Dostoevskii and the Divided Conscience

Abstract

In the decade between the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, many of the Russian radical intelligentsia believed that Dostoevskii had anticipated their moral dilemmas. Critics, such as D. S. Merezhkovskii, argued that the experience of that turbulent period confirmed Dostoevskii's discovery about the nature of moral choice: Namely, there existed no single system of beliefs, no coherent ethical code, that could resolve all problems of ends and means and that this was so because, on some of the most fundamental issues of moral choice, the promptings of reason and feeling could not be reconciled. To be internally consistent, any ethical systems (and the religious and political creeds that embodied them) must therefore ignore or deny some of the moral imperatives rooted in man's nature. No system of belief, however compelling, could thus confer immunity from guilt, doubt, or self-contempt.