Valuable Vice: Kierkegaard on Collective Envy in A Literary Review

Abstract

In this paper, I explore Kierkegaard’s views on envy as developed in A Literary Review, by confronting them with the capital vices tradition. I begin by developing a basic account of envy that serves as a point of reference throughout the paper. I then turn to the capital vices tradition, elaborating the concept of a capital vice, and discussing the views of Basil of Caesarea, Evagrius of Pontus, John Cassian, Gregory the Great, and Thomas Aquinas on envy’s viciousness. Subsequently, I discuss Kierkegaard’s treatment of envy in A Literary Review, exploring two of its key notions—‘the public’ and ‘leveling’—through a reading of L.P. Hartley’s novel Facial Justice (1960). In the final part of the paper, I show that the originality of Kierkegaard’s account of envy consists both in its character as a collective vice and its evaluative status as vicious yet valuable.