THE PROBLEM OF MORAL CHOICE IN F.M. DOSTOEVSKY'S NOVEL THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

The article is devoted to the study of the problem of moral choice in Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov—the writer’s culminating work, in which his ethical concept is revealed with the greatest completeness. The paper analyzes how, through the destinies of the main characters—Dmitri, Ivan, Alexei Karamazov, and Smerdyakov—Dostoevsky explores the fundamental questions of human existence: the correlation between freedom and responsibility, faith and disbelief, good and evil. Special attention is paid to the philosophical core of the novel—“The Legend of the Grand Inquisitor,” in which the problem of moral choice acquires a universal and historiosophical dimension. The article examines Dostoevsky’s key idea of “universal responsibility”—the ontological guilt of each person before everyone—and repentance as a path to moral purification and personal transformation.