Moral Relativism in Fyodor Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment :: Crime and Punishment Essays

Moral Relativism in evil and Punishment At the close up of Crime and Punishment, Raskolinkov is convicted of Murder and sentenced to seven years in Siberian prison. further even before the character was conceived, Fyodor Dostoevsky had already convicted Raskolinkov in his judicial decision (Frank, Dostoevsky 101). Crime and Punishment is the final chapter in Dostoevskys journey toward understanding the forces that drive valet to sin, suffering, and grace. Using whims developed in Notes from Underground and episodes of his life recorded in Memoirs of the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky puts forth in Crime in Punishment a stern defense of natural law and an irrefutable volume of designate condemning Raskolnikovs actions (Bloom, Notes 25). Central to the prosecution of any crime, murder in particular, is the idea of motive. Not only must the prosecutor prove the actus rectus or abominable act, that also that the criminal possessed the mens rea or guilty mind (Schmalleger 77). Th e pages of Crime and Punishment and the philosophies of Dostoevsky provide ample proof of both. The first is light-colored Dostoevsky forces the reader to watch firsthand as Raskolnikov took the axe all the representation out, swung it with both hands, scarcely aw ar of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the butt-end down on her head (Crime and Punishment 76). There is no doubt Raskolnikov caused the death of Alena Ivanovna and, later, Lizaveta, but whether he possessed the mens rea is a nonher matter built-inly. By emphasizing the depersonalisation neurosis Raskolnikov experiences during the murder, the fact that he was scarcely aware of himself and acted almost mechanically the humane reader might conclude that some unknown force of nature, and not the person Raskolnikov, is to blame for the death of the usurer and her sister (Nutall 160). Dostoevskys answer to this is contained not in Crime and Punishment, but rather in an earlier work, Notes fr om Underground. The entire story of the Underground Man was intended to parody the works of Nicolai G. Chernyshevsky, and thereby prove that mans actions are the result of his own free-will. The idea that man is solo responsible for his actions is central to proving that Raskolnikov is really to blame for his crime. For under the Chernyshevsky-embraced doctrine of scientific determinism, Raskolnikov cannot be held accountable for his actions. Rather, scientific determinism holds that whatever actions men take are inevitable and unalterable because they are totally determined by the laws of nature.