Crime And Punishment: Is There Or Is There Not Such A Thing As Crime? :: essays research papers

Crime and Punishment Is There or is There Not Such a Thing as Crime?For this question, I have chosen to discuss the following three works ofliterature Crime and Punishment, by Feodor Dostoevsky, Beloved, by ToniMorrison, and Utopia, by Sir Thomas More.To cast down with an omniscient and philosophical frame of reference, nuisanceis only defined as crime by the society defining it. When a mass of humanbeings grumous to gether and form a civilized society, they are bound to droprules and constabularys to follow and bide by for laws are one of the cornerstones of acivilized society. If there were no laws, society would be uncivilized and in achaotic state of anarchy. These laws are decided and administered usually byelected officials who act as leaders in the society. From the input of thecitizens, they make laws to run the society by. And when a person breaks thelaw, that is defined as a crime. For example, purposeful and allegedmanslaughter is a crime, because it is a law to not kill others people are notallowed to go cavorting around killing whomever they please, if they did,civilization would fall. Laws and rules hold us to civilization.Another way to define crime is through ethics and morals. Each personon this Earth possesses a conscience when we do something wrong, our consciencemakes us olfactory sensation immoralityy, although some people feel less or more guilt than othersabout certain acts it varies individually. Based on this, one can define acrime as the things that make us feel guilty, although some crimes do not makeus feel guilty. Some people do not feel any guilt when committing immoral actsthese people are deemed psychopaths or sociopaths by society. For example, mostpeople do not feel guilty when they break the law by speeding, its exclusively a way oflife these days, but with complex ideologies (stealing, killing), we feel guiltif they are committed. Our consciences also hold us to civilization.In Dostoevskys Crime and Punishment, the l aws are already defined inEarly Nineteenth century St. Petersburg, Russia. Henceforth, when one breaks alaw they have committed a crime and are eligible for end and punishment bythe upholders of law in society, the police. A particular act that is definedas criminal is that of murder. Raskolnikov knows of this very well, for he hascommitted two murders, both of them ille gal and in cold blood. Obviously,this act is defined as criminal because of the moral and legal implications one