“If the Soul Is Not Immortal, There Is No Virtue, and Everything Is Permitted”

The proposition that without the soul’s immortality there is no virtue and everything is permitted is presented as an alarming moral theory, but the passage gives it no settled status as a doctrine: Rakitin quotes it in order to denounce it. His response is a rival claim that human beings can find grounds for virtuous life in love of freedom, equality, and fraternity. The exchange leaves the maxim suspended between a challenge to religious morality and an accusation that its supposed implications are being used as a pose.

The Maxim as Rakitin Reports It

Rakitin attributes the theory to Ivan’s article and restates it as the claim that, if the soul is not immortal, virtue has no basis and everything is lawful. He connects the proposition to Dmitri’s earlier cry, “I will remember!” The brief recollection gives the abstract argument a personal echo, but the passage does not explain Dmitri’s meaning or establish that he endorses the theory.

Rakitin’s Rebuttal

Rakitin calls the article absurd and rejects its argument as fraudulent. He first lashes out at its supposed attraction for scoundrels, then checks himself, acknowledging that the insult is foolish; he redirects his attack toward what he calls pedantic poseurs, people displaying profound doubts for effect. His change of target distinguishes the moral danger he alleges from the intellectual performance he resents.

Against the maxim, Rakitin insists that humanity can discover the power to live virtuously even without belief in immortality. He names love of freedom, equality, and fraternity as possible grounds for that life. The passage therefore stages more than a denial of Ivan’s argument: it places religiously grounded virtue beside a proposed human and social alternative, without resolving their dispute.

Argument, Performance, and Interruption

Rakitin’s rebuttal is itself heated and performative. He mocks the article’s formulaic qualifications—“on the one hand we cannot but admit” and “on the other it must be confessed!”—as signs of evasion rather than genuine reasoning. Yet his own anger briefly outruns his argument, and he admits as much before continuing. That self-correction complicates his denunciation: the reader hears both a substantive counterclaim and a speaker struggling with the rhetoric of contempt.

The speech stops when Rakitin suddenly seems to remember something. The interruption leaves his counterargument unfinished and the immediate dispute unresolved. As presented here, the maxim functions as a contested claim reported by an opponent, not as a final verdict on morality or Ivan’s considered position.