Dostoevsky’s ethical views and Aristotelian virtue ethics

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This paper examines Dostoevsky’s ethical and political views – first and foremost in his novel The Brothers Karamazov – from the point of view of Aristotelian political philosophy. The key question the paper aims to answer is whether Dostoevsky’s ethics of redemption and responsibility is compatible with Aristotle’s virtue ethics and, if not, what a Neo-Aristotelian can learn from Dostoevsky. In order to answer this question the article concentrates on two tasks. First, it aims to explain the meaning of Dostoevsky’s ‘each of us is guilty in everything before everyone, and I most of all’. Its main pronouncements in The Brothers Karamazov are therefore discussed. Emmanuel Levinas’s philosophical interpretation of the dictum is outlined and juxtaposed to Sigmund Freud’s misreading of Dostoevsky. Second, the paper assess the notion of infinite responsibility from the point of view of Aristotle’s political and moral philosophy and argues that Aristotle’s ethical ideal of the magnanimous man is diametrically opposite to Dostoevsky’s ethics of humility and redemption.