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The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence

 

Envy is a complex and puzzling emotion. It is, notoriously, one of the seven deadly sins. It is very commonly charged with being (either typically or universally) unreasonable, irrational, imprudent, vicious, or wrong to feel.

There is a widespread assumption that envy is an emotion. That is not to say that it is a mere feeling. Emotions are generally agreed to be more than feelings. Most emotion theorists could agree on this vague characterization: emotions are syndromes of thoughts, feelings, motivations, and bodily movements, loosely enough bound together that a given emotional episode may not require the occurrence of every element in the syndrome. Most philosophers who have sought to define envy agree in identifying it as a form of distress felt by the subject at the thought that he does not possess the good and the rival does. Many, but not all, go on to add that envy involves a desire that the rival not have the good. Envy is widely agreed to be a symptom or instance of the human tendency to evaluate one’s well-being comparatively, by assessing how well one is doing in comparison with others.

Assessments of the rationality of emotions take various forms. It is useful to distinguish the prudential advisability of emotions from their fittingness (roughly, whether the appraisal of circumstances involved in the emotion is accurate or not). Both of these rationally assessments are to be distinguished from various ethical appraisals of emotions. Most authors who address the issue seem to agree that envy is seldom advisable: insofar as one is able to control or influence one’s emotions, it is best not to be envious, because envy harms those who feel it. This is sometimes urged simply on the grounds that envy is a form of pain, but more often because, in envy, a person’s subjective sense of well-being, self-worth or self-respect is diminished. But if envy involves certain characteristic patterns of motivation, such as a motive to outdo or undo the rival’s advantages, then the advisability of envy may be strongly dependent on the advisability of the actions it motivates. And whether these actions are advisable, in turn, depends upon whether they are efficient means to the ends at which they aim, and whether those ends are themselves in the subject’s interests.

Thus, an adequate assessment of the prudential advisability of envy may depend on whether the envious subject’s sense that he is worse off because of his rival’s possession of the good that he lacks is accurate (since envious motivation might actually serve the subject’s interests, especially if it were accurate).

Suppose that envy includes some desire that the rival not have the good. Then envy may be interpreted so as to involve a preference for the situation in which neither subject nor rival have the good to the one in which rival has it and subject does not. Call this the “envious preference”. The envious preference is invoked as a basis for the claim that envy appraises the former situation a better that the latter. But better in what respect? First, it might be held to be better, from the point of view of the universe (“impersonally better” for short). Secondly, it might be held to be better for the subject.



Alternatively, envy can be held to present the difference in possession between subject and rival as bad specifically for Subject. This interpretation of envy’s characteristic appraisal jibes better with the doctrine that envy is not a moral feeling. Envy can nonetheless be criticized as irrational, on this interpretation, for taking something to be bad for Subject that is not in fact bad for him. What matters to how well things are going for Subject is a function of what goods Subject has, not what his rival has. Hence, while the present state of affairs is worse for Subject than the one in which he has the good and Rival lacks it, there can be no reason of self-interest for Subject to have the envious preference. The cogency of this argument for the irrationality of envy hinges on questions about the nature of well-being.

(http://www.washingtonpost.com)


Date: 2015-12-24; view: 758


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