Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

11
Envy as the Subject·
of Philosophy
UNTIL ABOUT THIRTY YEARS AGO philosophers quite often dealt with
the problem of envy as one of the inescapable questions of existence.
They sought to define its terms and to establish its phenomenology.
This chapter does not aim at a complete account of the problem
of envy in the history of Western philosophy, but rather is concerned
with demonstrating the regularity with which this subject has been
considered.
Aristotle
In his Rhetoric, Aristotle perceives plainly the degree to which envy is
felt only towards those who are themselves our equals, our peers. What is
decisive is that we do not ourselves really wish to have what we envy, nor
do we hope to acquire it in the course of our envy, but would like to see it
destroyed so far as the other person is concerned. The more nearly we are
equal to the man with whom we compare ourselves, the greater is our
envy. Equality may be that of birth, of kinship, of age, of situation, of
social distinction or of material possessions. A sense of envy results, in
effect, when what we lack, by comparison with the other, is small.
Aristotle quotes Hesiod: Potter against potter. We envy those whose
possessions or achievements are a reflection on our own. They are our
neighbours and equals. It is they, above all, who make plain the nature of
our failure. Aristotle goes on to discuss emulation, a feeling often
mistaken for envy. 1
1 Aristotle, Rhetoric, Book II, 10, from: Ross, W D. (ed.), The Works of Aristotle, Vol.
XI, Oxford, 1924, p. 1387b.
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