 Assessments of the rationality of emotions take various forms. It is useful to distinguish the prudential advisability of emotions (whether they are good for the person who has them) from their fittingness (roughly, whether the appraisal of circumstances involved in the emotion is accurate or not). Both of these  assessments are to be distinguished from various ethical appraisals of emotions. Most authors who address the issue seem to agree that envy is seldom advisable: insofar as one is able to control or influence one’s emotions, it is best not to be envious, because envy harms those who feel it. This is sometimes urged simply on the grounds that envy is a form of pain, but more often because, in envy, a person’s subjective sense of well-being, self-worth or self-respect is diminished. But if envy involves certain characteristic patterns of motivation, such as a motive to outdo or undo the rival’s advantages, then the advisability of envy may be strongly dependent on the advisability of the actions it motivates. And whether these actions are advisable, in turn, depends upon whether they are efficient means to the ends at which they aim, and whether those ends are themselves in the subject’s interests. Thus an adequate assessment of the prudential advisability of envy may well depend on whether the envious subject’s sense that he is worse off because of his rival’s possession of the good that he lacks is accurate. If it is accurate, then motivation to change the situation may well be beneficial for the Subject. We turn now to issues of accuracy. 