Phenomenological distinctions

two types of envy and their difference from covetousness

Michael R. Kelly

Michael Kelly

pp. 157-177

in: Simmons, James E. Hackett (eds), Phenomenology for the twenty-first century, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2016

Abstract

Some recent discussions of envy in moral psychology have defended the controversial claims that (1) envy occurs in two types and that (2) one of these types is benign. For different reasons, Robert Roberts and Gabrielle Taylor, for example, rightly identify a mode of envy focused upon the envier which is lacking envy's most familiar characteristic: the hostile regard of the neighbor who occupies some superior status with respect to a thing, trait, or capacity of importance to the envier. In this chapter, Michael R. Kelly considers Taylor's account of envy and suggests a phenomenological development that can accommodate Taylor's insight that there are two types of envy without running either type into covetousness or endorsing the perhaps indefensible view of a benign form of envy.