Crime and Punishment: What is Legal and What is Moral?

“Oh yes, there is no reason to feel sorry for me! I need to be crucified, not pitied! Crucified!…..If you do that, I will come and ask for crucification, for it is not merriment I crave but tears and sorrow! Think you, publican, your bottle has been a sweetness unto me? It has been a sorrow. I have sought sorrow in its dregs, sorrow and tears, and I found and savoured them.” (Dostoevsky 20)

Considering the theme presented in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, both the words as separate definitions and the novel itself, what is legal and what is moral? Following the life of a young man who’s drunk and sick in his mind, in the sense that he actually prefers pain and sorrow over pleasure or rather, perceives his pain as a pleasure. It follows his story as he commits a murder, all because he thinks that his victim’s life is worthless and while in the process, he has to commit another murder of an innocent person to cover up his tracks. After the murder, he experiences a sickness that makes him want to push away everyone because he fears confronting their questions and his own guilt and is scared that his thoughts are consuming him and that he will lose his mind. Again, legal? Moral? Of course, murder is illegal and of course, it isn’t moral. But in regards to the punishment of such crimes, here are the observations and questions I would like to put forth:

Murder is wrong. Murder is legally wrong.

Murderers are punished. The law punishes murderers.

Do murderers punish themselves? What about morality?

Are murderers morally justified? Is the law morally justified in their punishment?

And if not, how can criminals and government alike, get back their morality?

This is where my dilemma starts; the punishment for a crime. Of course, there are crimes in which the criminals are hanged. Well, what then? What law holds enough power to make the decision that this person, who has committed enough crimes, is permitted to be killed? What about redemption?

And if under the law, the crimes are stated, is the government not itself indulging in a crime by killing the criminals? Are they moral in their punishments? And who gives the government such immense power to decide, in the creation of laws, what punishment would be moral for what crime? In democracies, people give votes to those who they believe can make the world better, but how much power are we handing into these political parties? These parties, so powerful with our support, now have the ability to make laws in a way that surpasses even what is morally right and we just have to go on with it. We simply have to conform no matter what.

However, the purpose of punishment (or moral punishment, more specifically) is to inflict harm on the inner soul. This is why we punish ourselves for the things we do by thinking too much about it. This is what we escape through conformity to the government and conformity to the standards of everyone’s respective society, what we escape by blind faith in the Gods or blind faith in our destinies. We escape the punishment we morally feel the urge to inflict on ourselves for our wrongdoings. Hence, the punishment decided by the government for crimes cannot be moral, but only legal in this sense.

So the essence of my argument here is this: we must learn the right balance between our deeds, our desires, our pleasure and our pain. No one’s hands are clean. We must clean them ourselves. Morality, in this sense, cannot be external and has to be internally built. By celebrating our victories and being present in every moment, by punishing ourselves, either by thinking or by any other means that actually inflict the effect of the sins we wish to wash away. The punishment should be felt internally, and not by any external influence or means, that is the only way the cleansing works and the only way we can be moral in our existence on this earth.

If we suffer for our sins and experience love to help us forgive ourselves, that is the only way we can redeem ourselves and feel truly alive. By connecting to every part of our soul, not just the happy and positive component but even darker, twisted, sick desires in the buried depth of our core, we must come to terms with them instead of finding ways to escape or stay in a peaceful denial. That is the only way a cleansing can be done and we can become morally true to our nature and our purpose.