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Artivate: A Journal of Entrepreneurship in the Arts  Volume 1, Issue 2 
http://artivate.org  pp. 79-91 
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Copyright © 2013, the authors     
 
 

DOSTOEVSKY’S “THE GRAND INQUISITOR”: ADDING AN ETHICAL 
COMPONENT TO THE TEACHING OF NON-MARKET ENTREPRENEURSHIP 
Gordon E. Shockley, Arizona State University 
Peter M. Frank, Wingate University 
 

Abstract 
The premise of this essay is that the study of ethics is an essential component in teaching 

all forms of “non-market entrepreneurship,” that is, all forms of entrepreneurship not undertaken 
solely for commercial purposes.  In non-market entrepreneurship, such as arts entrepreneurship, 
social enterprise, or social entrepreneurship, at least one other purpose instead of or in addition to 
profit motivates acting entrepreneurially.  In this essay we show how we add an ethical 
component to teaching social entrepreneurship in a discussion-based seminar in an American 
university.  The thrust of our effort is to require students read Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “The Grand 
Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima portions from The Brothers Karamazov, originally published 
in Russian in 1863 as a seminal work in the golden age of Russian literature.  Through the 
instructor’s structured and directed discussion of the text, students are presented with the 
argument that a personal ethic of “loving humility” as embodied in the character of Father 
Zossima might serve as an appropriate ethical guide for non-market entrepreneurship. 

 
Introduction 

Mark Hager (2007) in his famous The Nonprofit Quarterly article “The Ultimate 
Question” presents a classic case study of the ethics of arts entrepreneurship.  The case centers 
on Metro Arts and Film (MAF), a fictitious nonprofit arts organization with an original mission 
“to provide instruction in filmmaking, still photography, videotaping, and emerging recording 
mediums” (Hager, 2007, p. 42) based on a real one from a larger study of nonprofits closing their 
doors (see Duckles, Hager, & Galaskiewicz, 2005).  The “ultimate question” in the article’s title 
refers to the MAF’s board deciding to shutter the organization ostensibly because of the State 
Arts Board (another fictitious entity) cut its grant subsidy by 85 percent.  The board’s almost-
unanimous decision to close MAF was ironic as the organization was in good fiscal health 
following the launch of a successful entrepreneurial venture: it had developed its own earned-
income streams and diversified its revenue sources away from a high dependence on government 
subsidies such as the State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts (the actual 
federal agency) from which it also received a grant.  MAF board member Peter comments on the 
organization’s successful enterprise: “Our service revenues are now by far our largest source of 
revenue and won’t be affected by these government cuts’” (Hager, 2007, p. 46).   

Instead of fiscal reasons, the board’s decision to close was the result of factors that have 
ethical dimensions.  These factors included the influence of a domineering founding director, an 
uninvolved board, lack of leadership, and the substitution of its “new mission of ‘survival’” 
instead of the nonprofit’s original service mission (Hager, 2007, pp. 47-48).  The same Peter 
quoted above, who incidentally was the sole MAF board member who voted against the closing, 
invokes one such ethical issue:  

 
‘Close MAF? Why? I’ve been a student and client here for most of my adult life.  We 
can’t just close.  There are a lot of people who rely on services we provide’ (Hager, 2007, 
p. 45) 
 



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In summary, the case of the MFA board’s decision to close demonstrates that arts 
entrepreneurship does not occur in an ethical vacuum.  Ethical issues often come into play 
before, during, and after even successful entrepreneurship.   
 The premise of this essay is that the study of ethics is an essential component in teaching 
all forms of “non-market entrepreneurship,” that is, all forms of entrepreneurship not undertaken 
solely for commercial purposes (Shockley, Frank, & Stough, 2008).  Of course, ethics should be 
equally involved in commercial entrepreneurship (and in all human behavior), but it is not 
constitutive of commercial entrepreneurship like it is of non-market entrepreneurship.  In non-
market entrepreneurship, such as arts entrepreneurship, social enterprise, or social 
entrepreneurship, at least one other purpose instead of or in addition to profit motivates acting 
entrepreneurially.  The practice of arts entrepreneurship is more than just setting up a gallery or 
studio; arts entrepreneurship also encompasses developing tools for artist self-efficacy and self-
actualization and providing an environment for artistic exploration and innovation (e.g., 
Beckman & Essig, 2012).  If ethical considerations are not properly incorporated, then any of 
these practices or others could go awry, as demonstrated in the case of MAF and its board’s 
decision to close the organization in spite of its successful entrepreneurship as well as its 
insufficient attention to other obligations and responsibilities.  Similarly, social enterprise in the 
United States by definition consists of pursuing profit and social goals (e.g., Kerlin, 2006; 
Larson, 2002).  Likewise, it can be argued that ethics is the essence of social entrepreneurship in 
order to ensure that the entrepreneurial efforts are directed towards good societal ends (e.g., 
Bornstein, 2007; Yunus & Weber, 2007).  Yet, when one teaches any of these forms of non-
market entrepreneurship with the available stock of theory, one quickly realizes that ethics is 
often missing or at least neglected.   

In this essay we show how we add an ethical component to teaching social 
entrepreneurship in a discussion-based seminar in an American university.  The thrust of our 
effort is to read with students Fyodor Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima 
sections from The Brothers Karamazov, originally published in Russian in 1863 as a seminal 
work in the golden age of Russian literature.  Through the instructor’s structured and directed 
discussion of the text, students are presented with the argument that an ethical notion of personal 
“loving humility” as embodied in the character of Father Zossima might serve as an appropriate 
ethical guide for social entrepreneurship.  There are two parts to our essay.  In the very brief first 
part we review the available stock of social entrepreneurship theories for their ethical content or 
for analogous mechanisms.  For all of their robustness in other areas, we will find that theories of 
social entrepreneurship generally lack, or at best assume, ethical considerations.  In the second 
and by far the larger part of this essay we walk through key passages of “The Grand Inquisitor” 
and the Father Zossima portions and build the argument that it might supply students with an 
appropriate ethical guide for non-market entrepreneurship.  It should be noted – and students are 
warned upfront – that this is not an exercise in literary analysis of nineteenth-century Russian 
literature.  Nor is the reading of Dostoevsky we offer necessarily a standard or canonical one, 
though some literary criticism intersperses our analysis and argument below.  Instead, 
Dostoevsky the artist is directly engaged and his words considered on their face for their ethical 
content.  In short, we are reading these works as a case study of the integration of ethics and 
social entrepreneurship. “More than educating us, the artist transforms us by what he says and 
makes us feel” (Idinopulos, 1975, p. 51). 

 
  



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Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 
 Social entrepreneurship has developed into one of the most popular fields of 
entrepreneurship studies and practice.  According to the most recent edition of the Social 
Entrepreneurship Education Resource Handbook (Ashoka & Brock, 2011), the study of social 
entrepreneurship has evolved from a kind of niche course of study at a few business schools in 
the 1990s to a series of rigorous, comprehensive, “cross-campus, interdisciplinary, ‘embedded’ 
programs that serve undergraduates, graduates, and executive education seekers” at seemingly 
every kind of institution of higher education (pp. 4-5).   

As at least a partial result of the explosion in the study of social entrepreneurship, 
instructors in the field have a plethora of theories from which to choose (see Table 1 for a partial 
selection of available theories).  Yet even a superficial analysis reveals that ethical considerations 
do not figure prominently in the selection of theories.  As addressed above, all forms of non-
market entrepreneurship by definition must be motivated by at least one other purpose instead of 
or in addition to profit.  Table 1 highlights in bold the non-commercial purposes in this selection 
of theories of social entrepreneurship.  The most common purpose of social entrepreneurship is 
revealed in the key terms “social change,” “social value,” and “transformation.” None of these 
key terms or the larger quotes in which they appear incorporates anything to ensure that social 
change, social value, or transformation conform or satisfy a conception of the good, the moral, 
or the right.  One can easily recall from history any number of instances in which social value 
served only a powerful few and social change, forces, and transformation are most appropriately 
described as fitting evil purposes.  For all of their robustness in other areas, theories of social 
entrepreneurship that generally lack or at least neglect ethical considerations are at best 
incomplete and at worst dangerous.  Therefore, it is imperative to include ethics in teaching 
social entrepreneurship, which is exactly what we propose to do by including in a discussion-
based seminar on social entrepreneurship a component focused on Dostoevsky’s “The Grand 
Inquisitor.”     
  



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Table 1: Partial selection of theories of social entrepreneurship 
Theorist  (year of publication, page number) Systemic effects 

1. Young (1983, p. 36) “…entrepreneurship in the nonprofit sector, as 
elsewhere, represents the cutting edge of the 
sector’s activity, and, as such, its study helps to 
reveal the driving forces and underlying 
character of its member organizations.” 

2. Waddock and Post (1991, p. 394) Theory of social entrepreneurship is one of 
catalytic change. 

3. Dees’ earlier conception (2001, p. 4) 
 
 

Social entrepreneurs as change agents “by 
adopting a mission to create and sustain social 
value.”   

4. Alvord, Brown, and Letts (2004, p. 
279) 

“‘Sustainable transformation’ in the social 
sector in the form of capacity-building 
initiatives alters local norms, roles, and 
expectations to transform the cultural contexts 
in which marginalized groups live…” 

5. Light’s earlier “inclusive” conception 
(2006, pp. 18-20) 

Social entrepreneurship can come in the form 
of both new solutions to large, intractable 
problems or smaller, more modest technical or 
administrative change. 

6. Dees’ later conception (Dees & 
Anderson, 2006, p. 44) 

 “Social entrepreneurs are individuals who 
reform or revolutionize the patterns of 
producing social value, shifting resources into 
areas of higher yield for society.” 

7. Bornstein (2007, pp. 1-2) Social entrepreneurs as “transformative 
forces”: “People with new ideas to address 
major problems who are relentless in the 
pursuit of their visions, people who simply will 
not take ‘no’ for an answer, who will not give 
up until they have spread their ideas as far as 
they possibly can.” 

8. Martin and Osberg (2007, p. 34) The effects of social entrepreneurship are 
produced as the social entrepreneur “creates a 
new equilibrium, one that provides a 
meaningfully higher level of satisfaction for 
the participants in the system.”  

9. Swedburg (2009, p. 99)  Schumpeter’s full model of non-economic 
entrepreneurship: “The pushing through or the 
successful introduction of social change, 
through a new combination of elements that 
make up some way of doing things.”  

Source: Adapted from Shockley & Frank (2011) 
 
  



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Adding an Ethical Component to Teaching Social Entrepreneurship 
Reading literature for its own sake and on its own terms is disappearing from higher 

education.  The anti-humanities, pro-practical bias in higher education with an exclusive focus 
on employability has been decried for several decades now, very recently and eloquently so by 
Martha Nussbaum in her short book Not for Profit: Why Democracy Needs the Humanities 
(2010):  

 
If this trend [against teaching the humanities] continues, nations all over the world 
will soon be producing generations of useful machines, rather than complete 
citizens who can think for themselves, criticize tradition, and understand the 
significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements (p. 2).  

 
In addition to higher education “producing generations of useful machines,” Nussbaum identifies 
another dangerous consequence of not reading literature that is particularly germane to teaching 
social entrepreneurship or any of the non-market forms of entrepreneurship: the capacity to 
“understand the significance of another person’s sufferings and achievements.”  Insofar as all 
forms of non-market entrepreneurship are motivated by another propose instead of or in addition 
to profit, the ability to relate to others, empathize, and understand others is central to teaching 
non-market entrepreneurship, not to mention for the healthy functioning of civil society and 
democracy.  (Indeed, Nussbaum indicates as much in her book’s title “Not for Profit.”)  As 
Indinopulos (1975) puts it, “The art of a Dostoevsky…does for us what the disciplines of 
theology, psychology, and journalism cannot do: It gives us a personal relationship to what we 
cannot otherwise grasp intellectually” (p. 60). 
 Relating to others, empathizing with them, and understanding them in a humanistic way 
collectively are the essence of the ethical component we add to teaching social entrepreneurship.  
Very much following Shockley and Frank (2010) in using great literature to teach other aspects 
of social entrepreneurship, we devote the equivalent of a week’s worth of class sessions in a 15-
week semester in the social entrepreneurship class to discussing Dostoevsky’s “Grand 
Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima portions from The Brothers Karamazov.   In particular, we 
use Hackett’s 1993 edition of Dostoevsky’s The Grand Inquisitor with Related Chapters from 
The Brothers Karamazov translated by Constance Garnett and edited and introduced by Charles 
Guignon (see Dostoevsky, 1993/1912; ISBN 0-87220-193-7).1  Through the instructor’s 
structured and directed discussion of the text over the weeks’ class sessions, students are 
presented with the argument that an ethical notion of personal “loving humility” as embodied in 
the character of Father Zossima might serve as an appropriate ethical guide for social 
entrepreneurship and, by extension, arts entrepreneurship.   

The basic flow of the structured and directed class discussion is as follows.  First, we 
encounter the character of Ivan.  Although endowed with superior rationality as well as 
compassion, Ivan attempts to solve the problem of evil – namely, if God is omnipotent and good, 
how can there be evil?  Ivan’s efforts are analogous to modern social policymaking in that it 
applies rationality to solve social ills.  Like many failed social and public policies in any national 
government, Ivan’s efforts end in utter despair because instrumentally rational, intellectualized 
solutions are frequently incomplete or misguided.  Ivan takes it to the extreme as he would rather 

                                                
1 All quotes and page numbers of Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima portions from The Brothers 
Karamazov cited in this essay come from the Guignon edition. 



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give up or, in some readings, commit suicide, than live in the world full of rampant evil.  Second, 
we examine Ivan’s creation, the poem of the “Grand Inquisitor.”  Based on Tomas de 
Torquemada, the actual historical Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition of the 15th and 16th 
centuries that sought a religiously (and racially) homogenous society by eradicating Islam and 
Judaism from Spain, Ivan’s poem is one of the most powerful critiques of the human condition in 
all of world literature.  One of the lessons “The Grand Inquisitor” reveals is that mankind loathes 
his freedom.  He says, “Nothing has been more insupportable for a man and a human society 
than freedom” (p. 25).  Third, the character of the Russian monk Father Zossima appears in The 
Brothers Karamazov as an antidote to Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor.  Father Zossima represents 
the personal ethic of “loving humility” that we are all responsible to all for all.  This, we argue, 
might be an appropriate ethical guide for social entrepreneurship to ensure that the 
entrepreneurial efforts are directed towards good societal ends.  Below we topically and 
descriptively outline in five parts how we structure those class sessions.2      
 
Part 1: Introduction and Historical Background 

“The Grand Inquisitor” selection from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov is a quite 
moving piece of literature.  As a work of art, it is disturbing, though strangely a lot less 
disturbing than what we can see on primetime TV any given night.  Deeply and uniquely 
challenging readers for the last 150 years, this selection also gives us deeper insight into social 
entrepreneurship as it offers a powerful critique of the nature of social change – that it is directed 
toward good societal aims – implied or assumed but rarely stated in theories of social 
entrepreneurship. 
 Charles Guignon’s introduction (1993) provides an excellent background for The 
Brothers Karamazov .  Dostoevsky wrote the novel during a time of upheaval in Russian society.  
It was going through what might be called in entrepreneurship terms a “Schumpeterian moment 
of creative destruction” (see Schumpeter, 1950, Chapter 7) as the old way of feudalism was 
giving way to the new way of industrialization.  It should be noted that Russia was already at 
least a generation behind in industrializing when compared to the West, particularly England.  
And Russia never fully committed to industrialization, which complicated its (in many respects) 
disastrous 20th century.   

Contributing to the upheaval of Russian society is what Guignon distills as the 
“Enlightenment paradox.”  The Enlightenment that emerged in France in the 17th and 18th 
centuries and quickly spread throughout the West was based on mankind’s power of reason, its 
capacity for rationality to discover the laws of nature, also known as science, and to dispel myth 
and superstition, also known as religion.  The American Revolution and French Revolution are 
widely seen as two of the most important products of the Enlightenment.  The Enlightenment 
paradox means that the more reason and rationality were relied on to fix society’s problems – 
indeed, to perfect society – according to the ideals that they pointed to, such as rights to life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, the more those ideals themselves became reflexively 
suspicious.  The Enlightenment paradox is very much about the limits of reason and rationality.  
                                                
2 Many synopses introduction to Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov are easily available.  One particularly distinguished 
and brief synopsis appears in Oates (1968, pp. 205-207).  One of the remarkable features of “The Grand Inquisitor” and 
Father Zossima portions are self contained and can stand on their own without much knowledge of the rest of The 
Brothers Karamazov.  But it is not uncommon for anyone having read “The Grand Inquisitor” to take on the entire The 
Brothers Karamazov at a later date.     
 



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Part 2: Dostoevsky’s “The Grand Inquisitor” and the Father Zossima portions 
Dostoevsky’s novels are typically polyphonous, which means that there are many voices 

and viewpoints presented and each voice and viewpoint is uniquely associated with a single 
character.  Another way to look at Dostoevsky’s polyphony is “as a conflict within the parts of 
oneself” (Oates, 1968, p. 207).   

In “Pro and Contra,” the first part of “The Grand Inquisitor,” we are presented with the 
debate between two of the Karamazov brothers, Ivan and Alyosha.  Truly, it is less of a debate 
between them than it is Ivan’s monologue.  Ivan is associated with the voice of reason, 
rationality, logic, and science.  Ivan is both brilliant – as he represents reason – and 
compassionate – as he is consumed with the problem of evil and suffering in the world.  This 
problem has also consumed philosophy and religion in the West for millennia.  Ivan has the 
motivation of a social entrepreneur as he seeks to solve the problem of evil and suffering under a 
good and omnipotent God.  Ivan announces to his brother Alyosha: “‘It’s not that I don’t accept 
God, you must understand; it’s the world created by Him I don’t and cannot accept’” (p. 5).   

He wants to change society for the better.  “‘People talk sometimes of bestial cruelty, but 
that’s a great injustice and insult to beasts; a beast can never be so cruel as a man, so artistically 
cruel’” (p. 9).  He therefore brings to bear on this problem all of the power reason, rationality, 
logic, and science can muster and concludes that man is the problem in a world in which evil 
triumphs.  Ivan remarks, “‘I think if the devil doesn’t exist, but man created him, he has created 
him in his own image and likeness’” (p. 9).  The final result is that Ivan gives up, “returns his 
ticket,” which means in some interpretations that he is willing to commit suicide rather than live 
in a world in which he (reason personified) is impotent against pain and suffering of children.  
Rationality fails Ivan and, unlike a social entrepreneur, hope leaves him.   

 
‘Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it’s beyond our means to pay so 
much to enter on it.  And so I hasten to give back my entrance ticket, and if I am 
an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as possible.  And that I am 
doing.  It’s not God that I don’t accept, Alyosha, only I most respectfully return 
Him the ticket.’  
 
Dostoevsky apparently believes that reason, rationality, logic, and science are inadequate 

to this perennial problem. The inadequacy of reason and Ivan in this initial section of “The 
Grand Inquisitor” is a theme that parallels the larger The Brothers Karamazov novel of which it 
is literally a central part.  As Joyce Carol Oates (1968) writes, “The bulk of the novel is one of 
affirmation, though Ivan, the most eloquent person in the novel, is not saved but made impotent, 
broken, most violently changed” (p. 205).  Jeff Malpa (2012) describes why Dostoevsky is often 
considered one of the first existentialist literary artists:  

 
Dostoevsky can be seen to set out, in the most vivid and powerful fashion, the 
problematic situation that underpins much existentialist thought – the situation of 
the solitary individual, the ‘outsider,’ who can no longer find any sure refuge in 
God or religion, for whom the usual standards of morality and conduct, even 
standards of reason itself, no longer seem to hold, and whose very existence is 
rendered uncertain and ambiguous. (p. 297) 

   



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Then, in a remarkable move that only a consummate artist like Dostoevsky can do, he has 
Ivan – reason, rationality, logic, and science – compose a poem (which is the opposite of 
scientific inquiry) about the Grand Inquisitor that takes us down even farther into the misery and 
suffering of the human condition.  

 
Part 3: The Grand Inquisitor and Miracle, Mystery, and Authority       

Walter Kaufmann (1989) argues that the poem of the Grand Inquisitor is “inspired by 
[Dostoevsky’s] hatred of the Church of Rome” (p. 14).  That may be true as Dostoevsky was a 
devout Russian Orthodox Christian.  But the poem goes much deeper than a personal comment 
on history of Roman Catholicism as it reaches to an understanding of the human condition.  The 
Grand Inquisitor was the real historical figure Tomas de Torquemada who was indeed the 
“Grand Inquisitor” leading the initial phases of the Spanish Inquisition of the late 15th century 
that sought to expose Christian heretics and force conversions to Christianity through torture.  In 
Ivan’s poem Dostoevsky imagines the Grand Inquisitor’s words in the most remarkable of 
circumstances: Christ’s reappearance on earth during the Spanish Inquisition.  

Does a key leader of the Christian faith on earth welcome Christ’s return?  No, he 
imprisons and condescendingly lectures him on his irrelevance to the human institution of 
Christianity.  In a clear reference to Adam and Eve, the Grand Inquisitor tells Jesus that mankind 
does not want freedom to make the right choice: “Nothing has been more insupportable for a 
man and a human society than freedom.”  Instead, they want to be relieved of responsibility that 
freedom necessarily entails and be deceived by “miracle, mystery, and authority.”  These three 
powers tell them how to live, what to think and do, “able to conquer and to hold captive forever 
the conscience of these impotent rebels [mankind] for their happiness” (p. 28).  The Church of 
the Spanish Inquisition has supplanted Christ and taken away mankind’s freedom.  Dostoevsky’s 
Grand Inquisitor declares: 

 
‘And if it is a mystery, we too have a right to preach a mystery, and to teach them 
that it’s not the free judgment of their hearts, but a mystery which they must 
follow blindly, even against their conscience.  So we have done.  We have 
corrected Thy work and have founded it upon miracle, mystery, and authority.’ (p. 
30, emphasis in the original)   
 

According to Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor, the institution of the Church oppresses mankind 
with mankind’s implied consent.  “The core ethical temptation in the Legend of the Grand 
Inquisitor lies in the replacement of moral freedom by social control and welfare” (Bouckaert & 
Ghesquiere, 2004, p. 32, emphasis in the original).   

This trenchant analysis of the human condition is no less true today than when 
Dostoevsky wrote The Brothers Karamazov in the 19th century.  And it is trenchant precisely 
because we are reading it as literature and on its own terms.  Certainly no executive summary, 
journal article, or preamble to a professional code of ethics, no matter how well-conceived and 
well-written, can make us feel as we do when we directly engage the words of Dostoevsky.  An 
irony of Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor and his institutionalized church is that, like Ivan, they 
love mankind and care about his suffering.  Still more, they are social entrepreneurs by any of 
the definitions of social entrepreneurship in Table 1 or available elsewhere as they can be easily 
ascribed to the key terms “social change,” “social value,” and “transformation.”  The Grand 
Inquisitor has produced massive social change, created social value, and transformed religious 



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life in the West and as he has given man what he wants with miracle, mystery, and authority, 
thus relieving mankind of the burden of freedom.  He has exploited this fundamental truth of the 
human condition that undermines all that Christ taught and represented historically and 
theologically. How does this sit with students (and us)?  Do we really want to call the Grand 
Inquisitor a social entrepreneur even if he satisfies our theories of social entrepreneurship?  
Where is an ethic to ensure that the social change, social value, and transformation are directed 
towards positive societal ends?   

 
Part 4: Father Zossima, Loving Humility, and the Antidote to the Grand Inquisitor  

We tell the students at this point: If Dostoevsky ends his novel with Ivan’s poem of the 
Grand Inquisitor, then how do we get out of bed every morning?   Fortunately, he does not end 
here and offers an antidote to Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor in the figure of the Russian monk, 
Father Zossima, and the voice of Ivan’s brother, Alyosha (Father Zossima mentored Alyosha; 
Alyosha embodies Father Zossima’s teaching).  Instead, later sections of The Brothers 
Karamazov, like the Father Zossima portion “advance a rather more positive message, even if 
not made fully determinate, centered on the essentially ethical path adopted by Alyosha” (Malpa, 
2012, p. 298).  Reason and rationality eventually lead to extreme individuation and, ultimately, 
isolation, and self-destruction, Dostoevsky seems to say, which is exactly where Ivan himself 
was led in seeking to “return his ticket.”  Some critics intriguingly argue that the Grand 
Inquisitor and Father Zossima are one of the many doubles that can be found throughout 
Dostoevsky’s oeuvre (e.g., Oates, 1968, p. 212), possibly because they both profess to love 
mankind. Yet, even as the characters may be doubles, their solutions to the suffering and misery 
of mankind are diametrically opposed.  Dostoevsky’s Father Zossima distinguishes himself from 
Ivan with the statement that “…true security is to be found in social solidarity rather than in 
isolated individual effort” (p. 58) like that of Ivan. 

There are twelve books in the full text of The Brothers Karamazov.  The Father Zossima 
portion makes up Book VI while “The Grant Inquisitor” sits in the middle of Book V.  Although 
they appear in consecutive books, there actually are two chapters between the end of the Ivan’s 
poem and the beginning of the Father Zossima portion.  And the feeling of despair from “the 
Grand Inquisitor” and the dramatic tension in those intervening two chapters are beautifully 
wrought by Dostoevsky.  To recreate a little bit of that effect when teaching, it is best to separate 
the “The Grand Inquisitor” and Father Zossima discussions, ideally by class sessions but even a 
break in a single class session would work.  Furthermore, the Father Zossima section is much 
longer and more meandering than “The Grant Inquisitor,” intentionally frustrating the reader and 
making her painfully wait for any sort of resolution to the tension.  That is preserved in the 
Guignon edition we suggest using in adding this component to a class in non-market 
entrepreneurship.  To complicate matters more, Father Zossima’s message is a composite that 
comes from a variety of characters: Alyohsa, Father Zossima, Father Zossima’s brother when he 
was a child, as well as a “mysterious visitor.”  The reader must work very diligently to construct 
Father Zossima’s composite message, but there is no doubt that Dostoevsky meant this 
composite message to answer Ivan and the Grand Inquisitor.      

In contrast to the Grand Inquisitor’s miracle, mystery, and authority, Father Zossima 
represents “loving humility” or, in biblical terms, serving as your brother’s keeper.  First Father 
Zossima addresses indirectly Ivan’s scientific, individualistic approach “…but meantime all his 
efforts result not in attaining fulness [sic] of life but in self-destruction, for instead of self-
realization, he ends by arriving at complete solitude” (p. 58).  Community, not isolated 



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individualism, is a large part of Father Zossima’s composite message.  Individualism, however, 
is still preserved by recognizing each human being’s spiritual dignity even in despair: “Equality 
is to be found in the spiritual dignity of man, and that will only be understood among us” (p. 72), 
which is to say, in a community.  Father Zossima addresses the Grand Inquisitor’s suppression of 
man’s freedom by embracing the individual freedom of accepting responsibility for one another.  
Father Zossima expresses his personal ethic of loving humility: 

 
‘There is only one means of salvation, then: take yourself and make yourself 
responsible for everything and for all men’s sins; that is the truth, you know, 
friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and 
all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for 
everyone and all things…’ (p. 76)  
 

Attempting to solve the problem of evil and rectify pain and suffering through the application of 
pure rationality, which leads to isolation and “returning one’s ticket” like Ivan, or by 
institutionally suppressing mankind’s freedom like the Grand Inquisitor, which leads to slavery.  
Loving humility, being your brother’s keeper, accepting responsibility for one another, is the 
essence of social entrepreneurship.   

By reading “The Grand Inquisitor” and Father Zossima portions of The Brothers 
Karamazov, students see that loving humility can fill out those other purposes of social 
entrepreneurship that are beyond profit.  Loving humility becomes an ethical guide in ensuring 
that the social change, social value, and transformation are directed towards good societal ends 
as well as being appropriately motivated.  Father Zossima concludes: “‘Loving humility is 
marvelously strong, the strongest of all things, and there is nothing else like it’” (p. 75).  
Dostoevsky also recognizes that loving humility is not an instantaneous transformation.  In the 
words of the mysterious visitor talking to Father Zossima before he was a monk: 

 
‘Believe me; this dream [of everyone recognizing that “we are all responsible to 
all for all”], as you call it, will come to pass without doubt; it will come, but not 
now, for every process has its law.  It’s a spiritual, psychological process.  To 
transform the world, to recreate it afresh [Schumpeterian change], men must turn 
into another path psychologically.’ (p. 57) 
 

Dostoevsky here is even using the language of social entrepreneurship in Father Zossima seeking 
to transform the world into one that recognizes our communal interconnectedness over our 
individual separateness.  Father Zossima himself can even be seen as a 19th-century social 
entrepreneur because this transformation is the result of action.  Again in the words of the 
mysterious visitor:  
 

‘Until you have become really, in actual fact, a brother to everyone, brotherhood will not 
come to pass.  No sort of scientific teaching, no common interest, will ever teach men to 
share property and privileges with equal consideration for all.’ (pp. 57-58) 
 

It does not seem an exaggeration to argue that the obligations entailed in loving humility 
comprise the essence and spirit of social entrepreneurship.  It provides an ethical guide to ensure 



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such entrepreneurship is a force for good: entrepreneurship with a personal ethic in which we 
feel and act on a responsibility for the well-being of others.  
 

Conclusion 
Adding a component in which the instructor structures and directs class discussion 

around the “The Grand Inquisitor” and Father Zossima portions of The Brothers Karamazov 
does more than incorporate ethics into the teaching of social entrepreneurship.  Truly this ethical 
component significantly alters the theory of and potentially the practice of social 
entrepreneurship.  It advances the theories in Table 1 from stopping at the effects of social 
entrepreneurship, such as social change, social value, or transformation, to taking into account 
the nature of that social change, social value, or transformation.  It moves the theory of social 
entrepreneurship into more of a community- or civil society-based conceptualization, something 
akin to Alan Wolfe’s philosophy of social science developed in his book Whose Keeper? Social 
Science and Moral Obligation (1989).  Wolfe writes of a major problem in liberal capitalist 
societies that emphasize rights over obligations:  

 
The citizens of capitalist liberal democracies understand the freedom they 
possess, appreciate its value, defend its prerogatives [sic].  But they are confused 
when it comes to recognizing the social obligations that make their freedom 
possible in the first place.  They are, in a word, unclear about the moral codes by 
which they ought to live (p. 2) 
 

Like Wolfe’s publicly oriented philosophy of social science, social entrepreneurship concerns 
obligation first and foremost.  Indeed, Dostoevsky’s personal ethic of loving humility might be 
as equally important as profit in many other forms of non-market entrepreneurship.   
 Let us return to Hager’s case study of Metro Arts and Film’s board’s decision to close the 
nonprofit even though it had successfully diversified into enterprise models of funding.  Hager 
writes, “Organizations that contribute value to a community have an obligation to that 
community to continue to provide their services” (Hager, 2007, p. 48).  Was there much 
evidence that MAF’s board took its obligations to the community into account, that its arts 
entrepreneurship was guided by anything like Dostoevsky’s personal ethic of loving humility?  
That is a topic for another class discussion.   
 

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