Противиться ли злу силой: проблема морали в философско-политическом дискурсе

В исследовании подробностях раскрывается полемика И. Ильина с доктриной «непротивления злу силой». В статье анализируется продолжающийся уже более века спор в русской философии относительно оправданности применения насилия. Полемика, развернутая И. Ильиным по поводу доктрины Л. Толстого о непротивлении злу силой, нашла живой отклик как со стороны Н. Бердяева, так и других мыслителей начала прошлого века. Спровоцированная еще творчеством Никколо Макиавелли и Иммануила Канта, не завершилась она и по сей день. Автор, основываясь на скрупулезном прочтении первоисточников, стремится расставить акценты в данном споре, ориентируясь на понятие гуманистической политики.

Shall We Resist to Evil by Force? The Problem of Morals in Philosophy-Political Discourse

The author revealed in details Ivan Il'in's (1883—1954) polemic with Lev Tolstoy’s doctrine of «nonresistance to evil by force». Analyze the dispute proceeding already more than century in Russian philosophy, which concerns correctness of using the violence. This polemic has found the ready response as from N. Berdyaev’s side, and other thinkers of the beginning of the last century. It was not finished even to our days, provoked still N. Machiavelli and I. Kant’s creativity. The author, being based on scrupulous perusal of primary sources, aspires to place accents, being based on the concept of a humanistic policy. Stressed that the activity of Mahatma (Mohandas Karamchand) Gandhi (1869—1948) may serve as a model of humanistic policy of nonviolent resistance: he succeeded to make a seemingly impossible thing, practically proving the possibility of non-violence politics and won when violence was a widespread and accepted norm, perceived as something mundane and ordinary, unlikely to cause any protest. Before him, violence in political affairs was considered to be as natural and necessary as the biological death of a man of old age. Gandhi studied the teachings of Leo Tolstoy regarding non-resistance to evil by force. It is widely known however, that he took in the idea of nonviolence with mother's milk, as in the place where he lived Jainism, one of the oldest spiritual and moral teachings of extreme asceticism and unconditional adherence to the ahimsa principle, was widespread. L. Tolstoy apparently helped him articulate, clarify, and reflect on his own views. Gandhi’s religion became the allegiance he reached via self-knowledge. In America, the famous follower of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King (1929—1968), spoke against racial segregation. King regarded Gandhi as his teacher, and his destiny was similar: he was shot by an assassin. Immanuel Kant also spoke against Machiavelli’s absorption of morality by politics and Machiavellian separation of politics from morality. Yet, along with that, Enlightenment utopianism is typical of Kant, too. Dostoevsky is more pessimistic about this aspect: he presupposes that God and the devil are struggling in the heart of man to gain his soul. Dostoevsky regards human nature as antinomic; according to him, reason cannot combat evil alone, moreover, reason itself can serve it. Unlike Kant, who became the founder of German classical political philosophy, Dostoevsky may be referred to as the founder of existential humanist political philosophy. The pacifist non-resistance policy can be expressed by the thesis of “non-resistance to evil by force” (Leo Tolstoy). At the same time, it must be fundamentally distinguished from the humanistic non-violence policy based upon the thesis of “non-resistance to evil by violence”, yet recognizing the need to “resist evil by force”. The difference between these theses and approaches is a qualitative one, but it is not always noticed, as these provisions are often confused. The author tried to clarify these differences by considering, first of all, the controversy in absentia between Ivan Ilyin and Leo Tolstoy in the Russian culture of the first half of the 20 ^th century, where many other Russian philosophers were involved, too.