Chapter 1 - What Is Envy?

Summary

Envy is often confused with jealousy, because they are both rivalrous painful emotions, which are directed at a competitor and are concerned with a good. But envy is about the potential or actual lack of the good, while jealousy is about the potential or actual loss of the good. This distinction is not always clear cut, as a section devoted to ambiguous, hybrid, and transitional cases shows. In the end, envy is defined as an aversive response to a perceived inferiority or disadvantage vis-à-vis a similar other, with regard to a good that is relevant to the sense of identity of the envier.