Sounds familiar …

… A Conscience in Crisis - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

What becomes clear … and what Raskolnikov eventually discovers—is that his ideas are not motivated by a desire to improve society but to rule it. The murders took shape in his imagination as a means of proving to himself that he was above morality itself, and the “new thinking” provided him with a way to disguise this egotism with altruism, to act with utter selfishness while congratulating himself for his courage.