Movatterモバイル変換

Notes toEnvy

1. Although the term is widely enough used that various non-emotionalpatterns of behavior and motivation can be called“envious” without linguistic impropriety, it seems clearthat these are so called because of their resemblance to the emotionalsyndrome.

2. This test case, and its upshot, are explored in Farrell (1980).

3. Farrell (1989), Neu, Protasi, Roberts, Young. Typically, the point ofthe distinction is to identify a class of cases in which envy issomehow legitimate or justifiable from another class in which it isnot.

4. This is the simplest way to draw the distinction, and the one thatwill be used to frame a debate in what follows. It fits best with aMotivational Theory of the nature of emotions. But the distinction canalso be expressed in terms that better suit a Cognitive Theory ofemotion. Then the idea would be, roughly, that invidious envyinvolves, among other things, the thought that it is bad that Rivalhas the good, given that Subject lacks it; whereas benign envy doesnot involve a negative evaluation of the rival having the good[em-dash] only of the subject lacking it.

5. Thus, for instance, Rawls characterizes the distinction as beingbetween benign envy and “envy proper.” See also Nozick,D'Arms and Jacobson (2000), D'Arms and Kerr (2008).

6. For a discussion of this general problem, and a proposal about howbest to make sense of competing accounts of the characteristic beliefsand desires in a range of emotions, see D'Arms and Jacobson 2002.

7. For instance, Gabrielle Taylor (2006, p. 43) introduces a notion of“object-envy” in which “… the envy is of thegood the other has; its possessor plays a relatively minor role asbeing merely the occasion for the envious person's realization of herdeficiencies.” She then says that object envy is not vicious, inpart on the grounds that the subject of such envy “may admirethose who possess the good and strive to improve her own position inthe relevant respect.” It is not clear whether she thinks suchan admiring attitude would suffice for attributing object-envy, but ifso this makes it quite unclear why it should be treated as envy.Protasi (2016) expresses a similar misgiving about Taylor's proposal,noting that admiration is not unpleasant.

8. See van de Ven, Zeelenberg and Pieters (2009) for some relevantdiscussion. They treat this linguistic point as evidence in support ofthe idea that benign envy is a kind of envy. But it is at leastunclear that the linguistic point supports that conclusion. Somescholars, including Kripke (1977), treat the existence of distinctwords in a foreign language that are translated with a single word inour own as evidence of ambiguity in English. In any case, it is notclear that anything in van de Ven et al's interesting experimentsmotivates translating the relevant terms as “benign envy”rather than as “emulative desire,” or understanding thebenign and malicious phenomena they distinguish as two variants of oneemotion.

9. This view of the characteristic motivation of envy is advanced inD'Arms and Jacobson, 2000, and further developed in D'Arms and Kerr,2008.

10. See Smith; Smith, Parrott et al; and Ortony et al. Ben Ze'ev suggeststhat envy is concerned with inferiority and desert, but urges that thenotion of desert in play is not moral.

11. This gloss of the common supposition is intended to be neutral on thecontroversy between judgmentalists, who hold that emotions essentiallyinvolve beliefs or judgments, and their opponents. Note that evidencefor claims about the content of the appraisal involved in a given typeof emotion comes not only from beliefs a subject may be said to have,but from desires and feelings as well. It is in part because envy is aform of pain or distress at the rival's possession of the good thatthe subject can be said to regard it as bad in some way that rival haswhat he has.

12. cf. Neu; Farrell (1980).

13. This is Nozick's gloss of envy.

14. cf. de Sousa on axiological mistakes.

15. At least, this will be so if moral considerations are permitted to beadduced in support of axiological claims. Consequentialists and otherswho insist on treating the good as conceptually prior to the rightwould either have to reject the relevance of the considerationsadvanced above to the fittingness of envy, or find alternative,nonmoral terms in which to express the axiological mistakeinvolved.

16. The suggestion can be found in Nietszche and Freud, and arguably, asfar back as Aristotle. A comprehensive survey of historical sources isto be found in Schoeck. It receives a sympathetic treatment in Nozick,though he does not explicitly endorse it. See also Cooper.

17. Some defenders of the charge appear willing to settle for somethingmuch less contentious: that many claims of injustice on the basis ofinequality are motivated by envy. But of course, egalitarians can anddo grant that appeals to justice in ordinary life are often enoughrationalizations for envy.

18.Genealogy Treatise 1. Nietzsche's notion of‘ressentiment’ seems to be a propensity that begins lifeas envy and takes on moral content only with the creation of the moralideals to which it gives rise.

19. Of course, defenders of the genetic thesis may also hold theoccurrent one, and Freud at least seems to have thought them closelyconnected. For Freud, emotional energies are highly labile, so thatoccurrent moral resentment may be an outlet of psychic forcesspringing from envy.

20. One particularly careful effort to defend egalitarianism in thiscontext is Young. He points out that the charge would be morepromising if egalitarians were committed to “levellingdown” differences in cases where redistribution is notavailable, but argues that none of the most prominent egalitarians areso committed. For a discussion of varieties of egalitarianism, seeegalitarianism andequality.

21. This reply is offered by Neu and by Rawls.

22. cf. Rawls p. 540; Ben-Ze'ev 1992.

23. Nozick appears to deny this: “Nor is [the claim thategalitarianism is not motivated by envy] proven by the fact that oncepeople accept egalitarian principles, they might support the worseningof their own position as an application of these generalprinciples.” (p. 240). Perhaps proof is too much to hope forhere—the relevant data does seem to constitute powerful evidenceagainst the charge of occurrent envy. His remark is most easilyunderstood in defense of an ontogenetic version of the charge, yet hissurrounding discussion seems to be addressed to the occurrentcharge.

24. The term originates in economic theory, where it has generated a vastliterature. See Foley; Varian 1974. Varian 1975 uses the idea as thefoundation for a theory of fairness, which is incisively criticized inSugden. Dworkin takes up the idea in his influential definition ofequality.

25. It is easy to see that even a distribution that is not envy-freemight be one where there is no actual envy, since people can prefersomeone else's bundle of resources without envying it. Elster pointsout, in addition, that an envy-free allocation does not ensure that noone experiences envy, if an individual can envy someone else'sutility, rather than his resources. (Elster p. 179-80f.)

26. This rationale is also somewhat problematic, since it is plausiblethat one's absolute share of some primary goods, such as power, isdetermined by ones relative share of other goods.

27. See the entry ondistributive justice

28. It might be supposed that the phenomenon Rawls is concerned with isnot envy at all, then, but resentment. But the supposition that asociety is well-ordered ensures that the imagined underclass acceptsthe principles of justice. They must therefore grant that there is nocomplaint of justice against the better off. Yet it seems undeniablethat gross differences in distribution would likely occasion some sortof rancorous feelings. It is tempting then to characterize theresponses as resentment that is unfitting by the subjects' own lights.But Rawls wants to grant that such feelings are rational, if in factthe differences are damaging to the subjects' self-esteem.

29. Ben-Ze'ev 1992 provides references to empirical literature in supportof this claim. See also Frank.