
So here’s the deal:
Crime and Punishment. A book, a nightmare, a goddamn existential crisis wrapped in fur-lined overcoats and poverty.
Dostoevsky sets up a guy—Raskolnikov—who thinks he’s smarter than everyone, the kind of guy who spends all night thinking about how he’s not only right, but better than you.
He figures that if he kills Alyona Ivanovna, an old landlady with a seductive name, who’s been sucking the blood out of everyone around her, he’ll be doing the world a favor.
Hell, he’ll be helping his poor family, too. All for the greater good.
How many times have we heard that kind of self-justification?
Well, Dostoevsky sees through it like a cheap window. And he’s not letting it slide.
Raskolnikov, to his credit, thinks he’s being utilitarian. In his twisted brain, he’s just calculating—subtracting the old woman’s life from the equation to add some good, some social progress, maybe even save a few souls.
He figures, “If I take her out, I’ll use the money for my education, I’ll rise above this mess, I’ll be someone who can help the world.”
He wants to be a hero, but the problem is, he’s an asshole who doesn’t understand the first thing about humanity.
Dostoevsky’s big problem with this reasoning isn’t just that it’s cold, it’s that it’s naive. You can’t just pull a switch and hope to flip morality on its head because you’ve got a grand vision.
That’s the kind of thinking that ends up making monsters.
Let’s talk about the basics of this so-called utilitarianism, the intellectual equivalent of a guy who spends all his time in a basement reading philosophy books he’ll never use.
Utilitarianism tells us that the right thing to do is what maximizes happiness for the most people.
Simple, right? But Raskolnikov takes this and runs it through a meat grinder.
He doesn’t care about the people. He doesn’t care that killing her might make someone else’s life worse. The problem isn’t even the crime.
The problem is that he’s operating under the delusion that life is a ledger, and you can balance it out with math. Dostoevsky’s critique here is that life doesn’t work like that—it doesn’t fit neatly into a formula.
And Raskolnikov’s misery after the murder, the guilt gnawing at him like a rat chewing through his soul, shows that nothing was ever going to come out of this clean.
But here’s where Dostoevsky doesn’t just throw a punch and walk away.
No, he goes deeper, and the deeper he digs, the worse things get. See, Raskolnikov doesn’t just have a bad argument. The guy’s been brainwashed by the idea that if he’s smart enough, if he’s enough of a genius, he can dodge the rules that everyone else has to follow.
He buys into the idea that the great men of history—your Napoleons, your big thinkers—break the rules and get away with it.
These are the kinds of men who matter, the ones who change the world.
But Dostoevsky shows us, with every tortured minute of Raskolnikov’s life, that those men end up as ghosts.
They can’t outrun their own damn souls.

The Breakdown
Let’s break this down in simpler terms for the ones who aren’t drowning in Dostoevsky’s dark pool of despair yet.
Picture a kid trying to justify kicking a puppy because “it’ll make the world a better place in the long run.” That’s Raskolnikov. The puppy might be annoying, sure, but the real problem is that the kid doesn’t understand how much that kick damages everything.
You don’t make the world better by breaking it. Life’s too tangled up for that.
Dostoevsky’s point isn’t just that the crime was bad—it’s that the logic behind it was hollow. There’s no soul in it.
Dostoevsky’s Moral Argument: The Real Crime
So let’s ask the obvious question: What does Dostoevsky want us to take away from this?
That morality can’t just be figured out by reasoning. That there are things that go beyond utilitarian calculus—things that can’t be accounted for by cold, logical systems.
We don’t have all the answers, and the more we try to put everything in a box, the more we lose touch with what’s really important: the chaos of being human.
And that chaos is spiritual. It’s not just about the right decision; it’s about the struggle, the repentance, the suffering. It’s about the way we come to terms with our flaws.
Raskolnikov’s real punishment isn’t prison. It’s the war inside his own head.
His downfall is the realization that he’s been living in a void, a place where he thought he could stand outside of society’s rules and just play the game for himself.
But life’s not a game, and every action has consequences, spiritual or otherwise.
Dostoevsky’s critique is that the real crime here is the assumption that you can live without a moral compass.
That’s why Raskolnikov eventually breaks down—because he can’t live with the weight of what he’s done.
The killing isn’t just the murder of an old woman; it’s the killing of his own soul.

Explaining Raskolnikov’s Mistake to a Kid
Alright, kid. Sit tight. Let’s talk about this fool Raskolnikov, who thought he was smarter than the rest of us. Imagine you’re a kid, right? And there’s this big bad bully in your school, taking everyone’s lunch money.
What if you thought, “Hey, if I just rob this guy, I’ll take his lunch money and give it to the kids who really need it. I’ll be a hero. I’ll be a genius.”
Sounds like a solid plan, right? That’s what Raskolnikov thought. He figured he could just kill this old lady who he thought was useless and steal her money. Then he’d use that money for good stuff—like paying for school or buying popcorn. Seems like the smart thing to do, right? Wrong.
Here’s the thing, kid. You don’t get to decide who dies just because you think it’ll make things better. That’s what Raskolnikov didn’t get.
You don’t get to play God because your brain’s bigger than some folks.
At the end of the day, Raskolnikov finds out that he was wrong. Real wrong. He thought he could run around making decisions like he was a king, but he was just a kid with a gun, making a mess of everything.
The lesson? You can’t fix the world by breaking it.
And the good stuff? It doesn’t come from stealing or hurting people. It comes from making things right, not using logic to cut corners.
So, if you’re ever thinking of taking someone out for “the greater good,” remember this: Life’s not a chess game. It’s dirty, and the moment you think you can solve it with just your brain is the moment it’ll eat you alive.
Got it, kid? Good.

The Nihilistic Pull
Now, we can’t ignore the nihilistic undertones that ripple through this novel.
You get the feeling that maybe Dostoevsky’s saying something about the emptiness of existence—how when you strip away all the fluff, maybe there’s nothing there.
Maybe the world’s a cruel joke. There’s a darkness in the novel, a pit so deep that even Raskolnikov can’t crawl out of it.
But the thing about nihilism is it leaves you with two choices: you either crawl into the darkness and let it swallow you whole, or you look for a light.
A light, however small, is still a light.
The ultimate slap here is that Dostoevsky, with all his misery and despair, is still offering a shot at redemption.
It’s not about being perfect. It’s not about not screwing up. It’s about owning up to what you’ve done and taking the hard road of humility and repentance.
Maybe that’s the point he’s making.
Maybe there’s a sliver of grace in the darkest corners of life.
Maybe we’re all just stinking bags of bones trying to get it right.
The Dissenters
Now, before you go and swallow Dostoevsky’s philosophy whole, let’s take a moment to consider the other side.
Utilitarianism still has its fans. John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham may be long dead, but their ideas are alive and kicking.
For them, morality is about outcomes—about making the world a better place by maximizing happiness.
Sounds simple, right? Maybe too simple.
Then there’s Ayn Rand and her Objectivism. For Rand, Raskolnikov’s real mistake isn’t his crime—it’s his lack of self-interest. If he’d just realized that his own happiness is the highest goal, he wouldn’t have been such a pathetic mess.
She’d probably tell him to cut the spiritual mumbo jumbo and focus on his own success.
Table 1: Raskolnikov’s Mistakes and Dostoevsky’s Critique
Raskolnikov’s Beliefs | Dostoevsky’s Critique |
---|---|
Utilitarianism: Believes that killing the old landlady will lead to greater good. | Flawed Logic: Assumes life can be reduced to a simple calculation. Real morality can’t be measured by outcomes alone. |
Intellectual Elitism: Thinks he is a “great man” above the rules of society. | Delusion of Grandeur: Raskolnikov’s belief in his intellectual superiority blinds him to his moral failings. |
Self-Justification: Rationalizes murder for personal and social advancement. | Moral Blindness: He lacks empathy and fails to recognize the ripple effects of his actions on others. |
Detachment from Humanity: Views people as mere numbers or obstacles to his success. | Dehumanization: Dostoevsky critiques his disconnection from the messiness of human life and spirituality. |

Final Words For Those Who Are Still Reading
So where does that leave us? The darkness hangs around, waiting to swallow you whole when the going gets tough.
Maybe life’s just some twisted punchline. Maybe it’s all about the numbers, the cold math of it all.
But maybe, just maybe, the real meaning’s in the fight.
If you’re anything like Raskolnikov, you’re probably out there, lost in your own head, waiting for some kind of divine intervention to drop down and tell you what the hell to do.
But here’s the deal—the sign’s already in front of you. It’s in the choices you make when you’re staring down the wreckage of your own damn soul.
And that might just be the only thing that keeps us going.
We either pick ourselves up, or we let ourselves rot.
The future? It’s not carved in stone, not even close. Hell, it’s not even close to being solid.
We make it. Even if it’s a goddamn mess.
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