I have finished reading The Idiot by Dostoyevsky. It has very interesting characterisation but rather rambling in style. It is packed full of social commentary, moral questions and psychological analysis – often expressed in the story in “ravings” of one character or another. Among the themes are love for one woman, Nastasya Filipovna, by three very different men: Myshkin, who is a paragon of virtue and humility; Rogozhin, who is passionate but roguish and mercenary; and Ganya, being ambitious but always mediocre. The outcome is a tragedy – each character is torn apart by an aspect within themselves which is at odds with their circumstances. Myshkin, the protagonist, is almost Christ-like in his readiness to forgive and to love. His love for Nastasya Filipovna degenerates from selfless love to total pity with a self destructive intensity. (No wonder Nietzsche took such a liking to Dostoyevsky.)
Various proto-existential questions are raised – what are the values of a society? are people responsible for their actions or does their circumstances and environment undermine “free will”? The case of a man driven to cannibalism by near starvation is discussed.
This criminal ended at last by denouncing himself to the clergy, and giving himself up to justice. We cannot but ask, remembering the penal system of that day, and the tortures that awaited him [...] There must have been something stronger than the stake or the fire, or even than the habits of twenty years! There must have been an idea more powerful than all the calamities and sorrows of this world, famine or torture, leprosy or plague–an idea which entered into the heart, directed and enlarged the springs of life, and made even that hell supportable to humanity! Show me a force, a power like that, in this our century of vices and railways!
This raises the possibility of a value system which overrules self preservation in this case. The speaker (Lebedeff) claims that the modern would has become devoid of strong convictions and therefore devalued. Another case is discussed concerning a murderer of 6 people and his unusual moral defence:
Well, not long since everyone was talking and reading about that terrible murder of six people on the part of a–young fellow, and of the extraordinary speech of the counsel for the defence, who observed that in the poverty-stricken condition of the criminal it must have come NATURALLY into his head to kill these six people.
If we admit we would have done the same in the murder’s position, we may be less inclined to condemn him. “Guilt” would no longer be free choice of evil over good, since there is no “free” choice. On the other hand, how can meaningfully discuss “If I were in another’s position” or “If another was in mine”? This might be comparing oranges and apples since there is no possibility of individuals swapping their circumstances. But that too would undermine a universal moral law.
In another place, a terminally ill man discusses what use to make of his last two weeks of life:
Who, in the name of what Law, would think of disputing my full personal right over the fortnight of life left to me?
Since he feels cannot do anything “significant” in the remaining time, the man feels he has no further obligation in his actions or even to carry on living. If this point is admitted, he argument might be extended to an entire life… hello existential crisis. No wonder Dostoyevsky is listed as a founding thinker of existentialism 
Anti Citizen One
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