The Punishment of Rodian Raskolnikoff and Thomas More

Oddly, two pieces of fiction written almost exactly a century apart have got me thinking about the nature of the moral conscience and its place in social life. It seems to me that Dostoyesky’s 19th century novel Crime and Punishment and Robert Bolt’s 1966 play A Man for All Seasons are, amongst other things, insightful explorations of what a moral conscience is, how conclusive it actually is in the face of other normative requirements, and its role in oath taking.

Crime and Punishment is ultimately about the punishment wrought on the main character - Rodian Raskolnikoff - by his conscience. His core moral belief that murder is wrong disturbs him in the lead up, during and after he commits murder. It is a constant siren that what he plans on doing, what he is doing and what he has done conflicts with what he ought to do. This is what Porphyrius - the investigator for Rodian’s crime - means when he says “you cannot do without us” to Rodian who is considering escaping arrest and becoming a fugitive. His fever, delirium, obsession with revisiting the crime scene, and finally his confession, are an expression of this inner conflict.

Rodian’s psychological distress is so starkly rendered it highlights how we should be careful not to confuse one’s conscience with its effect. This distinction basically aligns with what Richard Sorabji uncovers in his book on the conceptual genealogy of the “moral conscience”, and with what Patricia Churchland starts with in her book on the neuroscience of the conscience.¹ Rodian’s story highlights the sparseness of the moral conscience as an ordinary private moral judgement that we have a deep commitment to. Its effect, on the other hand, is that when it conflicts with another moral judgement that we have a weaker commitment to, it produces a psychological tension we cannot help but be aware of. The conflict forces itself upon us so strongly because of the depth of the commitment to the moral judgement of our conscience. The self-awareness is really just a consequence of one’s conscience coming into conflict with other weaker moral judgements. It is this self-awareness that forces Rodian to confess his crime rather than kill himself. That is the only way he feels he can redeem himself from what he has done.

The ordinariness of the moral conscience as a judgement doesn’t mean that its weight is ordinary too. Its weight can be masked when it aligns with the public moral judgement of our community like in Rodian’s case. But what happens if it is in conflict with what others expect? Then, the depth of a person’s commitment to it can seem almost infinite. For Bolt’s Thomas More, his commitment to the belief that King Henry VIII cannot be the head of the Church in England runs deep not because it is a belief but because it is a belief that is part of his most fundamental perspective of the world. It is that he believes it for its own sake rather than for any other interest that means he is willingly to die for it.

But this doesn’t mean one’s conscience is conclusive about what we ought to do. In an ordered society the public judgement, manifest through legitimate public laws and legislatures is conclusive. Conscientious objection under a legitimate political authority is precisely the awareness of the conclusiveness of public judgement over a private moral judgement. When we conscientiously object we are asking to be pardoned from what we have most reason to do in favour of an act justified by reasons we know are only privately significant, ie. significant only for us. For example, pacifists who conscientiously object to military service in defence of their country are, despite outward appearances, acknowledging the conclusive weight of the public judgement that citizens ought to defend their country. This is a judgement justified from the perspective of the public as a whole and so with reasons that are significant to all. But, in objecting the pacifist is asking to be pardoned from these reasons in favour of philosophical or religious reasons they know are only significant to them.

Somewhat unrelatedly, this explains the phenomenon of ‘conscience votes’ in parliaments. They exist only by recognising that members of parliament have been pardoned from the broader party’s group judgement of a particular case.

For Bolt’s More, the inconclusiveness of his conscience is resolved in two ways. In one important way it aligns with a higher authority: that of the Church and God. His conscience is conclusive for him above friendship and loyalty to the King because it is what God would have him do. This is the core of More’s appeal to Norfolk: “And when we stand before God, and you are sent to Paradise for doing according to yours, and I am damned for doing according to mine, will you come with me for fellowship?” The other way the inconclusiveness is resolved is that his conscience is beckoned forth by being required to take an oath that the King is the supreme head of the Church. His private judgement could no longer stay private but had to be shown publicly to align with the public judgement. With this there is no escape of ceding the conclusiveness of the public judgement. More cannot merely comply with the law that states the King as the supreme head, but must identify with it in public.

I find oaths and the role they play in social life intriguing. I remember a long time ago bringing up oaths as an under-discussed social practice in moral philosophy at a dinner with other academic philosophers and being laughed at. I couldn’t understand the reaction but it seems to me an effect of modern moral philosophy’s ethical individualism. It cannot see there are public judgements of morality or politics that have purchase on us above our ethical standards. In one sense oaths are of course merely a ritual of declaring the truth of a belief. But in a much more interesting sense they publicly bind us to that truth, and, when the belief is normative, to a course of action. As Bolt’s More puts it, “When a man makes an oath…he’s holding his own self in his own hands”. We publicly state our commitment to a belief in such a way that we invite others to place obligations on its foundation and expect them to hold us to account if we violate them. Bolt puts it neatly in the preface to the play: “A man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself exceptionally to the statement, when he wants to make an identity between the truth of it and his own virtue…”

Although Bolt is right, already in 1960, that we as modern people are less inclined to think that way, there are social practices where oaths continue to not just linger but have an overwhelming grip on us. In our personal lives, marriages, whether secular or religious, do make us feel as if we have invested something of our own character into a future of companionship. I think it is no wonder soap operas, relationship-centric reality tv, and celebrity relationship scandals remain mass culture mainstays. In public life, we still look down upon those who perjure themselves in court, and much of the structure of political authority depends on oaths taken by heads of state, politicians, judges, and police officers.

There are many more things I could say about A Man for All Seasons and Crime and Punishment. Bolt also interestingly explores through More the dialectic between pure positivist readings of law and legal authority and more moralised ones. Dostoyevsky provides an unremitting vision of 19th century urban poverty in Russia where you can almost feel the chill winds from the Baltic sea. All in all they are both stimulating reads that I think I’ll come back to again.