The actions taken by Raskolnikov in “Crime and Punishment” are not justifiable and should not have taken place. According to the philosophy of Emmanuel Kant, the individual and the entire society should first evaluate whether an action they are performing can become a universal law or not. From this point of view, this implies that Raskolnikov's actions were not justified because the approach cannot be adopted by everyone to solve problems similar to these. If societies were run this way, cases of murder would be common and normalized, and everyone would kill for reasons that are not justifiable. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Although Raskolnikov provides an argument about Alyona Ivanova's character being an image that could be portrayed by many people in society, killing her was not the best action to take and should never have been considered (Dostoevsky & Ready, 2014). Raskolnikov also claimed that if Alena was found dead, her money would be taken by stonemasons. Then, he justifies that he would make better use of the money by paying for his education. From the point of view of utilitarian ethics, killing Alena was not the best move for Raskolnikov. He could have considered other actions that might have produced a better outcome than the ones he took. The expected outcome of the murder, in this case, is that Alena's meanness, malice, and uselessness were eliminated while her money was put to good use after her death. . Raskolnikov must have considered killing Alena for a long time, as can be seen in chapter 1, according to Dostoevsky and Ready (2014), where he asks "Are you always at home alone, isn't your sister here with you?" ?” However, according to utilitarian ethics, action does not produce the best happiness or prevent pain; there were other actions such as stealing money that may have been acceptable according to utilitarian ethics than murder. Furthermore, considering that he killed for his own personal gain rather than the overall benefit of society, it shows that it could be a selfish move. The right to life should also be respected and everyone should be given a fair chance to live their lives in the way they wish and, considering that laws exist and law enforcement bodies have the authority to act to justice, the act of killing a person should be avoided. Raskolnikov was motivated by a speech by two officers whose views were in tune with his as they tried to justify the need to kill Alyona in which one said: "Of course he doesn't deserve to live but there he is, it's his nature", then their partner replied “Oh, okay brother, but we must correct and direct nature” (Dostoevsky & Pronti, 2014). Such opinions motivated Raskolnikov, but general feelings and opinions cannot be used to justify or define the morality of an action. If the motive was to acquire money and make good use of it, regardless of whether it was murder or theft, it was against the morality of society even if the victim worked hard to acquire it even Raskolnikov doubted his plans when he said, “And how could such a heinous thing have occurred to me?” (Dostoevsky and Pronti, 2014). Adapting such actions to society would, therefore, promote laziness and discourage hard work , because individuals could take advantage of it to judge the rich and extort money from them. It serves to discourage them from.
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