Brian O’Connor, “Idleness: A Philosophical Essay” (Princeton UP, 2018)

Culturally, idleness is widely derided as laziness, uselessness, and sloth.  Even within philosophy, the idle are criticized for being wasteful, selfish, and free-loading. Indeed, throughout the history of moral and political philosophy, it is frequently asserted (though not often argued) that humans must be perpetually active, busy, and, in a word, productive?  But why?  Is there really nothing to be said for idling?
 In Idleness: A Philosophical Essay (Princeton University Press, 2018), Brian O’Connor examines a range of anti-idleness views, and finds them lacking.  He then proposes an alternative according to which idleness is a component of human freedom.





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