 A recurring suggestion in the history of philosophical and political thought has been that envy supplies the psychological foundations of the concern for justice, and, especially, of egalitarian conceptions of  justice.[16]  Both the proponents of this charge and those who contest it have commonly taken it to be a damaging suggestion for  egalitarianism.[17]  It is worth distinguishing genetic versions of the charge from occurrent ones. Genetic versions concern the historical or developmental sources of a concern for equality. Freud, for instance, held that concern with justice is the product of childhood envy of other children leading to concern for equal treatment, and thereby to ‘group spirit’: “If one cannot be the favorite oneself, at all events nobody else shall be the favorite.” (p. 120). Nietzsche can be read as tendering an account of the origins of egalitarian values or ideals in envy in his account of the “slave revolt in  morality.”[18]  Whatever their merits, these claims should be distinguished from the claim that those who defend egalitarian views of justice are motivated by occurrent bouts of envy or propensities to  them.[19]