Karamazov good

Evdokimov again, explaining how each of the Karamazov brothers presents a particular ideal of the good. For Mitya, the good is known immediately by sentiment that is prior to any reflection. The problem is that this instinctive response is unstable, and Dostoevsky makes this clear by showing Mitya lurching from Katarina to Grushenka and back.

Ivan demands rational justification of life, and finds his good in ethical autonomy. Human beings have within themselves the power to achieve virtue and fullness of life. But this is virtue without Christ, and this liberty ends up inverting into irrationalism. Rigorist rational morality cannot achieve love (“C’est que le bien rigoriste du devoir est prive de vrai amour”) and in the end the Christless Kantian moralism of Ievan collapses into the amoralism of Nietzsche.

Only religion can enable one to move from abstract to concrete. Thus for Alyosha the good is found in love, and this love has to recognize that the ultimate good remains transcendent. Life depends on the gift of grace, and the needs of the present are dominated by and are seen as reflections of an eternal present. Only this “trans-ethique” stance of holiness enables one to achieve active love.

At the same time, Dostoevsky depicts a declension from one stage of evil to another: From the disorder of natural passions to duty without charity, to unlimited will, to demonic possession and finally to acedia, hellish hopelessness (“la desesperance infernale”).