The Nature and Moral Significance of Jealousy
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©Copyright 2012 Rachel Fredericks Troubling Others and Tormenting Ourselves: The Nature and Moral Significance of Jealousy Rachel Fredericks A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Washington 2012 Reading Committee: Stephen M. Gardiner, Chair Carole J. Lee Jean V. Roberts Ingra R. Schellenberg Program Authorized to Offer Degree: Philosophy University of Washington Abstract Troubling Others and Tormenting Ourselves: The Nature and Moral Significance of Jealousy Rachel Fredericks Chair of the Supervisory Committee: Professor Stephen M. Gardiner Philosophy Jealousy is an emotion that arises in diverse circumstances and is experienced in phenomenologically diverse ways. In part because of this diversity, evaluations of jealous subjects tend to be conflicting and ambiguous. Thus philosophers who are interested in the moral status of jealousy face a challenge: to explain how, despite the diversity of jealous subjects and experiences of jealousy, our moral evaluations of those subjects in light of those experiences might be unified. In this project, I confront and respond to this challenge, which I call the challenge of heterogeneity. In Part I, I refine and expand on existing descriptive accounts of jealousy, defending an account with three necessary but not sufficient conditions. On my view, if one is jealous: A. One desires that oneself stand in some relation to a specific, non-replicable good. B. One has in mind a (possibly imagined) rival and regards the rival’s having the good as logically or causally inconsistent with the satisfaction of this desire C. One has in mind some (possibly imagined) set of circumstances in which this desire would be satisfied. In discussing this view I emphasize the role that relationships play in giving rise to jealousy, since its connections to relationships make jealousy descriptively and normatively unique. In Part II, I develop an account of jealousy’s moral significance. To do so, I divide cases of jealousy into three types: those involving jealous desires relating to (1) caring relationships, (2) non-caring relationships, and (3) material goods or personal qualities. I argue that in all three types of cases, jealousy undermines the actual or potential moral value of the jealous subjects’ relationships, and that this undermining provides the paradigmatic moral reason to criticize jealous subjects. Thus I respond to the challenge of heterogeneity without simply portraying jealous subjects as selfish or insecure. After doing so, I consider multiple arguments for the claim that a person’s being jealous sometimes constitutes a moral reason to praise that person. I critique each of those arguments and conclude that we have good reasons to see jealous subjects as worthy of moral criticism but not moral praise. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 1 Moral Responsibility for Emotions............................................................................................................. 5 Evaluative Disagreement About and Ambivalence Toward Jealous Subjects......................................... 8 Reasons to Criticize Some, But Not All, Jealous Subjects ...................................................................... 21 Potential Epistemic Reasons for Criticizing Jealous Subjects...............................................................................22 Potential Moral Reasons to Criticize Jealous Subjects..........................................................................................24 Potential Moral-Epistemic Hybrid Reasons to Criticize Jealous Subjects...........................................................35 Problems with Identifying and Evaluating Jealousy..............................................................................................41 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................. 43 Describing Jealousy.............................................................................................................................................. 45 Chapter 1: A Descriptive Account of Jealousy.............................................................................................. 46 Paradigmatic Examples of Jealousy.......................................................................................................... 47 Purshouse’s Account of Jealousy and of How It Differs from Envy ....................................................... 49 The Virtues of Purshouse’s Account ........................................................................................................ 55 My Revisions.............................................................................................................................................. 66 Limits on Jealous Desires........................................................................................................................... 76 Important Lessons to Apply in a Normative Account of Jealousy ......................................................... 79 Evaluating Jealous Subjects................................................................................................................................. 83 Chapter 2: Jealousy in Caring Relationships ................................................................................................ 84 Caring Relationships ................................................................................................................................. 86 Undermining Relationships ...................................................................................................................... 88 Argument for Undermining in Situations that Serve the Target’s Interests.......................................... 92 Argument for Undermining in Situations that Do Not Serve the Target’s Interests ............................ 95 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................. 98 Chapter 3: Jealousy In Non-Caring Relationships..................................................................................... 101 What Is a Non-Caring Relationship? ..................................................................................................... 104 i Which Kinds of Non-Caring Relationship Allow for the Possibility of Jealousy? ............................... 108 What Does it Mean to Undermine the Moral Value of Relationships?............................................... 112 Argument that Jealousy Undermines Non-Caring Relationships ........................................................ 113 Objection from Demandingness............................................................................................................. 129 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 132 Chapter 4: Jealousy and One’s Ideal Self.................................................................................................... 133 The Range of Cases Under Consideration............................................................................................ 136 Argument that Jealousy Involving Desires for Material Goods or Personal Qualities Undermines Relationships............................................................................................................................................ 138 How to Make Sense of Why Jealousy Arises When It Does ................................................................. 139 Why the Satisfaction of These Jealous Desires Is Not Required for One’s Ideal Self......................... 147 One’s Relationship with One’s Ideal Self .............................................................................................. 154 How the Jealousy Undermines One’s Relationship with One’s Ideal Self .......................................... 161 Auxiliary Arguments................................................................................................................................ 164 Objection from Desire to Be Superlatively Virtuous............................................................................. 167 Conclusion................................................................................................................................................ 170 Chapter 5: Potential Moral Reasons to Praise Jealous Subjects................................................................ 171 The Beloved-Pleasing Proposal............................................................................................................... 172 Criticisms of the Beloved-Pleasing Proposal .......................................................................................... 175 The Self-Respect Proposal ...................................................................................................................... 187 Criticisms of the Self-Respect Proposal.................................................................................................. 191 Social Value Proposals ............................................................................................................................ 198 Criticisms of Social Value Proposals