The Vice of Sloth: Some Historical Reflections on Laziness, Effort, and Resistance to the Demands of Love
Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Associate Professor of Philosophy
The Other Journal
Issue 10

Many contemporary people, scholars and non-scholars alike, think of the deadly sin of sloth as “mere” laziness. In the words of Evelyn Waugh, "[‘Sloth’] is a mildly facetious variant of ‘indolence,’ and indolence, surely, so far from being a deadly sin, is one of the world’s most amiable of weaknesses. Most of the world’s troubles seem to come from people who are too busy. If only politicians and scientists were lazier, how much happier we should all be. The lazy [person] is preserved from the commission of almost all the nastier crimes."

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