Schoeck_2010_EnvyATheoryOfSocialBehaviour.pdf

22 ENVY IN LANGUAGE
when, for instance, shortly before the end of the race a runner realizes
that he will not be able to outpace the winner and so tries to trip him up.
The article cites the following distinction drawn by Joseph Butler in one
of his sermons (Sermon 1, note 20):
'Emulation is merely the desire and hope of equality with, or superiority
over others, with whom we compare ourselves. . . . To desire the
attainment of this equality or superiority by the particular means of
others being brought down to our own level, or below it, is, I think, the
distinct notion of envy. ,2
John Gay (1669-1745), philosopher and Fellow of Sidney Sussex
College, Cambridge, gives a brilliant analysis of the phenomenon of
envy in his study of the fundamental principles of virtue or morality. 3 He
regards envy as a diabolical passion and concurs with Locke in believing
it possible for some people to be completely devoid of it. Moreover, Gay
rightly observes that most people, were they to give the matter some
consideration, would remember the first time they ever felt themselves to
be under the influence of envious emotions. This he sees as being
especially important, since the ability to remember the first active
experience of envy indicates the series of fundamental motives that leave
their stamp on the personality. Because the most important experiences
of envy cannot easily be forgotten, Gay believes, those people who think
they have never been affected by it are probably right. He could not, of
course, have been aware of such a factor as repression.
. To begin with, Gay keeps to the common definition of envy as the
anguish that besets us when we observe the prosperity of others; but this
he at once qualifies with the statement that it is not the prosperity of all
and sundry but of specific persons. What persons? As soon as we look
around us to discover who it is we might envy we will, Gay maintains,
find the source of this passion: the objects of envy invariably prove to be
persons who had formerly been the envious man's rivals. Gay rightly
comments on the importance of social proximity in envy. It is usually
directed only towards persons with whom it has been possible to com-
2 W. L. Davidson, 'Envy and Emulation,' in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics,
ed. James Hastings, Vol. 5, New York and Edinburgh, 1912.
3 John Gay, Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality, quoted from
The English Philosophers from Bacon to Hill, ed. Edwin A. Burtt, The Modern
Library, New York, n.d., p. 784.