The Moral Psychology of Envy (Volume 18)

Sara Protasi University of Puget Sound, "The Moral Psychology of Envy (Volume 18) "
English | ISBN: 1538160064 | 2022 | 258 pages | PDF | 2 MB
Envy is a vicious and shameful response to the good fortune of others, one that ruins friendships and plagues societies-or so the common thinking goes, shaped by millennia of religious and cultural condemnation. Envy's bad reputation is not completely unwarranted; envy can indeed motivate malicious and counterproductive behavior and may strain or even tear apart relations between people. However, that is not always the case. Investigating the complex nature of this emotion reveals that it plays important functions in social hierarchies and it can motivate one to self-improve and even to achieve moral virtue.