 Defense of the charge that egalitarianism is occurrently motivated by envy hinges both on the commitments of egalitarianism and on the nature of envy. The common motif is that egalitarians wish to do away with the advantages of the better off, and that they wish to do this because they are bothered by the very fact that the better off are better off. This is supposed to show that egalitarians are motivated by envy. Whether this is a fair characterization of any prominent egalitarian position is certainly open to  question.[20]  But in any case, in light of the distinction between envy and resentment, it is clear that there can be no direct move from the claim that egalitarians are ‘bothered’ by the advantages of the better off to the claim that they are envious. For another possibility is that what they feel is resentment, occasioned by the thought that the present distribution is  unjust.[21]  Note that the claim that what is felt is resentment does not depend upon showing that the resentment is fitting—that the distribution really is unjust. It would suffice to show that the response really is a moral evaluation, justified or not.