As a few other students noted, I think envy is rooted in the lack of something within the one who succumbs to envy, and this something is not necessarily what one desires (i.e. the ‘good’). This lack is the primary emotion, and though one may express their state as being envious of another, the emphasis is not so much on the emotion one extends towards the ‘rival’, but the lack of something within, which can continuously manifest. Envy may spring up again, either when the ‘good’ is attained, or even without an effort to attain the ‘good’, as the ‘good’ can come up again and again in different ‘rivals’. Once one realizes it is not really the ‘rival’, or the ‘good’ that is the cause of envy, but the lack of something, whether it be self-esteem, self-confidence or whatever, that one may not desire the ‘good’ any longer, or wish for the ‘rival’ to lose the ‘good’, but still suffer at the recognition of the rival’s good which reminds one, even sub-consciously of something that one lacks.
Envy is a sin because it establishes one’s recognition of something that one lacks, and instead of making an effort to fill that gap, one’s attention is on another’s ‘good’ which one may desire (which can periodically fill the gap) and loathe that other for having, which can promote the thought of ill-will toward another, and/or the prolonging of suffering within oneself.
If the above is true, can envy be a warranted motivator?
