Reward and Punishment

Man is superior in moral status to all other creations as he can distinguish right from wrong. So, he is expected to act by the laws of the land and the dictates of his conscience.

The ugly and ill-tempered hero of Dostoevsky’s novel, Crime and Punishment, murders an old woman without heirs to further his education by utilizing her ever-increasing but unveiled wealth. The other characters in the novel, and the reader, cannot but hold him guilty of a heinous crime. The older woman’s wealth was as tempting to the murderer as the flesh of a deer is to a lion. However, when a lion kills a deer to eat its flesh, some sentimental concern may be shown, but no one would seriously raise this killing as a moral issue. No one would feel the urge to frame laws prohibiting such acts. On the contrary, when a man commits a similar offence, society joins in protest and efforts are made to ensure that the murderer does not go unpunished.

Man often is instinctive in conduct like predatory animals, but he is superior in moral status to them, for he can distinguish right from wrong. Therefore, society expects him to act in accordance both with the laws of the land and the dictates of his conscience. If he fails to do so, he must expect to be brought before a court of law in his capacity as an ethical being.

The guilty, however, is not invariably brought to justice. No secular court exists with an all-seeing eye, which can unfailingly dispense justice on all the occasions warranted. At best, the courts set up by human beings can try only a certain number of identifiable offenders, and many are the wrongdoers who go scot-free because their crimes are never discovered since they can cover up their offences, because they find loopholes in man-made laws or because they can use their wealth to spread corruption on earth. Justice is only partially obtainable in this world: absolute justice is attainable only in the life Hereafter.