Three Concluding Paragraphs:

Below are three paragraphs, each taken from the final page of a paper. Read them, consider what you think, then follow the link below to find my reaction:

(1) Dostoyevsky's lesson in this book is to tell us that we must have faith even though doubt seems more logical. Doubt is represented through Ivan Karamazov. When living in doubt, people suffer despair, because in a world without morality, people act only by their desires. Ivan learned this when he found out that his brother, Smerdyakov, killed his own father. This action was influenced by Ivan's amoral philosophical beliefs, basically his doubt about God led to the murder of his father, for which he finally accepts respobsibility, and he suffers a nervous breakdown, in consequence of his doubt. Dostoyevsky is showing us that free will if just a condition that we have, that we can still have faith even though we have free will, this is represented through Zosima and Alyosha, and this suggests that people are not as weak as Ivan thought them to be.


(2) The many philosophical questions surrounding the problem of evil make it such a fascinating topic to research. There are so many different opinions out there, it is impossible to decide which is "right". I think, however, that in philosophy there really never is a "right" side. From the basic argument of a theist vs. a non-theist and Dostoevsky's own work, its easy to see just how complicated the problem of evil is. Between an all powerful God, the concepts of free will and forgiveness and the juxtaposition of Ivan and Father Zosima many different points of view are expressed making evil seem like something that is always unsolvable. The problem of evil then seems like it is destined to forever be just that, a problem.


(3) Although these are interesting questions that would be interesting to address later, for now I will limit to express my concluding opinion with respect to "love". Love by itself will not lead to happiness. Yes, it is an important element for defining moral standards (or ethical virtues), but without the intellectual virtues we would not even be able to recognize them nor decide how to act with respect to them. An ethical virtue is not a virtue until the intellectual virtue recognizes it. We need both "love" and the "intellectual virtues" in order to achieve happiness.

So, can you tell what's bad and good about these endings? If your responses match mine, then you are learning about the standards by which I judge your work.
My comments on these paragraphs.

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