The Aptness of Envy

Abstract

: Are demands for equality motivated by envy? Nietzsche, Freud, Hayek, and Nozick all thought so. Call this the Envy Objection . For egalitarians, the Envy Objection is meant to sting. Many egalitarians have tried to evade the Envy Objection. But should egalitarians be worried about envy? In this article, I argue that egalitarians should stop worrying and learn to love envy. I argue that the persistent unwillingness to embrace the Envy Objection is rooted in a common misunderstanding of the nature of the charge, what it reveals, and what can be said in response to it. I develop what Bernard Williams might call a vindicatory genealogy of envy, thereby allowing us to see that envy, rather than under-mining egalitarian intuitions, can in fact play a distinct justificatory role (when it is fitting), which undermines the Envy Objection.