The creative history of the “The Justification of the Good” by V.S. Solovyov. Article two

Abstract

The second part of the article continues the study the history of V. Soloviev’s writing a special work of the 1890s on moral philosophy. In the previous part of the article, it was established that the decision to write the work could have come to the philosopher in the summer of 1894, since before that time he intended to present to the public the chapters of his work on aesthetics. In the work, as well as in the accompanying literary and critical studies, the philosopher intended to prove that the artist should be guided in his work by a true idea of the ultimate meaning of being. The author proves that the idea of a treatise on moral philosophy was born out of a dispute with the greatest Russian writer of that time, Leo Tolstoy, about what should be laid as a basis of morality and what is its highest purpose. Taking as such basis the principles that Tolstoy himself shared – personal asceticism, love to fellow beings and reverence for the Heavenly Father – Vl. Solovyov made an attempt, through the development of subjective moral attitudes, to justify the need for their objective embodiment in public institutions and so the fact that the ultimate realization of the Good on Earth must be the victory over death. The article also describes how the relationship between Vl. Solovyov and L.N. Tolstoy developed in the 1890s. In particular, a separate paragraph describes Vl. Solovyov’s criticism of the “moral subjectivism” of Tolstoy’s teaching in 1890–1891, that found a place in the “Justification of the Good” in the form of a chapter in that treatise.