fiancé. He is unable to control himself, and due to his immoral act of getting drunk, Rodya loses all judgment and therefore goes and belittles Luzhin. Although Rodya’s intellectual mind had taken over and showed him that Luzhin wa...

    Read More

  • Morally Ambiguous Characters in Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    Often times in literature, we are presented with quintessential characters that are all placed into the conventional categories of either good or bad. In these pieces, we are usually able to differentiate the characters and discover their true intentions from reading only a few chapters. However, in some remarkable pieces of work, authors create characters that are so realistic and so complex that we are unable to distinguish them as purely good or evil. In the novel Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky develops the morally ambiguous characters of Raskolnikov and Svidrigailov to provide us with an interesting read and to give us a chance to evaluate each character.

    Read More

  • The Frivolity of Evil by Theodore Dalrymple

    898 Words  | 2 Pages

    The article "The Frivolity of Evil" by Theodore Dalrymple analyzes the causes of human misery. His work as a psychiatrist in Great Britains slums afforded him a great vantage point to analyze this topic "nearer to the fundamental of human existence." He concluded that the citizens of Great Britian willingly participated in precipitating their own misery. Their are three recurring theme in his article the lack of moral responsibility, extreme individualism and lack of cultural expectations. Dalrymple begins his article by showing the mind frame of a prisoner released from prison, who had the idea that he had paid his debt to society. In order to get his point across Dalrymple compares the prisoners situation to his very own, the 14 years he spent as a psychiatrist in the slums of Great Britain. He had a choice to choose a different neighborhood just like the prisoner had a choice not to commit the crime. His argument in this article is that our misery stems from the choices we make about how we choose to live our lives. He was also able to cement his arguments by comparing and contrasting the political and social differences between Great Britain and those of Liberia, North Korea and Central America. Dalrymple observed that the people in other countries had their choices taken way from them the crimes and brutality committed in these countries where not their own making. However, in Great Britain the life of violence and poverty was "unforced and spontaneous." Dalrymple argues that the evils in his country are a product of a society that promotes individualism and accepts the right of its citizens to pursue pleasures for their own self interest.

    Read More

  • Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment

    1732 Words  | 4 Pages

    Life is a wheel rolling inexorably forward through the temporal realm of existence. There are those that succumb to its motion and there are a certain few, like Christ and Napoleon, who temporarily grasp the wheel and shape all life around them. "Normal" people accept their positions in life and are bound by law and morality. Extraordinary people, on the other hand, supersede the law and forge the direction and progress of society. Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, is the story of a group of people caught beneath the wheel and their different reactions to their predicament. One individual, Raskolnikov, refuses to acknowledge the bare fact of his mediocrity. In order to prove that he is extraordinary, he kills two innocent people. This despicable action does not bring him glory or prove his superiority, but leads to both his physical, mental, and spiritual destruction. After much inner turmoil and suffering, he discovers that when a person transgresses the boundaries of morality and detaches himself from the rest of humanity, faith in God and faith in others is the only path to redemption.

    Read More

  • Elie Wiesel Good Vs Evil

    641 Words  | 2 Pages

    "The line between good and evil is permeable and almost anyone can be induced to cross it when pressured by situational forces"~Philip Zimbardo. It is hard to not cross the line between good and evil because if someone is getting you mad, you might want to harm them in some way. But you have keep your cool and let it go. Being good or evil is your own choice. Even if you are good, you always have an evil side. This quote fits perfectly because it talks about how evil is really only in people under certain situations. People are essentially good, but under certain circumstances, turn evil.

    Read More

  • Theodicy and Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov

    2495 Words  | 5 Pages

    The problem of reconciling an omnipotent, perfectly just, perfectly benevolent god with a world full of evil and suffering has plagued believers since the beginning of religious thought. Atheists often site this paradox in order to demonstrate that such a god cannot exist and, therefore, that theism is an invalid position. Theodicy is a branch of philosophy that seeks to defend religion by reconciling the supposed existence of an omnipotent, perfectly just God with the presence of evil and suffering in the world. In fact, the word “theodicy” consists of the Greek words “theos,” or God, and “dike,” or justice (Knox 1981, 1). Thus, theodicy seeks to find a sense of divine justice in a world filled with suffering.

    Read More

  • The Possibility Of Evil Essay

    865 Words  | 2 Pages

    Shirley Jackson’s short story “ The Possibility of Evil” is about a little old lady named Miss Strangeworth. She thinks she’s in charge of the town and to make sure it’s free from all evil because her grandfather built the first house on Pleasant Street. At first Miss Strangeworth is a nice little old lady, worrying about people and wondering what others are up to. Then in the middle of the story she becomes a little rude to a few of the townspeople. In the end Miss Strangeworth thought she was getting rid of the evil in the town, but in reality she was causing evil in the town by showing her true colors and being extremely mean and cruel to others. Don’t judge a book by it’s cover because people aren’t always what they seem to be.

    Read More

  • Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment

    1270 Words  | 3 Pages

    In Crime and Punishment, Dostoevsky gives the reader an inside look to the value system that he holds for himself, as well as the type of characteristics that he abhors in people as well as the characteristics that he admires in people. He uses characters in the novel to express his beliefs of what a person should be like in life to be a “good'; person. Specifically he uses Raskolnokv to show both good and bad characteristics that he likes in people. Also he uses Svidriglaiov and Luzin to demonstrate the characteristics that people should shun and his personal dislikes in people.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Plato's Euthyphro Dilemma

    734 Words  | 2 Pages

    ​Dating all the way back to ancient Greece, Plato raised a challenge by merely asking, “Is it right because God commands it, or does God command it because it’s right?” Nowadays, this simple yet complex question poses a problem to modern day Christians. When understanding this question, you are forced to believe you only have one of two choices to accept. Those being either it is right because God commands it or God commands it because it is right. If it is right because God commands it then anything, specifically evil, could be right. On the other hand, if God commands it because it is right then the standard of goodness is no longer. Both options are hostile to Christianity. However, after further investigation, there is a third option: God’s very nature is the standard of goodness. By closely examining Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma, it’s clear that a theist should undoubtedly accept the third option, being that of God’s nature is the standard of goodness.

    Read More

  • The Moral Ambiguity of Julius Caesar

    812 Words  | 2 Pages

    Phillip Pullman, a British author, once wrote, “I stopped believing there was a power of good and a power of evil that were outside us. And I came to believe that good and evil are names for what people do, not for what they are”(goodreads.com). Pullman’s quotation on the actions of man being the source of good and evil closely relate to morality, principles regarding the distinction of right and wrong or a person’s values. The question of what human morality truly is has been pondered by philosophers, common folk, and writers for thousands of years. However, sometimes a person’s ethics are unclear; he or she are not wholly good or bad but, rather, morally ambiguous.

    Read More

  • Character Development in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    1278 Words  | 3 Pages

    In his novel Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoevsky uses Raskolnikov as a vessel for several different philosophies that were particularly prominent at the time in order to obliquely express his opinions concerning those schools of thought. Raskolnikov begins his journey in Crime and Punishment with a nihilistic worldview and eventually transitions to a more optimistic one strongly resembling Christian existentialism, the philosophy Dostoevsky preferred, although it could be argued that it is not a complete conversion. Nonetheless, by the end of his journey Raskolnikov has undergone a fundamental shift in character. This transformation is due in large part to the influence other characters have on him, particularly Sonia. Raskolnikov’s relationship with Sonia plays a significant role in furthering his character development and shaping the philosophical themes of the novel.

    Read More

  • Conflict in Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

    652 Words  | 2 Pages

    Within the tortured mind of a young Russian university student, an epic battle rages between two opposite ideologies - the conservative Christianity characteristic of the time, and a new modernist humanism gaining prevalence in academia. Fyodor Dostoevsky in the novel Crime and Punishment uses this conflict to illustrate why the coldly rational thought that is the ideal of humanism represses our essential emotions and robs us of all that is human. He uses the changes in Raskolnikov's mental state to provide a human example of modernism's effect on man, placing emphasis upon the student's quest for forgiveness and the effect of repressed emotion.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Dostoevsky and Nietzsche's Literature

    5388 Words  | 11 Pages

    Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Dostoevsky, the only one who has taught me anything about psychology.” The two writers share many similarities and differences. Dostoevsky clearly had an effect on the thinking of Nietzsche. The two would be considered both philosophers and psychologists. Both writers became prominent in the late 19th century in Germany and Russia respectively. Dostoevsky was noted for his Russian literary classics and would be responsible for a flowering of late 19th century Russian literary culture. His Russian contemporaries include Leo Tostoy and Anton Chekov. Dostoevsky’s most famous works include The Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment. Nietzsche is most famous for his philosophical works such as thus spoke Zarathustra. The two writers have many similarities in their philosophy. They both see a changing role in religion. Nietzsche and Dostoevsky also differ sharply on some other aspects of life. One of these being the differing views on the role of the fatherland. Nietzsche’s beyond good and evil and Dostoevsky’s crime and punishment are two works that can be compared and contrasted to show the similarities and dissimilarities of the two geniuses. The two men offer great insights in these books on morality and the affect it can have on the actions of the individual and the society as a whole.

    Read More

  • Greed and Conflict: A Study of Steinbeck's The Pearl

    934 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wealth or family? A life old question that is yet to be answered. The choice is very difficult, the outcome is spontaneous. Stuck in the middle, with no way out but disaster. After a disaster nothing gets better, the sight of hope is lost as a person’s gnarled mind takes over and nothing from that point on is predictable. This concept is conveyed throughout The Pearl written by John Steinbeck, the main character Kino is faced with this decision. Steinbeck uses motifs of Good vs. Evil and different songs expressed through Kino’s thoughts throughout the book. Greed can alter a person’s thoughts making them do unpredictable things.

    Read More

  • Fyodor Dostoevsky

    471 Words  | 1 Pages

    The chapter starts with a quote by Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Faith does not . . . spring from the miracle, but the miracle from faith” (Yancey 94). I think this quote is true. For example, if a man without faith was miraculously cured of his illness, will he start to have faith? I think the man will most likely will not start having faith. On the other hand, if a man with faith believed he will be cured of his illness, will there be a miracle? I think there will be a miracle. Sometimes, people who believe may never get their miracle, but it is their own belief in God himself that will eventually save them in the end. We may not get our miracle in this world, but perhaps our faith instead will be able to save us in the next.

    Read More

More about Good And Evil Reasoned By Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Open Document