Dostoyevsky, utilitarianism, and BART

Musings on Crime and Punishment

A few weeks ago, I finished Dostoyevsky's 1866 novel Crime and Punishment. I enjoy fiction books that explore complex ideas through narrative, which this book does quite well. Some of the topics it explores are nihilism, utilitarianism, and rationalism, all of which he abhorred. The plot revolves around the murder of a bad person for a good cause, and the psychological and moral turmoil that ensues.

The coincidence was uncanny. I just finished a book about the moral implications of justified murder, just to have everyone talking about the moral implications of justified (or unjustified) murder! Amazing.

The novel follows Raskolnikov, a poor law student captivated by the "new ideas" of rationalism and utilitarianism coming to Russia from the West. In his community there is a wealthy pawnbroker who embodies cruelty - exploiting the poor, hoarding her wealth without giving back, and subjecting her niece to both mental and physical abuse. Convinced of the moral and practical righteousness of his plan, Raskolnikov decides to murder her and use her money to advance his legal career, intending to help those in need. Dostoyevsky masterfully presents a compelling case for utilitarian murder, demonstrating how the math seemingly adds up: the world would indeed be better off without the pawnbroker.

Hundreds, thousands perhaps, might be set on the right path; dozens of families saved from destitution, from ruin, from vice, from the Lock hospitals—and all with her money. Kill her, take her money and with the help of it devote oneself to the service of humanity and the good of all. What do you think, would not one tiny crime be wiped out by thousands of good deeds? For one life thousands would be saved from corruption and decay. One death, and a hundred lives in exchange—it’s simple arithmetic! Besides, what value has the life of that sickly, stupid, ill-natured old woman in the balance of existence!

Raskolnikov follows through with the murder, but his plan quickly unravels. Moments after killing the pawnbroker, her abused yet kind-hearted niece walks in and discovers him standing over her aunt’s body with a bloody axe. To protect himself and his plan, Raskolnikov must kill the niece as well. This is Dostoyevsky's first critique of utilitarianism: if one murder can be justified for a perceived greater good, a second murder can just as easily be rationalized. This exposes the fundamental flaw in using utilitarian motives for extreme actions like murder—there is no clear limit to the harm that can be justified in pursuit of some "greater" outcome. A world where everyone disregards moral rules to maximize utility would descend into chaos, not improvement.

But this is a strawman and Dostoyevsky knows it. No one would suggest that anyone can ignore moral or legal rules and act in the way they feel best. That would be crazy. A better argument (specifically one made in the 19th century), is that only "great-men" can ignore the rules. Raskolnikov, smart enough to understand this, is forced to justify the murder by convincing himself that he is one of these great-men.

“In his article all men are divided into ‘ordinary’ and ‘extraordinary.’ Ordinary men have to live in submission, have no right to transgress the law, because, don’t you see, they are ordinary. But extraordinary men have a right to commit any crime and to transgress the law in any way, just because they are extraordinary. That was your idea, if I am not mistaken?”

“What do you mean? That can’t be right?” Razumihin muttered in bewilderment.

Raskolnikov smiled again. He saw the point at once, and knew where they wanted to drive him. He decided to take up the challenge.

“That wasn’t quite my contention,” he began simply and modestly. “Yet I admit that you have stated it almost correctly; perhaps, if you like, perfectly so.” (It almost gave him pleasure to admit this.) “The only difference is that I don’t contend that extraordinary people are always bound to commit breaches of morals, as you call it. In fact, I doubt whether such an argument could be published. I simply hinted that an ‘extraordinary’ man has the right … that is not an official right, but an inner right to decide in his own conscience to overstep... certain obstacles, and only in case it is essential for the practical fulfillment of his idea, sometimes, perhaps, of benefit to the whole of humanity..."

This is the theory that Raskolnikov uses to justify the murder of the pawnbroker: certain people are exempt from societies laws and can perform actions contrary to said laws for the greater good.

The critique of this theory unfolds in the latter chapters, as Raskolnikov, racked by guilt, suffers a complete mental and emotional breakdown. His guilt stems from the realization that he is not a "great man" like Napoleon or Caesar, which further accelerates his descent into despair. Ultimately, Raskolnikov turns to Christianity for redemption and is saved at the end of the book.

But this raises a critical question: if Raskolnikov only feels guilty because he isn’t a "great-man", where is the actual critique of the steelmanned theory? Would his actions have been justified if he was a "great-man"? Dostoyevsky relies on the reader's common sense to conclude that the answer is: obviously not. Yet this reliance on common sense is circular—Dostoyevsky appeals to our Christian sensibilities of realizing this is wrong to argue for why we need Christian sensibility.

Dostoyevsky claims utilitarianism is insufficient in acting as a moral framework because at the extremes it can incentivize people to do crazy things like kill people. He believes having an objective moral framework, like Christianity, is preferable. (My reading on him is that he feels this less in a “because God is real and he says so” sense, but more in a “humans are inherently irrational and fickle so we should stick to some objective measure of morality” sense). While he is correctly arguing that utilitarianism breaks down at the extremes, he doesn't consider that theological objectivity does too.

I say "at the extremes" because the majority of moral frameworks get you to the same place most of the time. It isn’t until you run into extreme examples where things go off the rails. Yes, utilitarianism may go off the rails in this sense quicker than Christianity, but they both suffer from this problem.

I am reminded of an SSC essay I read a while back that relates moral systems to BART.

The different lines are like different moral systems (theological, utilitarian, deontological, etc.). When you are going from Daly City to West Oakland, it doesn’t matter which line you use, they all go to the same place. But as you keep going to the ends, lines that were previously on the same route now take you to opposite sides of the map. Quoting from Scott’s essay:

The further we go toward the tails, the more extreme the divergences become. Utilitarianism agrees that we should give to charity and shouldn’t steal from the poor, because Utility, but take it far enough to the tails and we should tile the universe with rats on heroin. Religious morality agrees that we should give to charity and shouldn’t steal from the poor, because God, but take it far enough to the tails and we should spend all our time in giant cubes made of semi-precious stones singing songs of praise. Deontology agrees that we should give to charity and shouldn’t steal from the poor, because Rules, but take it far enough to the tails and we all have to be libertarians.

The challenge, as always, is figuring out where to draw the line. At what point between charity and “spending all our time in giant cubes singing songs of praise” should we dispense with Christian morality? Conversely, at what point between charity and “fill the universe with rats on heroin” do we dispense with utilitarianism? Does murdering evil pawnbrokers or Healthcare CEOs cross that line? We don't need to know his thoughts on healthcare reform to know that Dostoyevsky would think it did.