Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

224 ENVY AS THE SUBJECT OF PHIlDSOPHY
becomes a two-edged sword in his hand; but it is valuable-as seen from his
point of view. If, however, the philosopher allows himself to be misled into
justifying and sanctioning the illusion, this is due either to unscrupulousness
on his part or to the deepest moral ignorance. Nevertheless,
the social theories of modern times have trod this fateful course ever since
their first appearance: and it must be regarded as the misfortune of the
social movement up to our own day, that this kind of sanction has been set
upon it and handed down to us .... Here as in so many other departments of
our moral life, the principal work still remains to be done. 65
Hartmann breaks off at this point. What he doubtless had in mind was
a social philosophy capable of showing how certain altruistic tasks can
be done without exploiting envy. This is, perhaps, an impossible task,
because the feeling of envy is much more constitutive of our inter-individual
evaluations than he ever realized.
Eugene Raiga
The only writer up to now to have written a monograph on envy is
Eugene Raiga. The twenty-four chapters of his book I.: Envie comprise
some 250 pages devoted to the group of phenomena that go to make up
envy in the narrower sense. It appeared in 1932. Raiga had already
published, fairly regularly since 1900, books mainly in the field of
public law, and also of the economics of war, diplomacy and public
administration.
Raiga cites Spinoza, according to whom human passions and their
attributes are among the natural processes that are susceptible of examination.
He opens with a quotation from Tartuffe, to the effect that
envious men die, but envy does not. Raiga sees jealousy as the mother of
envy and points out how often the one is mistaken for the other. But he
regards envy as more comprehensive than jealousy. Both are of great
importance in social life and are the most active and powerful motives in
our behaviour. If it were possible to record an individual's jealousy and
envy in the same way as the electrical impulses in his brain, it would be
comparatively simple to explain his other affects and his behaviour.
Raiga then examines envy in an altogether conventional series of
65 Op. cit., pp. 145-6.