Blending Philosophy and Literature: A Study of Nihilism and Utilitarianism in Fyodor
Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment
By
Osita Igwenagum Ijeoma Lena
Department of English, Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University
Igbariam Campus
&
Udeh Bryan .J.
Abstract
From time immemorial, philosophy has always been incorporated in literature. Literature cannot be limited to just plot, themes, character, characterization, narrative techniques, etc.
Literature can go beyond the aforementioned. Literature can celebrate certain philosophy; it can at the same time refute certain philosophy. That is to say that literature and philosophy work hand in hand. Literary works that incorporate philosophy create characters who work according to certain principle and philosophy. The reader is expected to decipher from the work, the philosophy that was portrayed, if the philosophy failed or succeeded. Crime and
Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky can be read beyond theme or plot. One is introduced to
Raskolnikov who is completely unsentimental and mean. He cares nothing about the emotions of others, this makes him a Nihilist. He murders a corrupt Pawn broker and feels that it is beneficial to the world, which is Utilitarianism. Unfortunately at the end he suffers great emotional pains. If read beyond the lines it’s a condemnation of Nihilism and
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Utilitarianism. This reminds the reader that Nihilism is detrimental and can lead to suffering and chaos. The explored certain philosophical terms like Nihilism and Utilitarianism and identified the characters that portrayed these philosophies in their actions, speeches, interactions and reactions.
Key words: Philosophy, Literature, Nihilism, Utilitarianism, Marxism. Introduction Some works of Literature are seen as philosophical. Works of Dostoevsky have been described as such, and also the notable novel of George Orwell Animal Farm is included.
This goes to tell one that philosophy can be pursued through literary works. In a narrative, a creator can embody, and readers could be led to imagine fictional characters and even fantastic creatures or technologies. The ability of the human mind to imagine and even to experience empathy with these fictional characters is itself revealing about the nature of the human mind. Some fictions can be perceived as a sort of a thought experience in ethics: they describe fictional characters, their motives and actions. It is in the light of this that some philosophers or people who believe in certain philosophy have chosen various narrative forms to teach their philosophy.
Plato believed that literary culture and even the lyrics of popular music had a strong impact on the ethical outlook of its consumers. In the Republic; plato displayed a strong hostility to the contents of the literary culture of his period, and proposed a strong censorship of popular literature in his Utopia. More recently, however, philosophers of various stripes have taken different and less hostile approaches to literature. Since the work of British
Empiricist, Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth century, Western philosophy has been preoccupied with a fundamental question of epistemology: the question of the relationship between ideas in the human mind and the world existing outside the mind, if in fact such a 2
world exists. In more recent years, these epistemological issues have turned instead to an extended discussion of words and meaning.
As such, techniques and tools developed for literary criticism and literary theory rose to greater prominence in western philosophy of the late twentieth century. Philosophers of various stripes paid more attention to literature as their predecessors did. Some sought to examine the question of whether it was possible to communicate using words. If it was possible for an author’s intended meaning to be communicated to a reader. Others sought to use literary works as examples of contemporary culture, and sought to reveal unconscious attitudes they felt present in these works for the purpose of social criticism. Some philosophers have undertaken to write philosophy in the form of fiction, including novels and short stories. This appears earlier on in literature of philosophy, were philosophers such as
Plato wrote dialogues in which fictional or fictionalized characters discussing philosophical subjects. A number of poets have written poems on philosophical themes, and some important philosophers have expressed their philosophy in verse.
Other philosophers have resorted to narratives to get their teachings across. Ayn Rand wrote novels with conventional plot and structure in which the characters served as mouth piece for philosophical positions, and acted in accordance to them in the plot. Generally, heroes reflect Rand’s views, and villains represent her opponents. George Santayana was also a philosopher who wrote novels and poetry. The existentialists include among their numbers, important French authors who used fiction to convey their philosophical views.These include
Jean – Paul Sarte’s novel Nausea and play No Exit and Albert Camus’s The Stronger.
From the above one can see that the relationship between philosophy and literature cannot be said to be parallel because literature exist as a tool in which philosophical terms are
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portrayed. Philosophers have, in the course of history, taken different attitudes and stand with regard to literature. Some of them have expressed their philosophical views in of genres which belong undisputedly to literature as an art. Some used literature as a source or as a subject in developing a philosophical views or a philosophical view whereas others have not referred to literature at all, or only in a very casual way.
Below are the words of William Charlton concerning philosophy and Literature:
Philosophers think themselves engaged in literary venture. Literary and
philosophical talent in practice go strikingly together. Philosophical works
have affinities with speeches which we appraise aesthetically in that they are
designed to persuade, and with novel and plays which we appraise
aesthetically in that they show psychological insight and a power of
imaginative projection. And finally philosophers like poets, think in words,
and their achievements are immanent in their books. These are the threads,
some of them which bind works of philosophy into the field of aesthetics (3).
From this perspective William Charlton concludes that:
Philosophy to my mind stands to the obvious literary arts and its business is
different, but it draws impetus from the same source and if it were to break
loose from that source and depart from literary system altogether, it would
cease to be philosophy (15).
Principles of Nihilism and Utilitarianism
Nihilism was a philosophical position developed in Russia in the 1850s and 1860s, known for “negating more”. Therefore, Nihilism is the belief that all values are baseless and
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nothing can be known or communicated. It is often associated with radical skepticism that condemns existence. A true nihilist will believe in nothing, have no loyalties, and no purpose other than, perhaps, an impulse to destroy. Nihilistic themes include epistemological failure, value destruction and purposelessness. Albert Camus writes that “the meaning of life is the most important of all questions”. The Nihilist’s position can never be composed of formal logical steps: it is a philosophical commitment. It is a perception. More precisely, it is the perception that all of the objective meaning that humanity has commonly ascribed (to God and morality, for example) is not only mistaken, but hypocritically so. The Nihilist believes that it is quite literally obvious that there is no meaning in life. No wonder Jean Paul Sartre argued that our “existence precedes our essence” (8).
Nihilism is basically a belief that values are falsely invented and there is no such thing as true morals. Nihilists do not care what other people think or feel. They have no interests in another person’s problems or successions. They tend to dislike the society in almost every aspect. In nihilism there is
1. Total rejection of established laws and institutions.’
2. Anarchy, terrorism, or other revolutionary activity.
3. Total and absolute destructiveness, especially towards the world at large and
including oneself.
4. An extreme form of skepticism that systematically rejects all values, belief in
existence, the possibility of communication
5. The principle of a Russian revolutionary group, active in the latter half of the 19th
century, holding that existing social and political institutions must be destroyed in
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order to clear the way for a new state of society and employing extreme measures,
including terrorism.
The tragedy of Nihilism is that the human machine continues to want to live. It acts as if there is a meaning to its existence. Linked with nihilism is Utilitarianism, or the idea that moral decisions should be based on the rule of the greatest happiness for the largest number of people. This is the doctrine that the morally correct course of action consists in the greatest good for the greatest number, that is, in maximizing the total benefit resulting, without regard to the distribution of benefits and burdens. In other words, do what is right for the society.
For Cornel Ujowundu, in Historical Survey of English Literature: From the Beginnings to the Victorian Period “utilitarianism seeks the greatest happiness for the public.
The Concept of Nihilism and Utilitarianism in Crime and Punishment
The story takes place in a period of time when Russia was under crazy influence of
Nihilism and Utilitarianism. Some of the people (the nihilists) in Russia believed that violence was the only way to go about political change. The novel is a about a man
Raskolnikov, who murders a pawn broker, he justifies this murder, believing that he did it for the happiness of the public, but along the line, he passes through a lot of psychological trauma; his conscience punishes him. Finally he confesses his crime.
The beginning of the novel introduces the reader to the nihilist perspective of the novel. One beholds a very dirty street, the way people drink to stupor in the early hours of the morning.
This is the state of senselessness and meaninglessness of the world portrayed by the characters in the novel thus:
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The heat in the street was stifling. The crowd, the slight of lime, bricks,
scaffolding, and the peculiar odor so familiar to the nostrils of the inhabitant
of St Petersburg who has no means of escaping to the country for the summer,
all contributed to irritate the young man’s already excited nerves. The recking
fumes of the dram – shops, so numerous in this part of the City, and the tipsy
men to be seen at every point ….
His dress was so miserable that anyone else might have scrupled to go out in
such rags during the day time (6).
This is indeed a symbolic beginning which introduces one to the fact that the concept of life having no inherent meaning would be explored in the book.
The state of meaninglessness and senselessness can be seen when Raskolnikov meets two drunks in a dram- shop thus:
On looking he saw a dram- shop near at hand; steps led down from the
footpath to the basement, and Raskolnikov saw two drunkards coming out at
that moment, leaning heavily on each other and exchanging abusive language.
Before he descended the steps. ….. A company of five musicians had followed
the drunken men already mentioned….. A man partly drunk, who looked like s
mall tradesman, was sitting with a bottle of beer behind him. By his side, a
tall, stout man with a white beard, enveloped in a great coat, was nodding on
the bench in a state of complete intoxication. From time to time he would
wake up and begin to snap his fingers, fling out his arms, and slap his chest,
though without rising from the bench on which he was reclining. These
movements accompanied by some foolish songs (10-11). 7
One can imagine the behavior of a drunk, the movement of a drunk, and even the speech patterns, let alone a street full of drunks. Raskolnikov is certainly a Nihilist; completely unsentimental for the most of the novel. He cares nothing about the emotions of others. Such example is the brutal and senseless murder of the old woman Alena Ivanovana and her sister
Elizabeth thus:
‘What is this you bring me? Cried Alena Ivannovna turning to him in rage.
There was not a moment to lose now. He pulled out the hatchet, raised it with
both hands, and let it descend without force, almost mechanically and on the
old woman’s head. But directly as he had stuck the blow his strength
returned… the hatchet struck her just on the sinciput, and this partly owing her
small stature. She scarcely uttered a faint cry and collapsed at once all in a
heap on the floor…. Then Raskolnikov, whose arm had regained all its vigour,
struck two fresh blows with the hatchet on the crown of the old woman’s head.
The blood spurted out in streams and the body rolled heavily over (61).
Immediately after this brutal and unsentimental murder, Elizabeth the sister to the deceased had seen what happened, she ran into the wardrobe in fear but the brutal and unsentimental
Nihilist fished her out and murdered her too. This is where Raskolnikov is recognized as a nihilist because it shows that his violence towards the pawnbroker fixes his problem with her.
Also Raskolnikov reflects nihilism in a very disturbing way. Nihilists don’t necessarily care about other people’s thoughts or life in general. Having said that, Raskolnikov doesn’t only kill the pawn broker but he kills an innocent, pregnant woman as well. Although he only does this because she is an unexpected witness to the murder, he doesn’t hesitate once for the fact that she is carrying a baby.
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Nihilism really expresses the character of Raskolnikov. This is seen when Raskolnikov gives a number of reasons why he murdered Alyona: First, he wanted revenge because he had to give up his dad’s watch and she offered him a very low price that offended him; because of the situation he was in he took the offer anyway. Second, he heard that Alyona had lots of money from pawn broking and she was going to be all alone on a specific date and time.
Third the simple fact that she is nasty. This tempted Raskolnikov because he could get revenge; he could get his watch back, take her money, and get rid of someone that nobody likes. Then nobody will have to deal with her. He ensures that the murder of the pawnbroker was justifiable.
Some critics, such as Mc Neil believe that Dostoevsky is trying to criticize Russian nihilism. McNeil argues that Dostoevsky is advancing the idea that nihilism is detrimental and can lead to suffering and Chaos. For him a philosophy based on extreme rationalism will never exist because it inherently contradicts human emotions.
The pawnbroker that Raskolnikov murdered relates to utilitarianism because the old pawn broker was corrupt to the society. Raskolnikov believes that he has done the right thing.
Raskolnikov bases his murder on the idea of utilitarianism. He thinks moral decisions should be centered on what would be the best for the greatest number of people. In this way he justifies the murder of the old pawn broker. He feels that by removing her from the society he did a good deed. Along with the idea of Utilitarianism he completely disregards social conventions by doing what he thinks is beneficial to the ideal world and murders for the sake of improvement. Also the students in the bar are seen discussing about the old woman thus:
I would kill the damnable old hag, and take all she is possessed of, without
any qualm of conscience, exclaimed the student excitedly…..
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On the other side here is a silly, flint hearted evil minded, sulky old woman
necessary to no one – on the contrary, pernicious to all…..
A dozen family might be saved from hunger, want, ruin, crime and misery,
and all with her money! Kill her I said take it from her, shall not one crime be
effaced and atoned for a thousand good deeds? (52).
Raskolnikov himself states “an extraordinary man has the right … to decide in his own
conscience to overstep …. Certain boundaries” These moral justifications are formulated
upon the ethical doctrine of utilitarianism, whose major premise is that morality depends
solely upon the consequences of an action. Raskolnikov categorizes himself as an extra
ordinary man thus:
Nature divides men into two categories: the first, an inferior one, comprising
ordinary men, the kind of material whose function is to reproduce specimen
like themselves; the other a superior one, comprising men who have the power
to make a new world, thought or deed felt…..
The next class consisting of men who break the law, or strive according to
their capacity or power to do so…..
One class keeps up the world by increasing its inhabitants the other arouses
humanity and makes it act (181).
Nevertheless throughout the novel he displays no extra ordinary qualities besides depression,
nightmares, paranoia, pride, rage. The contradiction here is that he suffers great emotional
pain before and after this murder ‘fear gained more and more mastery over him”. If he were
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an extra ordinary man he would not constantly be obsessed over the details and mistakes
made during the crime. By portraying the convoluted and emotionally shaken thoughts of
Raskolnikov, the author shows that the theory of an extra ordinary man does not apply to
him. Raskolnikov ultimately possessess feelings and emotions that he cannot live without and
that nihilism does not support.
Also Svdigailov, a wealthy but scandalous individual, believes that he has a right to commit
crimes as long as he will not be apprehended for them. His attempted marriage to a sixteen
year old shows his immorality, and the emphasis he places on the logic that he will not be
arrested. When Dounia makes her visit to svidrigailov he contemplates raping her because he
will not be arrested. When Dounia drops the revolver he still takes no action. Afterwards, he
suffers so much contradicting logic and emotions that he contemplates suicide. He kills
himself with the revolver Dounia dropped. Dostoevsky uses this to show again that nihilism
does not account for human feelings and emotions and that it ultimately will fail and cause
suffering.
Dostoevsky presents utilitarianism as a failure; this is portrayed during his trial. The
judges note that he makes no use of the trinkets he steals either for himself or for others.
Indeed, the most obvious result of Raskolnikov’s scheme to murder Alyona is the second
murder of the supposedly more innocent Elizabeth, highlighting the pitfalls of utilitarian
barbarism. Raskolnikov himself admits his true impetus to his sister “I only wanted to put
myself into an independent position, to take the first step to obtain means, then everything
would have been smoothed over by benefits immeasurable by comparison…”
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In the end, however, his own conscience convicts him. He is tormented constantly by his
guilt, though he refuses to acknowledge it as such. Therefore from the experiences of
characters like Raskolnikov, Svridrigailov it is certain that Russian nihilism contradicts
human emotion and thus will never succeed. It can be shown that Dostoevsky attempts to
stop nihilism from becoming part of Russian culture by showing contradictory emotions and
actions.
Conclusion
From the paper one can conclude that philosophy and literature cannot be separated
Literature serves as a medium for discussing philosophical themes; these themes may be
condemned or appraised. From the books under study, one would see that at the end of the
novel the author condemns the two philosophies as empty. Indeed when one believes that life
is meaningless and senseless, he cares less about other people and himself. This leads to
suffering and chaos. This is therefore how literature may function as a tool for propagating or
negating certain philosophies.
Works Cited
Admson, Jane et al.Renegotiating Ethics in Literature, Philosophy and Theory. United Kingd
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Om: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Andrew, bennet, and Royle Nicholas. Literature, Criticism and Theory: United
Kingdom. Pearson Longman. 2004.
Charlton, William. “Is Philosophy a Form of Literature?”, British Journal of Aesthetics, vol
14 (1974), pp. 3-16.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Crime and Punishment. London:Wordsworth Classic, 1993.
McNeil, Russell. “Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment” 29 Oct 2014 a/-mcneil/lec/lecdost.htm> Ujowundu, Cornel. Historical Survey of English Literature: From the Beginnings to the Victor Ian Period.Onitsha: Bookpoint Educational Ltd, 2009. 13