Analyse the Philosophic Justification of Raskolnikov's Actions in "Crime and Punishment".
by
shazil1 (student)
Khalid
Question 2
You can be larger than life, just not death… I suppose we hear it so often that we have stopped believing it altogether. The excerpt from Crime and Punishment stages a scenario which accentuates upon the function of making tough choices. What we have here is a story in which on one side there is a woman iniquitous in the most literal sense of the word and kind towards none. All she has of value is a ton of money. Then there’s the other side which portrays score of individuals, dwelling in misery lacking the basic necessities to continue vitality. The suggestion that the author makes is to end the life of the abominable woman and use her wealth to end the despair of the unfortunate individuals. The big question remains, can it be justified? Let’s visit utilitarianism to test the author’s stance.
When put to the test of utilitarianism, it can be seen that the excerpt employs a rather simple calculus to weigh the pleasure of sustenance of thousands of individuals against the pain caused by the death of an “evil” soul. According to Raskolnikov as the expected benefits of killing the lady exceed the pain, he asserts that it is a valid alternative. Such rationale brings into play act-utilitarianism. The theory maintains that that action must be done which maximizes the total benefit for the majority. It assesses the rightness or wrongness of the action on the value principle i.e. how much pleasure and pain does the action produce as a consequence: maximizing the pleasure and minimizing the pain. It is a consequentialist theory which suggests that the ends justify the means. Thus, according to Raskolnikov, killing is right if the end result brings about more net happiness than the alternative. However, this hedonistic equation is flawed. It over simplifies the moral dilemma to the point of distortion and leaves out cardinal considerations for utilitarianism such as evaluating all possible alternatives and assigning equal weight to the pleasure and pain of everyone.
Firstly, leaving the pain and moral element aside, the argument to kill the landlady to maximize the total pleasure can be dubious as there is an understandable ambiguity in defining what pleasure is and how it is to be measured. To test the hypothesis that taking the old woman’s life will render more happiness, let us assume that the lady has one million dollars and when she is murdered the money is distributed identically among the homeless families: each family getting a small proportion. It is evidently debatable as to which pleasure is greater: the pleasure the woman acquired from having one million dollars disposing it off at her own will or the cumulative marginal pleasure the homeless families derive from their share of the money. Hence, it is plausible that the total pleasure may be maximized by the lady consuming the money rather than it being distributed among the dispossessed poor. It is therefore safe to assume that the conclusion may deliver a superior cumulative pleasure if it is the landlady keeping the money and leaving it to the monastery as she dies; dies her own natural death. Thus, the whole pleasure principle on which Raskolnikov centralizes his utilitarian argument parades significant dispute. It is but a subjective opinion of the author as pleasure cannot be reliably compared. His choice exudes subjectivity which bribes his judgment.
