Jealousy Alles Mögliche

I just had a random thought about this. Jealousy can really get the worst side out of people when they're full of hate towards a certain person of group because of jealousy. Tho, I think jealousy could also be a good thing to a certain extent. If you're jealous, you have a better view of what you want in life. So, if you could implement such things in your own life and get happier because of this, I think jealousy could be a good thing as well. I know that you could want something and not get any happier if you have it yourself. So, what is your view on this?

I agree with that, i think jealousy can be both good and bad, depending on the situation and context. When we are jealous of someone for any reason, we should use the same jealousy to try to do better, and to feel more determined about reaching our goals. But, despite that, i still see jealousy as a bad feeling, because i think it has more cons than pros. First, it is not easy at all to "use" it in an efficient way, because most of the times it stops us and makes us feeling bad, instead of making us to proceed, even more determined. Second, it can also damage other people, voluntarily or involuntarily, and it may be very hard to control, just think when we read about murders caused by the jealousy of certain people. Finally, jealousy could also be legitimate in some cases, for example if we think of richer or luckier people than us, but in these cases it just a gloomy feeling, as we know there's nothing we can do to about that.

I agree with that, i think jealousy can be both good and bad, depending on the situation and context. When we are jealous of someone for any reason, we should use the same jealousy to try to do better, and to feel more determined about reaching our goals. But, despite that, i still see jealousy as a bad feeling, because i think it has more cons than pros. First, it is not easy at all to "use" it in an efficient way, because most of the times it stops us and makes us feeling bad, instead of making us to proceed, even more determined. Second, it can also damage other people, voluntarily or involuntarily, and it may be very hard to control, just think when we read about murders caused by the jealousy of certain people. Finally, jealousy could also be legitimate in some cases, for example if we think of richer or luckier people than us, but in these cases it just a gloomy feeling, as we know there's nothing we can do to about that.

I think you've said that very well. We don't really control our jealousy, tho you could be aware of it and ask yourself why you feel that certain way.

I assume we're discussing on envy since envy and jealousy are completely different terms. Envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you're worried someone's trying to take what you have. If you want your neighbor's new convertible, you feel envy. If she takes your husband for a ride, you feel jealousy. Jealousy is some kind of cancer in the soul. But envy is somehow a phenomenon and quite arguable. Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Several philosophers have pointed to a distinction between vicious envy and emulative
envy as well. Unlike vicious envy, emulative envy spurs us to self-improvement. Perhaps righteous envy can be morally valuable even if emulative envy is not. Recall that righteous envy occurs in response to injustice. As such, one might conclude that feelings of envy are thus integral to our sense of justice and injustice. envy is sometimes immoral and sometimes moral rather than always immoral and never moral.

Surely we could care about having the goods we value by admiring what others have rather than feeling envy. There are two important differences, however, between admiration and envy. First, the natural scope of admiration is different than envy’s. That is, we usually admire people for doing things that are not necessarily within our reach. we tend to envy people who are roughly our equals because we can more readily see reflections of our own lives in theirs. The more similar we are to others, the more likely it seems to be that we envy their accomplishments instead of admiring them.

Envy has moral value because moral agents value goods and talents as part of lives they see as worthwhile. It does not follow from envy’s moral value that every case of envy is morally good; it does follow that we would not be morally better people if we never felt envy. One could argue that being emotionally detached from goods is morally progressive, but being emotionally detached from goods requires a great deal more than not feeling
envy. It would require altering my conception of a good life not just so that I am less invested in things (because still some envy in this case) but so that things no longer show up to me as something to care about. Moral progress in this case would lie not in feeling less envy, but in adopting this more enlightened conception of a good life. That's the exact key phrase: "enlightened conception of a good life". Does envy lead us to a better life? I don't think so. As I stated before, envy is some kind of a signal alarming that we are not content with ourselves but runing towards the signal does not lead us where we want to arrive.

I assume we're discussing on envy since envy and jealousy are completely different terms. Envy is when you want what someone else has, but jealousy is when you're worried someone's trying to take what you have. If you want your neighbor's new convertible, you feel envy. If she takes your husband for a ride, you feel jealousy. Jealousy is some kind of cancer in the soul. But envy is somehow a phenomenon and quite arguable. Bertrand Russell said that envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness. Several philosophers have pointed to a distinction between vicious envy and emulative
envy as well. Unlike vicious envy, emulative envy spurs us to self-improvement. Perhaps righteous envy can be morally valuable even if emulative envy is not. Recall that righteous envy occurs in response to injustice. As such, one might conclude that feelings of envy are thus integral to our sense of justice and injustice. envy is sometimes immoral and sometimes moral rather than always immoral and never moral.

Surely we could care about having the goods we value by admiring what others have rather than feeling envy. There are two important differences, however, between admiration and envy. First, the natural scope of admiration is different than envy’s. That is, we usually admire people for doing things that are not necessarily within our reach. we tend to envy people who are roughly our equals because we can more readily see reflections of our own lives in theirs. The more similar we are to others, the more likely it seems to be that we envy their accomplishments instead of admiring them.

Envy has moral value because moral agents value goods and talents as part of lives they see as worthwhile. It does not follow from envy’s moral value that every case of envy is morally good; it does follow that we would not be morally better people if we never felt envy. One could argue that being emotionally detached from goods is morally progressive, but being emotionally detached from goods requires a great deal more than not feeling
envy. It would require altering my conception of a good life not just so that I am less invested in things (because still some envy in this case) but so that things no longer show up to me as something to care about. Moral progress in this case would lie not in feeling less envy, but in adopting this more enlightened conception of a good life. That's the exact key phrase: "enlightened conception of a good life". Does envy lead us to a better life? I don't think so. As I stated before, envy is some kind of a signal alarming that we are not content with ourselves but runing towards the signal does not lead us where we want to arrive.

Alright, thank you. I didn't realise the difference. I get your stance on this topic. Tho I'm not completely agreeing it's nice to get your opinion on this.