Law and Literature:

a dialogue with Restorative Justice from Dostoevsky and Tolstoy

Abstract

https://doi.org/10.1590/2179-8966/2025/81846

In the contemporary world scenario and in Brazil, marked by violence at all levels — social, political, environmental and intersubjective — restorative justice emerges as a non-violent perspective and a rupture with barbarism. Being under construction and going beyond conflict resolution practices and techniques, it is, above all, a worldview or, as Howard Zehr says, a lens, which changes the result in dealing with crime and justice; a lens and not a paradigm, that is, a way of looking at reality by people who seek to build peace. Literature can play an important role in expanding the hermeneutic horizons of those involved in constructing this perspective and refining this lens. It is based on the interrelationship between literature, law and philosophy of the person that we wish to discuss, in this article, the issue of restorative justice. To this end, we will address: the role of literature in building a vision of the world such as a restorative vision from the perspective of Hermann Broch’s “ethical literature”; the issue of metanoia in the literature of Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment) and Tolstoy (Resurrection); the limits of restorative justice based on Dostoevsky's approach to evil and, finally, the question of the person in the thoughts of Howard Zehr and Paul Ricoeur.