Envy and jealousy are often mixed up in everyday talk, but philosophers see them as different emotions with unique focuses.
Jealousy usually involves three elements: a person (the subject), someone they care about (the beloved), and a rival who threatens to take away the beloved’s attention or affection. Here, the main worry is about losing the beloved, not about the rival. So, if someone is jealous, they are most concerned with keeping their unique bond with the beloved intact, and the rival could be just about anyone—it’s the possible loss of this special relationship that matters.
Envy, on the other hand, is more about a two-player scenario: the subject and the rival, with a particular “good” (which could be anything desirable, even someone’s affection) possessed by the rival. The envious person’s key concern is what the rival has, not the loss of a relationship. If their rival got the “good” from someone else, they’d still feel bothered, showing that competition with the rival is central.
So, jealousy is centered around keeping a valued relationship, while envy is about resenting someone else’s possession of something desired.
See Also
Online Resources
- Envy / SEP
Please Note: This is my personal summary of the topic, shared both for my own records and in the hope it may be helpful to you. AI was used in parts to assist with the process.