When is it appropriate to feel jealousy in a romantic relationship? To answer this question, I explore
the various rational norms of jealousy in the light of rational norms
generally applicable to emotions. In particular, I analyze the relevance
of moral, prudential, social, and aptness assessments to jealousy. I
attempt to elucidate the formal object of jealousy—the
jealousy-worthy—to show that it lacks the moral dimension
required to justify the moral desert that the jealous person often takes
themselves to have with respect to the beloved. I argue further that the
aptness norms of romantic jealousy are significantly influenced by the
specific romantic ideology that is taken for granted in the majority of
romantic relationships. I show that monogamy provides conditions for
numerous cases of apt and inapt jealousy, whereas polyamory
significantly reduces the possibility of apt jealousy. That seems to
mark a respect in which the latter type of relationship is not inferior
and may even be thought superior from a moral point of view.
In section 1 I construct a psychological
profile of jealousy, outlining its defining features. Section 2 presents various rational assessments
applicable to jealousy. Section 3 analyzes
the aptness conditions of jealousy, and presents arguments for thinking
that jealousy is not an intrinsically moral emotion. This conclusion
undercuts arguments that present a moral justification of jealousy as a
strategy to protect what is rightfully one’s own—namely the affections
of one’s beloved. Section 4 outlines the ways
in which monogamous and polyamorous ideologies affect the aptness
conditions of jealousy. I argue that in polyamory the conditions for apt
jealousy are minimal compared to monogamy. I conclude that the
questionable moral character of jealousy raises concerns about the moral
status of monogamy, which is a great facilitator of jealousy.
Jealousy—A Psychological
Profile
Without endorsing any particular theory of emotion, I take emotions
to be intentional states that represent organism-environment
relationships (Prinz
2004). Emotions are quick automatic responses that inform the
organism of how it is faring in the world by making particular features
of the situation salient to it (DeSousa 1987; Deonna and
Teroni 2012). The phenomenology of an emotion makes a
crucial contribution to the achievement of that task. Although emotional
episodes can be unconscious, an occurrence of an emotion defines the
domain of relevant features, informing other kinds of cognition in the
subject (Damasio
1994; DeSousa 1987; Goldman 1986). Furthermore, emotions have
characteristic action tendencies, preparing an organism to
respond to a particular situation in a meaningful way (Frijda
1987; Scarantino 2017).
The intentionality of emotions is characterized by two kinds of
objects. The emotion is directed at a particular object or
target, and represents the target as having a particular
evaluative property—the formal object of the emotion (Kenny 1963;
DeSousa 1987). Emotions can misrepresent their targets when the
target lacks the properties that ground the formal object of the
emotion. The intentionality of emotions necessitates that they have
correctness conditions—aptness. An emotion is apt when it correctly
represents the target as having a particular evaluative property that
supervenes on a set of natural properties of the target. Fear, for
example, is apt when its formal object—the fearsome—supervenes
on the properties (the menacing teeth, attacking posture) of its target
(the dog). An emotion is inapt when the target that it represents as
having a particular evaluative property lacks natural properties
sufficient to ground the evaluative property. Thus, an instance of fear
of a dog is inapt when the dog poses no danger. On the basis of this
characterization, emotions have two functions: (1) to inform the
organism of how it is faring by correctly identifying evaluative
properties of the target, and (2) to prepare an organism to respond to
the situation by facilitating a response appropriate to those evaluative
properties—in the case of fear, flight, or some other means of evading
the danger.
Jealousy can be characterized along these and other parameters
pertaining to emotions. Emotions are individuated by their formal
objects (DeSousa
1987; Deonna and Teroni 2012; Tappolet 2016). In order to zoom in
on the formal object of jealousy, the jealousy-worthy, it is
important to identify the eliciting conditions of jealousy.
Jealousy’s defining eliciting condition involves a love triangle
composed of the lover, the beloved, and a rival. The
negative hedonic character of jealousy indicates that the presence of a
rival is a threat to the relationship or some aspect of the relationship
between the lover and the beloved (Ben-Zeév 1990; Protasi
2017). Jealousy makes salient the features of the situation that
constitute this threat. I will have a lot more to say about the formal
object of jealousy in the upcoming sections. For now, we can say that
the formal object of jealousy is a threat-of-a-loss posed by a
rival to one’s romantic relationship. If this is right, then jealousy is
apt when the threat posed by a rival is real, and inapt when it is
not.
The action tendency of jealousy offers further support for thinking
that jealousy is a response to a threat because in romantic contexts the
jealous engages in a variety of behaviors that appear to constitute
mate guarding. These include interrupting the interaction
between the beloved and the perceived rival, aggression against the
beloved, or withdrawing (Chung and Harris 2018). Given
the eliciting conditions of jealousy and its action tendency, the
function of jealousy seems to be warding off rivals in order to
protect one’s relationship.
The diversity of mate guarding behaviors raises questions about the
target of jealousy. Is it directed at the rival or the beloved?
The grammatical structure of jealousy says that one is jealous
of the rival. However, one is a rival only if one is receiving
affection and attention from the jealous subject’s beloved. Furthermore,
it is the beloved whom the lover does not want to lose. Mingi Chung and
Christine Harris report that the actions of mate guarding tend to be
directed at the beloved more often than the rival. They hypothesize that
this is because it is easier to secure the beloved’s faithfulness than
to discourage all others from attempting to lure the beloved away. Since
it is the stability of the beloved’s affections that the lover is trying
to secure, it makes sense that jealousy should be directed primarily at
the beloved. At the same time, the rivalrous nature of jealousy
indicates competitiveness of the lover for a privileged status with
respect to the beloved (Farrell 1980). Therefore, the
target of jealousy is both the beloved and the rival. The particular
strategy employed in a given case may be indicative of the
focus of the lover’s jealousy.
If jealousy is about responding to threats from rivals, how should
these threats be characterized? In the psychology literature on jealousy
it has been defined in the following two ways. First, a threat may be
constituted by an actual transgression of the beloved with a rival—e.g.,
a flirtation or an affair. In this case one experiences reactive
jealousy—a jealous response to an actual infidelity.
Second, an aspect of the situation may be construed as a potential
threat to one’s relationship. In this case one experiences
suspicious jealousy—a jealous reaction to a potential
infidelity of the beloved with a rival (Rydell and Bringle
2007; Attridge 2013).
Reactive and suspicious jealousy are typically distinguished by their
antecedent conditions. Each kind is also associated with different
qualities of the lover’s personality. Reactive jealousy is associated
with dependency and trust, secure and avoidant attachment styles, and
extroversion. Suspicious jealousy is associated with insecurity and low
self-esteem, and is correlated with anxious attachment style, and
neuroticism (Marazziti et al.
2006; Chung and Harris 2018). Given these associations and
antecedent conditions of each kind of jealousy, it may appear that
reactive jealousy is always apt because it correctly identifies a
threat, whereas suspicious jealousy may be more prone to error since it
arises in cases where the threat is not obvious. Furthermore, the
association with neuroticism and anxious attachment style suggests that
suspicious jealousy, as an occurrent emotion, can sometimes be regarded
as manifesting a character trait: a jealous person is one who
often endures episodes of unfounded jealousy. Trait jealousy is
associated with particular individual dispositions—anxiety, distrust,
and suspicion—and is better described as a dimension of personality. In
fact, Chung and Harris propose to delineate the distinction between
suspicious and reactive jealousy not by construing them as two types of
jealousy but rather as two aspects of the same emotion. They maintain
that since the function of jealousy is to detect a threat, suspicious
jealousy may be thought to be the initial stage of jealousy, when the
jealous is gathering and examining the evidence for a potential
transgression by the beloved. This way suspicious jealousy, no less than
reactive jealousy, fulfills the function of protecting the relationship
from threats. If suspicious jealousy arises in circumstances that do not
ground it, then it simply fails to perform its presumed function.
However, it need not fail to do so. Distinguishing between reactive and
suspicious jealousy does not commit us to thinking of one as always apt
and the other inapt.
Thus far we can say that romantic jealousy is an emotion that arises
in response to a perceived threat posed by a rival with respect to one’s
beloved. Jealousy aims to correctly identify the threat, and to
facilitate action designed to protect one’s relationship from the
rival.
Jealousy and Norms
If jealousy has the twofold function specified above, how effective
is it in warding off rivals and sustaining a relationship? To answer
this question, we need to examine the different ways—moral, prudential,
and social—in which jealousy’s effectiveness is assessed. That is the
aim of this section.
I begin with social attitudes to jealousy, illustrating their
variability across and within cultures. I then examine the prudential
value of jealousy, in terms both of its social meaning and of its
biological function. Lastly, I assess jealousy from a moral point of
view: can it be said to be a moral emotion? As will become clear, these
assessments call into question the value of jealousy and lay the
groundwork for the critical evaluation of the formal object of jealousy
in the next section.
One finds a variety of social attitudes to jealousy across
and within cultures (Hupka and Ryan 1990;
Buunk et al. 2020). For instance, in the so-called honor
cultures—cultures in which reputation and status matter greatly—men are
thought to be justified in violent outbursts triggered by jealousy (Cihangir
2013; Canto et al. 2017). In the matriarchal society of Mosuo in
Southwest China jealousy is frowned upon (Cai 2001). In the United States
attitudes towards jealousy are mixed (Puente and
Cohen 2003; Vandello and Cohen 2008). On
the one hand, jealousy is praised as an expression of love, care,
attachment, and vulnerability (Buss 2000). The jealous lover is
clearly invested in the beloved and the status of their relationship:
they are hurt by the potential loss of the relationship. They wish to
keep it and protect it from intruders who might take their beloved away
from them. On the other hand, jealousy is disapproved of as it signals
insecurity, low self-esteem, possessiveness, lack of trust, and
immaturity. It portrays the lover as suspicious, mistrustful, and
controlling (Salovey
1991).
The diversity of opinions on jealousy in the United States is partly
explained by the changing attitudes towards the conception of men’s
honor and women’s purity (Stearns 2010). At the same time, it
is clear from these meta-attitudes that jealousy has multiple complex,
conflicting social meanings. One way to attempt to reconcile them is to
appeal to the distinction between apt reactive jealousy and inapt
suspicious jealousy. Furthermore, pathological or morbid jealousy is
associated with violence and homicide, and may stem from both reactive
and suspicious jealousy (Pfeiffer
and Wong 1989; Mullen 1993; Wilson and Daly 1996).
That might also be motivating negative attitudes towards jealousy.
While it is unlikely that negative and positive attitudes towards
jealousy neatly map onto these distinctions, the purported function of
jealousy might justify some of the positive attitudes towards it. We
must look at the different ways in which this function is to be
understood in order to assess some of the justifications of jealousy it
might provide. The usefulness of jealousy can be construed in terms of
its supposed biological, social, and personal functions. These are not
mutually exclusive but differentiating between them sheds light on the
utility of jealousy. I begin with the biological function of
jealousy.
An evolutionary psychologist, David Buss, and his colleagues have
argued that romantic jealousy is an adaptation. It was selected to
ensure pair-bonding and successful childrearing in human reproduction,
by securing sexual exclusivity from women and emotional exclusivity from
men (Buss and
Schmitt 1993; Buss 2000, 2006). Buss argues that the perceived
sex differences with respect to jealousy reflect different evolutionary
challenges for the sexes: securing paternity makes men more jealous of
women’s sexual infidelity, and securing resources makes women more
jealous of men’s emotional infidelity. Buss’s findings have been
challenged in the light of wide cultural variations with respect to sex
differences in jealousy. Notably, in more egalitarian societies both men
and women care more about emotional fidelity (DeSteno
and Salovey 1996; Harris 2003; see also Hupka and Ryan 1990).
Putting the question of the best explanation for sex differences in
jealousy aside, there is reason to think that jealousy may be adaptive
because it is universal and traceable in infants as young as three
months old. Sybil Hart and her colleagues found that infants react
negatively to their mother talking sweetly to a lifelike doll but not to
a book, suggesting that the mechanism for jealousy is hardwired to
enable infants to secure vital resources from their caregivers by taking
their attention away from real rivals (Hart 2010). One can speculate whether
the jealousy response in infants is co-opted in romantic jealousy or
whether an innate disposition to sexual jealousy is already expressed in
infant jealousy. Regardless, the universality of a trait and its
presence in infants are insufficient to establish that it is adaptive.
As illustrated by the presence of the vermiform appendix, and by our
preference for fatty and sugary foods, some features of an organism,
while they might have been adapted in our evolutionary past, are no
longer adaptive and may even be deleterious in our current environments
(DeSousa
2017). Lastly, the presumed adaptive function does little to
justify a normative assessment of jealousy since the adaptiveness of a
trait does not imply that it is socially or personally beneficial.
Another way to approach the functionality of jealousy is to think of
the role it plays in society. Given the general twofold function
outlined above, it may be that jealousy contributes to maintaining
social structures such as families by sustaining pair bonds. However, we
must ask to what extent jealousy is a successful strategy in preserving
these institutions. Furthermore, we must weigh the costs placed on the
members of these institutions to assess whether jealousy is a
justifiable means to achieve those aims.
Assessing the success of jealousy is difficult since numerous factors
contribute to sustaining a relationship. One possible measure of
jealousy’s contribution is its correlation with relationship
satisfaction—an individual’s assessment of the quality of their
relationship. Relationship satisfaction can serve as a predictor of the
relationship’s endurance (Hendrick 1988). In some studies of
jealousy, after testing participants’ jealousy responses to vignettes
and asking them to assess the jealousy reactions of their partners to
their potential infidelities, the participants were asked to answer
questions rating their relationship satisfaction. Different studies
found different correlations between jealousy and relationship
satisfaction. For example, a study by Laura Guerrero and Sylvie Eloy
found a negative correlation between all types of jealousy and
relationship satisfaction (1992; see also
Andersen et al. 1995). Others found that relationship
satisfaction positively correlates with reactive jealousy but negatively
correlates with suspicious jealousy (Barelds
and Barelds-Dijkstra 2007; Dandurand and Lafontaine 2014).
Furthermore, studies of jealousy expression and communication found
that aggressive expression or manipulative behavior designed to control
or hurt one’s partner is negatively correlated with relationship
satisfaction. The same was true for aggression against the rival. On the
other hand, constructive communication that focused on discussing
relationship issues and aimed at restoring the relationship was
positively correlated with relationship satisfaction (Sheets,
Fredendall and Claypool 1997; Guerrero, Hannawa and Babin 2011).
This suggests that when thinking about the correlation between jealousy
and relationship satisfaction, people report how they perceive different
types of jealousy as well as how they react to communications of
jealousy.
These reports shed light on people’s attitudes to jealousy and its
expression. The correlations tracked in these studies are inconclusive,
however, because of the mixed results and also because correlation does
not establish causation. Even if we assume that there is a positive
correlation between reactive jealousy and relationship satisfaction and
a negative correlation between suspicious jealousy and relationship
satisfaction, it does not mean that reactive jealousy in fact improves
the relationship. Yet these correlations are telling, because they
demonstrate that for many people jealousy is an important part of the
romantic love narrative. No doubt, for some jealousy is a sign of love
and commitment. But violence perpetuated and justified by jealousy
imposes a disproportionate cost on women in romantic relationships (Mullen
and Maack 1985; Daly and Wilson 1988; White and Mullen 1989; Mathes and
Verstraete 1993; Puente and Cohen 2003; Vandello and Cohen 2008).
Thus, in light of current research, one is left doubting the social
usefulness of jealousy.
While biological and social justifications of jealousy do not appear
promising, one might assess the prudential value of jealousy on an
individual level. Jealousy might improve a relationship by correctly
identifying threats and employing successful strategies for securing it.
It would then be contributing to relationship satisfaction. Many other
things would have to be true for this picture to be correct.
Personality, character, attachment styles of the individuals involved,
their beliefs about romantic love, a particular type of jealousy and
jealousy expression, together with other factors will determine the
prudential value of jealousy for those individuals. Therefore, while
jealousy may have prudential value in particular cases, that value
depends on numerous factors that are difficult to generalize.
The analysis of social attitudes towards jealousy and of jealousy’s
role on the biological, social, and individual levels puts pressure on
the significance of jealousy and casts doubt on its functionality.
However, despite its questionable utility, jealousy might turn out to
have a positive moral value. The moral value of jealousy can be
cashed out in two ways: (1) if jealousy’s formal object is a moral
property, and (2) if it turns out to be morally praiseworthy. These two
ways in which jealousy might relate to morality are independent of one
another but can overlap.
If jealousy is a moral emotion, its formal object—the
jealousy-worthy—is a moral property. Its aptness conditions
would be defined by considerations of whether the target of jealousy
instantiates the moral property of the jealousy-worthy. Since
jealousy aims to identify threats to one’s relationship posed by a
rival-beloved interaction, the jealousy-worthy could be a moral
property if it designates an injustice constituted by the rival-beloved
relationship. It is important to note that if jealousy turns out not to
be a moral emotion, rejecting its aptness on moral grounds would amount
to committing a moralistic fallacy (D’Arms and Jacobson 2000). That
is, if jealousy is deemed irrational on the grounds that it is immoral
to feel, there would be a conflation of moral assessment and the aptness
norms of jealousy. This is the case regardless of whether the
jealousy-worthy is a moral property. I explore these questions
in the next section.
The Formal Object of Jealousy:
Moral or Non-Moral?
Does the formal object of jealousy consist of a moral property? To
answer this question I examine moral and nonmoral accounts of the formal
object of jealousy. I consider the implications of characterizing
jealousy as a moral and a nonmoral emotion. I argue that if jealousy is
a moral emotion then it is always inapt. If jealousy is a nonmoral
emotion, it can be apt but it is morally problematic.
An account of the formal object of jealousy as a moral
property is defended by Kristján Kristjánsson. He construes
jealousy as an Aristotelian virtue of self-respect (2002,
2018). For Kristjánsson jealousy is a mean between two extremes:
too much sensitivity to perceived disrespect, and too little sensitivity
to the disrespect manifested by the beloved who responds favorably to a
rival. According to this view, jealousy is an emotion that protects
one’s self-respect as a response to disrespect from others. It defends
that which is due to and deserved by the lover. It is an emotion that
responds to an injustice akin to anger and indignation, as opposed to
fear, which responds to a danger. Kristjánsson construes jealousy as a
moral emotion, the formal object of which is the violation of moral
deserts (2002, 153). He argues that
jealousy is necessary for a good life because it serves the function of
preserving self-respect and respect from one’s beloved. Therefore,
jealousy is a moral emotion in virtue both of (1) the moral nature of
its formal object, and of (2) its praiseworthy character.
In contrast to Krisjánsson, several accounts construe the
jealousy-worthy as a nonmoral property. Daniel Farrell says,
“[T]o be jealous is to be bothered by the very fact that one is not
favored in some way in which one wants to be favored” (Farrell 1980,
543; see also Ben-Zeév 1990, 2010). More specifically, the
jealous person perceives the beloved-rival interaction as a threat to
their privileged status with respect to the beloved. Farrell’s
view brings out the rivalrous nature of jealousy—the jealous person
wants to be favored more than anyone else by the beloved in the
ways that a romantic lover is favored. Farrell denies that jealousy is a
response to a threat of a loss of a relationship since a person might
still be jealous, even if they could be assured that they would not lose
it. The formal object of jealousy in his view is a
threat-to-one’s-privileged-status. It is not a moral property
since it is not grounded in desert. Instead, it is simply a fact about
human psychology.
Similarly, Sara Protasi describes jealousy as
threat-of-a-loss-of-comparative-advantage to a rival. She says,
“[T]he jealous is motivated to protect her comparative advantage,
possibly by fending attacks from the rival and/or locking away the good”
(2017,
323).
Both Farrell and Protasi point out that the formal object of jealousy
reflects the exclusivity criterion associated with monogamy. The monogamous framework requires
that only one partner be the recipient of sexual and emotional favors
from the beloved. The presence of a more favored rival threatens the
privileged status of the lover. It devalues the goods of love and sex by
undermining exclusivity. I will have more to say about these features of
monogamy below. For now, it is important to emphasize that in a romantic
context, sexual and emotional exclusivity determine the status of being
favored.
The three accounts just cited—from Kristjánsson, Farrell, and
Protasi—illustrate ways in which the formal object of jealousy can be
construed. I first turn to the moral property accounts.
Kristjánsson argues that jealousy is a moral emotion, whose formal
object is a threat-to-moral-desert that supervenes on the
beloved-rival interaction, and on the relationship between the lover and
the beloved. Jealousy upholds one’s self-respect when one is mistreated
by the beloved. According to him, “jealousy can properly be felt by
\(A\), other things being equal, when
\(B\) receives from \(C\) a favor that \(A\) deserves more than, or at least as much
as, \(B\)” (Kristjánsson 2002, 163). But
what determines whether \(A\) deserves
favors from \(C\) more than does \(B\)? Kristjánsson says it is the
expectations of fairness provided by rules of commitment and
faithfulness in the romantic love institutions: “[E]xclusive affiliation
is typically valued from the very start of a loving relationship, and
indications of complete indifference in this matter are likely to be
considered morally defective” (2002, 158–159). Hence, one
deserves favors from one’s beloved more than a stranger or friend does
because one is in a romantic relationship with them. The desert is
cashed out in terms of sexual and emotional exclusivity. That, we are to
understand, is dictated by monogamy, the default mode of romantic
relationships. The jealous person deserves not to be made jealous since
if they are experiencing apt jealousy, they have been disrespected.
Kristjánsson thinks that following these rules of romantic
relationships amounts to respecting one’s romantic partner, while not
reacting with jealousy towards the beloved’s transgressions indicates a
lack of self-respect. Kristjánsson recognizes that social rules dictate
how self-worth should be understood, what boosts it and undermines it
(2002,
161). Jealousy for him, therefore, as a protection of self-worth,
is connected with one’s reputation and status. For example, since
cuckoldry is shameful, especially in certain cultures, jealousy is
justified as a means to guard against it.
Kristjánsson’s argument for the morality of jealousy goes as follows:
there are social rules that govern relationship structures. These rules
create expectations for the members of society. One such rule is about
sexual and emotional exclusivity between romantic partners. When people
enter romantic relationships, they take these rules for granted.
Following these rules fulfills the expectations of the romantic
partners. Violating these rules amounts to disrespecting one’s partner
because such violations undermine their expectations. Therefore, one
ought to follow the rules in place in order to treat one’s partner
well.
The argument assumes a moral obligation to uphold and follow social
rules. This assumption is clearly indefensible: the moral status of such
rules can always be questioned. Hence it remains to be
demonstrated that monogamous norms are morally defensible.
Kristjánsson makes a leap from socially defined expectations to moral
desert. In fact, his account seems, paradoxically, to imply that
jealousy can never be apt. To see this, consider that the formal object
of jealousy in his view, threat-to-moral-desert, is grounded in
one’s expectations, which are in turn grounded in social conventions
(for Kritjánsson recognizes that they take different forms in different
times and places). But moral desert cannot be grounded
in social norms. It follows that on Kristjánsson’s account jealousy can
never be apt since the value property it represents is not grounded in
the features of the world he has in mind.
If we cannot ground moral desert in social norms, then we might
characterize jealousy as representing not moral desert but a certain
form of socially sanctioned entitlement. The formal object of
jealousy would then be threat-to-entitlement. Entitlement
arises from participating in social or legal institutions that specify
how one ought to be treated (Feldman and Skow 2020). For
example, a customer is entitled to a refund from a store when they are
not satisfied with their purchase if the store’s policy specifies that
such refunds will be provided on this basis. An athlete is entitled to a
gold medal if they have won the competition, and a gold medal is the way
in which the winner is rewarded.
If jealousy is about entitlement and entitlement is not a moral
property, then jealousy is not a moral emotion, and cannot be a virtue.
But in any case, how strong is the case for the claim that the
institution of monogamy entitles one to sexual and emotional
exclusivity? Is it the kind of institution that can provide conditions
for entitlement? The institutions presented in the examples above are
formal institutions with explicit rules that can be enforced. Monogamy
(in the restricted sense in which I have used the word) is an
institution in a different sense—it is an informal institution, a widely
accepted social practice. The rules are not explicit, and there is no
formal way for them to be enforced except for the court of public
opinion. In that sense, monogamy can be viewed as a social
convention.
The practice of monogamy can be formalized through the formal
institution of marriage. In marriage, the rules of monogamy are explicit
and have been enforceable until the introduction of no-fault divorce. Is
one entitled to exclusive affection and sexual attraction from one’s
spouse? Indeed, the marriage contract seems to entitle one to such
exclusivity. However, it should now be clear that formal and informal
social institutions on their own cannot morally justify a
social practice. Simply accepting them without further argument ignores
their variability across time and cultures, and commits one to embracing
an objectionable social conservatism. If the aptness conditions of
jealousy are simply defined by social norms, they tell us nothing about
its moral value.
We could try to show that jealousy is a moral emotion by grounding
threat-to-moral-desert in some other way. One possibility is to
adopt a contractarian framework and cash out moral desert in terms of an
implicit agreement to “terms and conditions” of a monogamous romantic
relationship. The contractarian framework establishes rights and
obligations for all parties involved. On this view, one’s romantic
partner has a moral claim to one’s sexual and emotional favors that
outweighs any such demands from third parties, by virtue solely of the
romantic relationship’s existence. The relationship entails rights, and
jealousy is an emotion that guards those rights.
But can one really ever assert a right to be loved? That is surely
questionable because love is neither a matter of desert, nor of the will
(Neu 1980, ch. 3). Construed in this way, jealousy is
then always inapt since the threat-to-moral-desert is really a
threat-to-one’s-rights, and there are no such rights.
It could be insisted that while one may not have a right to be loved,
according to the romantic contract, one has a right to sexual and
emotional exclusivity for as long as the partner can provide them. That
is, if the beloved falls in love with someone else, the romantic
contract is terminated since the conditions of the original agreement
are no longer satisfied. The contract only lasts as long as its
conditions endure.
Another possibility is to acknowledge that sexual and emotional
attraction are not in fact exclusive. The monogamous contract prohibits
acting upon attractions towards others. Pursuing them would
violate the obligation of exclusivity. In this case, jealousy is the
insistence that one honor the contract of exclusivity despite other
attractions. Yet, jealousy is clearly not just about prohibiting the
beloved to act upon their attractions. It is about being
preferred to all others by the beloved. Can it be shown that
one has a moral obligation to prefer one’s partner to all others
sexually and emotionally? It seems not, for, as we have said, there are
no moral obligations to love, or to be exclusively sexually attracted to
someone. Given these considerations, the contractarian framework cannot
sustain jealousy’s claim to be a moral emotion.
Another attempt might be made to show that jealousy is a matter of
moral desert. Consider the concept of cheating. Cheating constitutes not
only a transgression of the rules of a romantic relationship but a
betrayal of the partner’s trust. Why? Because the expectation of
exclusivity was violated. How does one acquire such an expectation and
why does one trust that it will be fulfilled? The expectation is a
default assumption in a romantic relationship since monogamy is the
default kind of romantic relationship. Through their actions and words,
the partners lead one another to believe that both will be sexually and
emotionally exclusive. As the relationship develops, the partners can
explicitly state or otherwise indicate that they are “not seeing anyone
else”, thereby tacitly or explicitly endorsing monogamy. One reason why
cheating is wrong is not because one’s expectations are violated but
rather because one’s trust is. Can it be said that a
threat posed by a rival-beloved interaction is the kind of threat that
endangers the trust between the lover and the beloved such that jealousy
is an apt response to the situation? While it is clear that the threat
to trust is real and that the beloved has a moral duty not to deceive
the lover, the threat to trust does not make jealousy apt because
jealousy is about deserving to be valued more than the rival. It is
about having a greater claim to the affections of the beloved than the
rival. A violation of trust constitutes a condition for apt anger and
apt sadness but not apt jealousy.
In sum, jealousy construed as tracking injustice fails to be apt. To
be sure, this reason is insufficient to rule out the possibility that
the formal object of jealousy is threat-to-moral-desert or
threat-to-one’s-rights. It could well be that the formal object
of jealousy is one of these moral properties. But if so, then jealousy
is always unfitting because the properties that are supposed to ground
the formal object thus specified fail to do so.
The same can be said about a threat-to-entitlement. I will not
attempt to settle the matter of whether the formal object of jealousy is
a moral property here.
Let us now move on to the critical analysis of the proposed nonmoral
formal object of jealousy discussed by Farrell and Protasi. Recall that
Farrell and Protasi construe the formal object of jealousy as a
threat-to-one’s-privileged-status and
threat-of-a-loss-of-comparative-advantage respectively.
According to them, jealousy is an emotion that aims to protect one’s
priority standing with respect to the beloved. It is a response to a
threat to one’s status by a rival. In their views, jealousy is apt when
one’s privileged status is actually threatened by a rival, and inapt
when it is not. This seems like a very plausible account of jealousy
because it captures the rivalrous nature of jealousy. It also does not
attempt to justify it from a moral standpoint as it does not insist that
the jealous person deserves to be valued this way.
Farrell raises the question of the intelligibility of jealousy. He
points out that there is something strange about a mature adult having
this emotion (Farrell 1980, 546). Indeed, this
characterization makes the jealous person look selfish, self-absorbed,
and insecure. Farrell suggests that being favored more than anyone else
could be intrinsically pleasurable for some people just as it seems to
be for children and nonhuman animals (1980, 553). While this may be so,
it is still puzzling since children are discouraged from being jealous.
Why should jealousy be an appropriate emotion in a romantic context?
Farrell’s and Protasi’s accounts present a plausible picture of the
formal object of jealousy and its aptness conditions. There remains the
question of whether jealousy is morally justifiable or praiseworthy. It
would seem that the jealous person confuses being valued as special and
being the only one valued. In addition, they want to be in a superior
position to everyone else.
It might seem that jealousy is justified by a monogamous ideology
because it is based on an underlying assumption that “true love” can
only be for one person at a time. Such an assumption implies that if
love is not exclusive then it is not really love, or a love that is
worthwhile, as it is not true love. Whether one can experience romantic
love for more than one person at a time is an empirical question. Given
numerous polyamorous accounts, it seems that it is indeed possible (Brake 2017;
Jenkins 2017). Defining “true love” as necessarily
exclusive, therefore, begs the question.
It might also seem that what the jealous person wants is to be valued
as unique and special. It might seem that being the only one valued
satisfies this desire since if one is the only one loved in this way,
one appears to be preferred to everyone else. However, it is a mistake
to equate exclusivity with being valued as unique because exclusivity
does not by itself take care of the Problem of Trading Up—the idea that
if someone better comes along, the lover will prefer them to their
current beloved (Nozick
1989). To address the problem, we must move away from equating
being valued as unique with being valued exclusively. Neither entails
the other. Exclusivity by itself does not preclude one from regarding
one’s beloved as fungible. Instead, valuing the beloved as unique is
best captured by valuing them as irreplaceable where the lover simply
refuses to compare the beloved to others (Grau 2004).
Valuing the beloved as unique is a normative attitude grounded in the
love-attitude of the lover, and not in some set of features of the
beloved. If uniqueness is characterized empirically, it is
contingent.
It is also a mistake to think that one cannot be valued as unique if
one’s partner has other lovers. Each one can be valued in this way by
virtue of being loved. Therefore, exclusivity by itself does not provide
conditions for being valued as unique or irreplaceable. Rather, it is
the normative attitude of the lover that perceives their beloved as
irreplaceable, i.e., not fitting for comparison or ranking.
One further defense of the claim that uniqueness stems from sexual
and emotional exclusivity might appeal to the “relationship first” view
elaborated by Niko Kolodny (2003). In Kolodny’s view, a
relationship might be defined by a requirement of exclusivity; in such a
case the uniqueness of the relationship might be due to precisely that
defining commitment. But that is true of any commitment
mutually undertaken—never to use tobacco, or never to see an Orson
Welles movie without the other. Such commitments might create “reasons
of love” for that kind of exclusivity, but reasons of love may not be
moral reasons. They give rise to disappointment and hurt, but that is
very different from the moral indignation that is warranted in response
to a moral transgression (see Albrecht 2017;
Pismenny 2021). Such intentional commitments, then, cannot amount
to a moral entitlement for sexual or emotional (as opposed to
any other kind of) exclusivity.
The desire to be valued as unique or special, according to Farrell’s
and Protasi’s accounts, is not the mark of jealousy. Rather, it is that
the jealous wants to be valued more than anyone else. If they
are the sole recipient of the beloved’s sexual and emotional favors,
they may be said to be loved more than anyone else, since no one else is
getting those favors from the beloved. How should we assess such a
desire? At the very least, it demands that the beloved close themselves
off from other romantic opportunities. Such jealousy seems driven not so
much by love or concern with the relationship as by egoism (see Brunning
2020). We can conclude that while Farrell’s and Protasi’s
accounts present a plausible view of jealousy and its aptness
conditions, they provide reasons to doubt its moral value.
To sum up, the accounts of the formal object of jealousy I have
considered here all seem to suggest that the jealous person reacts to a
threat to their privileged status with respect to the beloved, and aims
to preserve that status from the encroachment of a rival. The moral
accounts I have considered attempt to show that the jealous person has a
moral claim on the beloved such that the jealous deserves to maintain
their privileged status either because of existing expectations or
because they have a right to be favored in this way. However, construing
the formal object of jealousy as a moral property renders jealousy inapt
because moral obligations cannot be grounded in social conventions, and
because rights claims do not seem to apply to love and sexual desire.
Social conventions cannot ground entitlement claims for exclusivity.
Entitlement claims are not moral claims, and require further moral
assessment.
The nonmoral accounts of the formal object of jealousy suggest that
the jealous wants to be favored above all others, which is cashed out in
terms of maintaining their privileged status or comparative advantage
over others. While these accounts can provide for apt cases of jealousy,
they bring out the ethically problematic nature of jealousy by showing
that the jealous person is concerned with occupying a position of
privilege which they aim to achieve through excluding everyone else.
While romantic love is partial and cannot be directed towards everyone,
the demands of jealousy are not justified by the partiality of love. The
desire to be loved exclusively or to be loved more than anyone else is
either based on a misconception about what it means to be valued as
unique, or on a self-centered desire that does not cast the jealous in a
favorable light.
The discussion of the formal object and aptness of jealousy sheds
light on the intentionality of jealousy, on its representational
content. How does this connect with the function of jealousy outlined by
psychologists who say that its function is to identify and ward off
threats from rivals? The intentional content of jealousy is supposed to
fulfill the function of correctly identifying threats. What is not
spelled out in psychological accounts is what that content amounts to.
In particular, the examined psychological accounts say nothing about the
privileged status that the lover is afraid to lose and aims to protect.
Yet, it is clear that the threat to the relationship is understood by
them in terms of maintaining an exclusive monogamous relationship.
Therefore, what is threatened is the privileged status of the lover,
understood as requiring exclusivity. Furthermore, as should
be clear, jealousy is different from other emotions that represent loss,
such as sadness and grief (or even fear of a loss) because it is a
rivalrous emotion. Thus, when describing the twofold function of
jealousy, it is important to recognize its intentional content in order
to capture its competitive nature.
Romantic Norms and Aptness
As we have seen, the condition of exclusivity figures prominently in
the discussion of the rationality of jealousy. It is often appealed to
in order to show that jealousy is apt. In this last section, I consider
the ways in which relationship norms influence the aptness norms of
jealousy. I argue that the exclusivity norms infiltrate the aptness
conditions of jealousy in monogamous relationships by specifying when
and who counts as a rival. The “rivalry” conditions are determined
differently in polyamorous relationships. I argue that the norms of
polyamory provide fewer conditions for apt jealousy compared to
monogamy.
Recall that the formal object of jealousy speaks to its
representational content—representing the situation as a threat to one’s
privileged status posed by a rival. It is apt when the threat is real
and inapt when it is not. The threat is real when the lover could lose
their privileged status. As we have seen, the privileged status in a
monogamous relationship is cashed out in terms of sexual and emotional
exclusivity between the lover and the beloved. Therefore, when the norms
of exclusivity are violated, the privileged status of the lover is
undermined.
The exclusivity conditions determine what counts as a threat, thereby
informing the aptness conditions of jealousy. What about other kinds of
relationships in which exclusivity is not one of the norms? There are
numerous romantic relationship styles that are nonmonogamous. Given the scope of this paper, I
only consider the practice of polyamory—a form of ethical nonmonogamy in
which individuals cultivate multiple romantic relationships with the
consent of everyone involved.
Polyamorous relationships can take many different forms, and vary in
degrees of sexual and emotional connection and intimacy. Some
relationships have rigid hierarchical structures that specify the rules
for primary and secondary partners. Primary partners might enjoy more
intimacy and emotional connection than secondary partners. Typically,
though not necessarily, primary partners spend more time with one
another, run a joint household, and share financial resources. They also
often have a direct influence on their primary partner’s romantic
activity with others by negotiating their rules of engagement with
others. Other polyamorists have no such rules, and reject any kind of
hierarchy. They might still have nesting
partners—partners with whom they live. But that is not necessarily an
indication of a relationship priority. Others still form polyamorous
families of which all members live together, engage with one another
sexually and emotionally in various ways, and jointly co-parent all the
children in the household.
What does jealousy look like in polyamorous relationships? When is it
apt? Since the function of jealousy is to correctly detect and respond
to threats that come from rivals, we need to identify conditions under
which such threats are possible in polyamory. In a
hierarchically-structured polyamorous relationship, the primary partner
might be threatened by the secondary partner who might try to take their
place, for the secondary partner might want to receive privileges of the
primary partner from which they are excluded. However, generally,
polyamorists do not consider other lovers to be rivals. The practice of
polyamory rests on a number of principles that include honesty,
openness, communication, non-possessiveness, trust, and respect for the
partners’ autonomy. Other lovers, therefore, do not pose a threat to
one’s existing or potential relationships. Polyamorists value
compersion—the feeling of joy one experiences when one’s partner is made
happy by another (DeSousa 2017; Brunning
2020).
Given these considerations, a threat posed by a rival is defined
differently in monogamy and polyamory. In monogamy, the threshold for a
threat is low—any potential mutual romantic interest between the beloved
and a third party presents real danger to the privileged status of the
lover. This is because love is perceived as either being possible or
worthy only in a dyad. In polyamory the threshold for a threat is
high—other lovers are not rivals, and, therefore, do not as such pose a
threat to the lover. In monogamy one is likely to have numerous cases of
apt and inapt jealousy because of the way in which interactions between
the beloved and others are assessed. Since there are more possibilities
of real threats, there are more opportunities for apt jealousy. Even if
threats do not occur, one is likely to be more vigilant and engage in
more mate guarding in a monogamous framework. By contrast, in
polyamorous relationships there are fewer possibilities for apt jealousy
since the ideology of polyamory rejects competitiveness and exclusivity.
Nonetheless, polyamorists experience jealousy. Often jealousy can be
recalcitrant—it occurs despite one’s judgment that it is
inappropriate (D’Arms and
Jacobson 2003; Brady 2009; Döring 2015). Such an occurrence may
be particularly prevalent for those who have transitioned from
monogamous to polyamorous relationships. Most polyamorists are aware of
the recalcitrance of jealousy; they learn to manage it in various
ways.
Cases of apt jealousy are nonetheless possible in a polyamorous
framework, especially in hierarchical polyamorous relationships. Apt jealousy could also occur in
cases where the lover has fallen out of love, and is pursuing someone
else. In this case, one’s “privileged status” would simply amount to
being loved, rather than being loved more than others. Overall,
given the polyamorous framework, other lovers of one’s beloved are not
rivals because they don’t constitute a threat to one’s relationship. In
general, it rejects competition for a privileged position with respect
to the beloved.
Jealousy aims to identify threats to one’s privileged status. As I
hope to have shown, the criteria for what counts as a threat is partly
determined by the norms of a particular romantic ideology. Social norms
pertaining to romantic relationships infiltrate the aptness conditions
of jealousy by specifying the threshold for threats from others. In
monogamy the threat criteria are easy to satisfy, in polyamory, much
less so.
Conclusion
When is jealousy appropriate? To answer this question, I have
considered the twofold function of jealousy of correctly identifying a
threat to the lover by a rival, and engaging in mate guarding in order
to counter the threat. Given these functions, I have examined the value
of jealousy from biological, social, and personal points of view. I have
raised doubts about the value of jealousy in light of the inconclusive
data regarding its contribution to relationship satisfaction, and its
justification of violence disproportionately directed at women. Although
it is possible that jealousy can sometimes be useful in helping partners
maintain a relationship, it is difficult to determine the extent to
which it does so reliably. Furthermore, there are better ways to
maintain a fulfilling relationship such as communication, trust,
respect, etc.
To zoom in on the nature of the threat to which jealousy is a
response, and to explicate the relationship between jealousy and
morality, I have examined a variety of ways in which the formal object
of jealousy, the jealousy-worthy, could be defined. In
specifying the formal object of jealousy, it became clear how dominant
the norms of sexual and emotional exclusivity are in making sense of
romantic jealousy.
If the formal object of jealousy is a moral property characterized as
a threat-to-moral-desert or a
threat-to-one’s-moral-rights, jealousy is always inapt because
social conventions of monogamy can never ground moral properties. The
same is true if the formal object of jealousy is a
threat-to-one’s-entitlement because although that is not a
moral property, the institution of monogamy is an informal institution,
and cannot, therefore, ground strict entitlement.
If the formal object of jealousy is defined as a
threat-to-one’s-privileged-status or a
threat-to-one’s-comparative-advantage, jealousy is apt when
that status is threatened and inapt when it is not. While characterizing
the formal object of jealousy in this way allows for apt jealousy, I
have questioned whether the emotion is morally praiseworthy. The desire
to be loved more than everyone else is morally dubious, and it raises
concerns about the person’s character.
The painfulness of jealousy is intelligible when one assumes the
monogamous framework, since it only allows for an exclusive dyad, and
the beloved’s new romantic interest may well indicate a loss of interest
on the lover’s part. In the monogamous ideology, love is a zero-sum
game. Thus, protecting one’s privileged status can be equated with
protecting one’s love status. This is why anyone in whom the beloved
might express a romantic interest constitutes a threat to the lover.
This is clear from the comparison of monogamy to polyamory. Polyamory
sets a high bar for apt jealousy and discounts the majority of jealousy
occurrences as recalcitrant because other romantic partners of one’s
beloved are not rivals, and therefore constitute no real threat to the
lover. The moral problems raised by jealousy raise concerns about the
moral standing of monogamy since it facilitates numerous occasions for
apt or inapt jealousy.
