Dostoevsky and the Need for a Paternalistic Judicial System
Reforms in 1864 brought about radical changes to the law courts of Russia। These reforms meant that the Russian judicial system would be more in line with those of Western Europe, England in particular। For slavophiles like Fyodor Dostoevsky this was an unwelcome change. He felt that the system did need reform, and that the drastic change to a foreign system was not well suited to the Russian people. For Dostoevsky the judicial system needed to move slowly, if at all, toward the Western ideal if it was to work in Russia. The Russian people were not used to such a system, and they did not share all the same values as those in Europe, so this rapid switch was a dangerous one for Russian justice. Dostoevsky felt that the system was too mechanical and allowed, if not caused, attorneys to lie for the sake of their clients. The courts were slavish to the letter of the law, such that often juries were given little choice as to whether to acquit or convict defendants due to the ways the laws were written. This often caused verdicts to be either too lenient or too harsh. Noting this, Dostoevsky wanted to push for a more paternalistic court that could invoke mercy when necessary, not a mechanistic court that just churned out verdicts and sentences. We can find these ideas expressed in A Writer’s Diary, a collection of observations Dostoevsky made during his time as a journalist, most notably involving court proceedings of the day.
We can even go so far as to draw a parallel between Dostoevsky’s ideas about parenting, or lack thereof, in the Dzhunkovsky case with his issues with the courts। The Dzhunkovskys were tried for torturing three of their children but were acquitted। For Dostoevsky, the new system is similar to the Dzhunkovskys’ parenting style, absent of mercy and love. It should also be seen as lazy. It seeks to punish rather than care for those brought before it, and for those acquitted, it fails to teach them any valuable moral lesson. The Dzhunkovskys acted in a similar way. They tried to provide their children with the best that they could, including education, but they did it in a mechanical way. They let others, nannies and tutors, do the work for them, and failed to provide them with the most important things parents can give their children-- love and a good moral example. They simply doled out punishment for bad behavior, similarly to the courts. Instead of simply punishing them, they should have been molding them into better people. In other words, neither the Dzhunkovsky children nor defendants in court are receiving a proper moral education from their respective parental figures because they are absent in such a capacity.
More importantly, Dostoevsky felt strongly that this case should have never been brought to trial, at least in this system। He would like it to have been tried in a family- or community-oriented court as well as the “court of [the Dzhunkovskys’] own conscience.” (1054) Dostoevsky felt the courts should act as a guardian to the community and the job of the guardian was both protector and educator. In ‘An Imaginary Speech by the Presiding Judge,’ Dostoevsky takes the opportunity to take the role of moral educator in regard to the Dzhunkovsky parents. Some of these comments can easily be seen as applicable to the new judicial system.
This passage shows that Dostoevsky would implore parents to be more merciful and nurturing to their children, and by extension, the court should be so with those brought before it। The courts should not be quick, deliberate, and harsh with their punishments according to the law, but be more accommodating to individual situations.
This case also demonstrates the moral lessons that ought to be involved with court proceedings that Dostoevsky feels are unfortunately absent। The acquittal of the Dzhunkovskys, in addition to the fact that there were no corrective remarks made by the judge, displays this lack of moral education in the courts. Dostoevsky felt that while they shouldn’t have been convicted according to the law, they certainly should have been made to acknowledge that they had done something morally reprehensible. The verdict could also send the wrong message not only to the Dzhunkovsky parents, but also to parents across Russia. To claim that it is acceptable under the law to treat children the way the Dzhunkovskys did is a pernicious statement to make other Russian parents.
This sense of the courts needing to teach moral lessons through compassion can also be seen in the proceedings of the Kornilova case। The case involved a woman who threw her stepdaughter out of a fourth-story window. She was initially convicted in what seemed like an open and shut case, but she was eventually retried and acquitted due, in part, to Dostoevsky’s commentary about her potentially altered mind-state brought on by her pregnancy.
For Dostoevsky, the outcome of this case was nearly ideal। Kornilova was repentant and had deep feelings of guilt. Dostoevsky felt that the initial sentence was far too harsh and might have broken her spirit. The fact that she was initially found guilty and then acquitted allowed for the public and personal acknowledgment of guilt on Kornilova’s part as well as the capacity for mercy on the part of the courts. This shows the potentiality for the judicial system to take account of a person’s mind-state as well as their feelings of repentance when deciding a case. Dostoevsky felt that personal reform was much more important than simply punishing according to the precedents of law. “Is it not better to reform, to find, and to restore a human being than to simply cut off his head? Cutting off heads is easy if one follows the letter of the law, but it is always much more difficult to settle a matter in accordance with the truth, in a humane and paternal fashion.”(1239) Dostoevsky’s use of “paternal’ here is telling. Instead of sticking to the letter of the law, like a parent, the courts should be more sensitive to each individual. While this may damage the use of precedent, it would both diminish over-punishment and promote edifying moral lessons.
Another case that displays Dostoevsky’s desire for a judicial system with the paternal ability to teach moral lessons and be merciful is that of Kairova, another woman accused of attempted murder who was acquitted। This case also involved the problem of accounting for the mental-state of the accused. However, in this case, while Dostoevsky was glad Kairova was released because of her altered mental-state and that a prison sentence would be her undoing, he was upset that Kairova was acquitted because she did not have to acknowledge her wrongdoing. (474) Obviously, attempting to kill someone should be a punishable act, but because the new courts were not equipped to deal with the intricacies of such a case, she was released with no punishment or moral lesson. Dostoevsky would rather have seen her convicted of a crime with a commuted sentence, because she would have to come to terms with her act but not be punished more than necessary.
It was very important that people who did something morally questionable, such as the Dzhunkovskys, Kornilova, or Kairova, be held accountable in the sense that they acknowledge the wrongness of what they’ve done। The new court system, however, was not well equipped to do so, at least to the standards of Dostoevsky. The system was only set up to acquit or punish, not to teach lessons. Instead of being parental, the judicial system is just that, a system-- cold, mechanical, and lacking compassion. It is a lazy system, only able to churn out verdicts and punishments, instead of acting as a father figure ready to judge and punish, but also ready to be merciful and morally nurturing.
The new courts were not indigenously Russian and did not share the Russian sense of morality, at least according to Dostoevsky. They were set up in the mold of those of Europe where the culture was steeped in Enlightenment values, including democracy and science. It was the European emphasis on science and rationality that Dostoevsky felt tainted the judicial system to make it purely mechanistic and led it away from being a paternalistic, morally efficacious one. The previous Russian system of autocracy, with the Tsar as the ‘father,’ had instilled paternalism as cultural value, and the new system lacked this central value. Dostoevsky was looking for a father not a machine. Mercy and moral education would be much more advantageous to Russian society than a system that coldly assigned defendants innocence, guilt, and punishment. The Russian people and their morality should be nurtured by the system, not neglected by it.
We can even go so far as to draw a parallel between Dostoevsky’s ideas about parenting, or lack thereof, in the Dzhunkovsky case with his issues with the courts। The Dzhunkovskys were tried for torturing three of their children but were acquitted। For Dostoevsky, the new system is similar to the Dzhunkovskys’ parenting style, absent of mercy and love. It should also be seen as lazy. It seeks to punish rather than care for those brought before it, and for those acquitted, it fails to teach them any valuable moral lesson. The Dzhunkovskys acted in a similar way. They tried to provide their children with the best that they could, including education, but they did it in a mechanical way. They let others, nannies and tutors, do the work for them, and failed to provide them with the most important things parents can give their children-- love and a good moral example. They simply doled out punishment for bad behavior, similarly to the courts. Instead of simply punishing them, they should have been molding them into better people. In other words, neither the Dzhunkovsky children nor defendants in court are receiving a proper moral education from their respective parental figures because they are absent in such a capacity.
More importantly, Dostoevsky felt strongly that this case should have never been brought to trial, at least in this system। He would like it to have been tried in a family- or community-oriented court as well as the “court of [the Dzhunkovskys’] own conscience.” (1054) Dostoevsky felt the courts should act as a guardian to the community and the job of the guardian was both protector and educator. In ‘An Imaginary Speech by the Presiding Judge,’ Dostoevsky takes the opportunity to take the role of moral educator in regard to the Dzhunkovsky parents. Some of these comments can easily be seen as applicable to the new judicial system.
Learning is one thing, but for his children a father should always be like a good, conspicuous example of all the moral conclusions their hearts and minds derive from their learning. Your heartfelt concern for them, a concern that they can always see, and your love for them would, like a friendly ray of sunshine, warm everything that had been planted in their souls; it would have borne fine and abundant fruit. (1055-1056)
All that could have been achieved by labor and love, by ceaseless work on the children and with the children; all that could have been attained through good sense, explanation, admonition, patience, training, and example—all this the weak, lazy, but impatient fathers hope to achieve by the birch rod…. And what is the result? The sly, secretive child will certainly submit and deceive you, and your birch rod will not correct him but will only corrupt him. The weak, cowardly, and tender-hearted child you’ll crush. Finally the good, artless child with a frank and open heart will first suffer torments and then will become embittered, and you will lose his heart. (1056)
This passage shows that Dostoevsky would implore parents to be more merciful and nurturing to their children, and by extension, the court should be so with those brought before it। The courts should not be quick, deliberate, and harsh with their punishments according to the law, but be more accommodating to individual situations.
This case also demonstrates the moral lessons that ought to be involved with court proceedings that Dostoevsky feels are unfortunately absent। The acquittal of the Dzhunkovskys, in addition to the fact that there were no corrective remarks made by the judge, displays this lack of moral education in the courts. Dostoevsky felt that while they shouldn’t have been convicted according to the law, they certainly should have been made to acknowledge that they had done something morally reprehensible. The verdict could also send the wrong message not only to the Dzhunkovsky parents, but also to parents across Russia. To claim that it is acceptable under the law to treat children the way the Dzhunkovskys did is a pernicious statement to make other Russian parents.
This sense of the courts needing to teach moral lessons through compassion can also be seen in the proceedings of the Kornilova case। The case involved a woman who threw her stepdaughter out of a fourth-story window. She was initially convicted in what seemed like an open and shut case, but she was eventually retried and acquitted due, in part, to Dostoevsky’s commentary about her potentially altered mind-state brought on by her pregnancy.
For Dostoevsky, the outcome of this case was nearly ideal। Kornilova was repentant and had deep feelings of guilt. Dostoevsky felt that the initial sentence was far too harsh and might have broken her spirit. The fact that she was initially found guilty and then acquitted allowed for the public and personal acknowledgment of guilt on Kornilova’s part as well as the capacity for mercy on the part of the courts. This shows the potentiality for the judicial system to take account of a person’s mind-state as well as their feelings of repentance when deciding a case. Dostoevsky felt that personal reform was much more important than simply punishing according to the precedents of law. “Is it not better to reform, to find, and to restore a human being than to simply cut off his head? Cutting off heads is easy if one follows the letter of the law, but it is always much more difficult to settle a matter in accordance with the truth, in a humane and paternal fashion.”(1239) Dostoevsky’s use of “paternal’ here is telling. Instead of sticking to the letter of the law, like a parent, the courts should be more sensitive to each individual. While this may damage the use of precedent, it would both diminish over-punishment and promote edifying moral lessons.
Another case that displays Dostoevsky’s desire for a judicial system with the paternal ability to teach moral lessons and be merciful is that of Kairova, another woman accused of attempted murder who was acquitted। This case also involved the problem of accounting for the mental-state of the accused. However, in this case, while Dostoevsky was glad Kairova was released because of her altered mental-state and that a prison sentence would be her undoing, he was upset that Kairova was acquitted because she did not have to acknowledge her wrongdoing. (474) Obviously, attempting to kill someone should be a punishable act, but because the new courts were not equipped to deal with the intricacies of such a case, she was released with no punishment or moral lesson. Dostoevsky would rather have seen her convicted of a crime with a commuted sentence, because she would have to come to terms with her act but not be punished more than necessary.
It was very important that people who did something morally questionable, such as the Dzhunkovskys, Kornilova, or Kairova, be held accountable in the sense that they acknowledge the wrongness of what they’ve done। The new court system, however, was not well equipped to do so, at least to the standards of Dostoevsky. The system was only set up to acquit or punish, not to teach lessons. Instead of being parental, the judicial system is just that, a system-- cold, mechanical, and lacking compassion. It is a lazy system, only able to churn out verdicts and punishments, instead of acting as a father figure ready to judge and punish, but also ready to be merciful and morally nurturing.
The new courts were not indigenously Russian and did not share the Russian sense of morality, at least according to Dostoevsky. They were set up in the mold of those of Europe where the culture was steeped in Enlightenment values, including democracy and science. It was the European emphasis on science and rationality that Dostoevsky felt tainted the judicial system to make it purely mechanistic and led it away from being a paternalistic, morally efficacious one. The previous Russian system of autocracy, with the Tsar as the ‘father,’ had instilled paternalism as cultural value, and the new system lacked this central value. Dostoevsky was looking for a father not a machine. Mercy and moral education would be much more advantageous to Russian society than a system that coldly assigned defendants innocence, guilt, and punishment. The Russian people and their morality should be nurtured by the system, not neglected by it.
Work Cited
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. A Writer's Diary. Trans. Kenneth Lantz. Vol. 1&2. Evanston, IL: Northwestern UP, 1993.
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