Abstract
This paper presents a philosophical reading of “The Idiot”, which perceives its main protagonist, Prince Myshkin, as a literary hero who chooses the path of generosity. The paper exposes Dostoevsky’s generosity-ethics against the background of Christian ethics, virtue ethics, and the Nietzschean notion of generosity; it further analyzes the problematic aspects of Myshkin’s version of generosity-ethics, and discusses several possible explanations of its catastrophic outcomes in the novel. The paper consists of three parts. The first part presents the rich and profound sense that Dostoevsky gives to generosity-ethics in the novel, while showing the good it may bring to one’s life. The second part exposes the dangers and the limits of generosity-ethics, because of which the Prince may be referred to as “an idiot”. The third and final part reevaluates generosity-ethics, discusses its relation to reason, and puts forth another version of generosity-ethics that may overcome most of the flaws in Myshkin’s generosity. Offering such a philosophical reading of this great literary work of art, the paper also says some things about the relation between philosophy and literature, and aims at a fruitful dialogue between the two.
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Notes
Much has been written about the religious (or anti-religious) basis of Dostoevsky’s work. See, for example: Gibson, Boyce: The Religion of Dostoevsky (London: S.C.M.P., 1973); Allain, Louis: Dostoievski et Dieu: La Morsure de Divine (Lille: Presses Universitaires de Lille, 1981); Pattison, George and Oenning Thompson, Diane (Eds.): Dostoevsky and the Christian Tradition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
In this paper I quote from: Dostoevsky, Fyodor: The Idiot: A Novel in Four Parts, translated by Constance Garnett, revised and edited with an introduction by Avrahm Yarmolinsky (New York: The Heritage Press, 1956). In the following quotations, my own emphases are in bold.
Some hold The Idiot to be Dostoevsky’s “most ethical text”; I would not necessarily go that far. Yet, I do wish to claim that the ethical aspect (of generosity-ethics) stands at the heart of the novel. For the former see Johnson, Leslie A: “The Face of the Other in The Idiot”, Slavic Review (1991), vol. 50, pp. 867–878, 867. Johnson, however, approaches this issue from a different angel to mine—she examines, in the spirit of Emmanuel Levinas, the meaning of the encounter with the human face, presenting it as the very mark of the prince’s goodness.
Generosity and giving has started to surface as a philosophical topic mainly during the last few years, and at an exceeding rate, following the research of the anthropologist Marcel Mauss, The Gift: the Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies (1924), Tr: W.D. Halls (New York: Norton, 1990). Many discussions combine a phenomenological approach to the gift with ethical notions of generosity. See for example: Schrift, A. D. (Ed.): The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity (New York & London: Routledge, 1997); Vandevelde, A. (Ed.): Gifts and Interests (Leuven: Peeters, 2000); Wyschogrod, E., Goux, J-J. & Boynton, E. (Eds.): The Enigma of Gift and Sacrifice (New York: Fordham University Press, 2002).
The stoics did not consider ethics as primarily social, but saw it mainly as a way for personal spiritual improvement. According to Aristotle, ethics revolves around a group of inter-related virtues, and no specific virtue—like generosity—can exist by itself. Yet I claim that one can give a sense to generosity-ethics in light of what these thinkers wrote about the virtue of generosity, and further examine Myshkin’s generosity against this background. See: Aristotle: The Nicomachean Ethics, translated by J.A.K. Thomson (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1955) (Hereinafter: “Ethics”), Book four, Chap. I; Seneca: “De Beneficiis”, in: Moral Essays, Tr: J. Basore (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1935), vol. III; Seneca: Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales, Tr: R. M. Gummere (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1920), vol. II, pp. 219–240.
See mainly: Nietzsche, F: Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, Tr: T. Common, Ed: O. Levi (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964) (Hereinafter: “Zarathustra”). The book sets out one principal demonstration of generosity—Zarathustra’s relation to his pupils. For more see: Shapiro, Gary: “The Metaphysics of Presents: Nietzsche’s Gift, the Debt to Emerson, Heidegger’s Values”, in: Schrift, Alan D. (Ed.): The Logic of the Gift: Toward an Ethic of Generosity (New York & London: Routledge, 1997), 274–291.
This point is echoed by the modern theorists who espouse the feminist “ethics of care”, previously mentioned at the introduction. As opposed to the narrow legalism of modern ethics, with its emphasis on rights and duties, contemporary feminists resurrect the wider world view of the ancient world, with its emphasis not on mere justice but on many further important aspects of “the good life”.
See for example: Vladiv, S.M: “Dostoevskii’s ‘Positively Beautiful Man’ and the Existentialist Authentic Self—a Comparison”, Canadian–American Slavic Studies (1989), vol. 23, no.3, pp. 313–329. Likewise, Walter Kaumann included Dostoevsky in his anthology of existentialism—see: Kaufmann, Walter (Ed, trans. & prefaces): Existentialism: From Dostoevsky to Sartre (New York & London: Meridian & Penguin Books, Expanded Edn: 1989).
In this context, see: Oenning Thompson, Diane: “Motifs of Compassion in Dostoevskii`s Novels”, in: Bortnes, Jostein and Lunde, Ingunn (Eds): Cultural Discontinuity and Reconstruction: Byzanto–Slav Heritage and Creation of a Russian National Literature in the Nineteenth Century (Oslo: Solum, 1997), pp. 185–201.
Indeed, the individualistic orientation of some existential philosopher, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, who coined the famous metaphor “hell is the other person” (in his play No Exit), created such an impression of existentialism. Yet quite a few existentialist philosophers—like Martin Buber, Alber Camus (in his later thought), even Sartre himself (in his later Existentialism is Humanism)—portrayed a positive attitude towards one’s fellowmen, of benevolence and solidarity. Among the latter one can, as mentioned above, include also the Nietzschean generosity.
As quoted in Tyrras, Nicholas: “Whence Came the Innocent Perfection of Prince Myshkin”, Slavic and East European Journal (1989), vol. 33, no. 4, pp. 530–538, 531; See there a discussion of the sources Dostoevsky drew on when he depicted Myshkin as an unblemished and perfect innocent.
Walter Benjamin discusses the “Russian” aspect of The Idiot, and the connection the novel draws between the national and the individual realms in general, and in Myshkin’s life in particular. See: Benjamin, Walter: “Dostoevsky’s The Idiot”, translated by: Rodney Livingstone, in: Benjamin, Walter: Selected Writings: Volume 1 (1913–1926), edited by Bullock, Marcus and Jennings, Michael W. (Cambridge and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 78–81.
See for example: Young, Sarah J: “Dostoevskii’s Idiot and the Epistle of James”, The Slavonic and East European Review (2003), vol. 81, no. 3, pp. 401–420 (Hereinafter: “Young”), and the references quoted there.
Nietzsche, Friedrich: The Will to Power: an Attempted Transvaluation of All Values, translated by A. M. Ludovici, editor: O. Levi (New York: Russell & Russell, 1964) (Hereinafter: “The Will to Power”), vol. II, #932; Zarathustra, p. 86, accordingly.
See Zarathustra, “The Bestowing Virtue”.
Ibid, p. 87.
This notion of the “generous death” is based on Nietzsche’s conception of the human as something to be overcome, to the point of being willing to give one’s own life, in order to transcend the human and reach towards “the heir”—the overman beyond. This death is portrayed as a celebration, as a gift to life; such a profound affirmation of life, to the point where an individual affirms his own death, out of happiness at the rise of the overman (See Zarathustra, pp. 82–83, 91).
For these aspects of the Nietzschean generosity see for example also: Zarathustra, “Zarathustra’s Prologue”, #1, pp. 125, 273, 329; Nietzsche, F: The Gay Science, Trs: J. Nauckhoff & A. Del-Caro, Ed: B. Williams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), #378;
Slattery, Dennis Patrick: The Idiot: Dostoevsky’s Fantastic Prince: a Phenomenological Approach (New york: Lang, 1983), pp. v–vi.
Magistrale, Anthony S: “Between Heaven and Hell: The Dialectic of Dostoevski’s Tragic Vision”, in: Ugrinsky, Alexej and Ozolins, Valija (Eds): Dostoevski and the Human Condition after a Century, with an introduction by Pete Hamill (New York: Greenwood, 1986), pp. 195–196.
In Young’s words—see Young, p. 404, and her examples of such interpretations at fn. 14.
Written in the notebooks to The Possessed, as quoted in: Moser, Charles A: “Nihilism, Aesthetics and The Idiot”, Russian Literature (1982), vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 377–388, 388. Moser indeed follows this line of thought.
This may raise the question whether an ethical person has a moral duty to exceed the old religious objective of “saving one’s own soul”, and fight against social evil; from this perspective, one may say that Myshkin’s failure stems from the fact that he attempted to “be good” alone. However, such a claim ignores the abovementioned explicit statement of the prince that he wishes to instruct others to behave according to the model that he sets for them. Therefore, this important question exceeds the scope of the paper.
One may claim that Myshkin is indeed a tragic hero in the Greek sense, because he has most of the characterizations of such a hero. He is a noble and morally virtuous man with a potential for greatness, with a fatal flow that is based on incomplete self-knowledge, which brings him to make an irreversible mistake that dooms him to a tragic end. He suffers more than he deserves, especially when he realizes his mistake—for which he pays with his very sanity (or by his metaphoric death). Surely he arises the empathy of the readers. And yet, I chose to present him in contrast with the tragic Greek hero, because I wish to emphasize the contrast regarding the tragic flaw between the Greek hero—whose flaw is usually, if not always, hubris—and Myshkin. However, one may say that Myshkin in another kind of a tragic hero.
See for example The Will to Power, vol. I, #4; On the Genealogy of Morality, translated by C. Diethe, editor: K. Ansell-Pearsdon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), article 1 #7.
See Ethics, book 4, chap. 1 (on generosity); chap. 3 (on magnanimity).
The feminist ethics of care also holds ethics to exceed the rational and require an emotional component of care. According to such ethics, Myshkin’s flaw would not necessarily be connected with irrationality, but may be presented in terms of an exaggerated self-sacrifice.
Another objection to this existential interpretation may be put forward here: one may say that the widespread use of the models of therapy and social science, as well as contemporary social protest movements, contribute to the positive value of “self-esteem”, to the point of labeling an extreme lack of self-interest—like that of Myshkin’s—as a mental illness. This is of course true, yet I think that reducing this novel to a mere psychological level is somewhat simplistic. In this context see also my discussion of Myshking’s loss of sanity.
In the same spirit, Soren Kierkegaard’s philosophy describes a moment of acknowledging the failure of a paradigm of authenticity—the esthecical one—that ruins the protagonist who represents it. Once the Kierkegaardian esthetical person becomes aware of his death, he is being exiled from the paradise of enjoying momentary pleasures, without any memory or commitment, because those cannot postpone his inevitable death. In the face of death, the entire esthetical way of life is a failure, up to a point where in his despair, the esthetical person longs to die—namely: to kill his identity as an esthetical person. See: Kierkegaard, Soren: Either/Or, edited and translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), vol I, pp.26, 518 (supplement).
See Terras, Victor: “Dostoevskii’s The Idiot: A Note on the ‘Novel-Tragedy’”, Canadian–American Slavic Studies (1988), vol. 22, nos.1–4, pp. 403–408. Interestingly, Terras finds here an analogy between Myshkin and Nastasya Filippovna—while he represents pure goodness, she represents pure beauty; and both are treated alike: with misunderstanding and abuse. From the aforesaid it is clear, that this view contradicts my own interpretation. See also: Panichas, George A: The Burden of Vision: Dostoevsky’s Spiritual Art (Lake Bluff: W.E. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1985), p. 51.
Indeed, Dostoevsky himself—as opposed to Leo Tolstoy—did not accept an ascetic model of Christianity. Reading The Idiot as a case of benevolence gone wrong, the paper represents a kind of preemptive strike by Dostoevsky against Tolstoy’s future ascetic interpretation of the Christian “law of love”. For more on Tolstoy’s interpretation see Scanlan, James P: “Tolstoy among the Philosophers: His Book On Life and Its Critical Reception”, Tolstoy Studies Journal (2006), vol. 18, pp. 52–69.
The Will to Power, vol. II, #932; Zarathustra, p. 86; accordingly. It should be emphasized, that the Nietzschean “generous death” is also conceived of as an egoistic act, in which the superior man manifests and strengthens his power.
See for example: Gilligan, C: In a Different Voice: Psychological theory and women’s development (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982); Noddings, N: Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984); and particularly thinkers like Mullet, who distinguish between “distorted care” and “undistorted care”—the latter being an oppressive kind of care (Mullet, S: “Shifting perspectives: A new approach to ethics”, in L. Code, S. Mullet, and C. Overall (eds.), Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988)). However, there are many varieties of ethics of care, and some are less suited to our discussion than others; such as the maternal model of attentive love (e.g. Sara Ruddick’s Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace (New York: Ballantine Books, 1989)) or the lesbian ethics (which may be surprisingly Nietzschean—see for example Daly, M: Gyn/ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1978)).
The narrator of Parmenides’ work conventionally named On Nature, receives a revelation from an unnamed goddess on the nature of reality. Socrates presents philosophy itself as a gift from the gods, and his own wisdom as ascribed to his reliance on his daemon—an inner voice that warned him whenever he was about to make a mistake, and whose origin seems to be divine and independent of his own thoughts; see, for example, Plato’s Phaedrus.
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I would like to express my thanks to Adia Mendelson-Maoz and the anonymous referees of Philosophia for their very helpful and insightful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.
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Freibach-Heifetz, D. Giving Sense to Generosity-Ethics: A Philosophical Reading of Dostoevsky’s The Idiot . Philosophia 36, 575–591 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-008-9129-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-008-9129-5