Comparing Fyodor Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment

Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment problematizes the rights of people to transgress the law for utilitarian ends. The utilitarian ends the novel presents involve an extraordinary person committing a crime for the sake of benefitting more people through such an act. In the novel, Raskolnikov fully exercises his right to transgress the law by killing an old pawnbroker for her money, only to justify his act by believing he could help more people by performing good deeds with the pawnbroker’s cash. In his article, Raskolnikov explains his theory by stating that “if such an [extraordinary person] needs, for the sake of his idea, to step even over a dead body, over blood, then within himself, in his conscience, he can, in my opinion.” At this