LAZINESS.

1.

Laziness is where we want X but don’t make the required effort to get it.

For example I say to Jack: do this job of painting this garden fence, which will take about four hours to do, and I will pay you £50. And he wants the money. But he doesn’t paint the fence and instead spends the afternoon chilling on the beach. I might say he is being lazy. But what does that mean exactly?

2.

Thinking about it in terms of the balance between effort and reward.

P1 = “Agent wants the reward to some extent and thinks that the effort required to get the reward is such that the reward is worth that much effort.”

If Jack fails to do the job because P1 is false then that’s not laziness.

For example suppose I said I would pay him only £1 and then he didn’t paint the fence. It wouldn’t be right to call him lazy in this case. It would just mean he thought, rightly, that the reward wasn’t worth the effort required.

Or consider what if Jack doesn’t do the job simply because he doesn’t want the reward at all. Example if Jack just doesn’t want the £50 and would prefer to chill on the beach. Then that would definitely not be laziness.

Suppose I make the same initial £50 offer to Mary and she accepts. Then what is the difference between lazy Jack and non-lazy Mary? If we say it’s because she wants the reward more than him. Or that it’s because the amount of effort she will need to exert to get the job done is less. In other words things which mean P1 is false for Jack. Then she is not less lazy than Jack.

What if, unlike Jack, Mary gets some enjoyment from painting the fence. Or she is poorer than Jack so the £50 means more to her. Or, unlike Jack, she has friends who praise her for her efforts. All these things mean she gets a greater reward than Jack would. These are cases where P1 is false. Mary is not less lazy than Jack.

So: laziness is nothing to do with P1 being false, nothing to do with the value of the reward or the amount of effort. A lazy person doesn’t differ from a non-lazy person because of either of these things.

3.

So what is laziness then?

It’s where agent doesn’t do the job despite P1 being true.

Note that P1 being false isn’t demonstrable anyway. If Mary does the job and Jack doesn’t. Then Jack could say: that’s because you want the reward more or because you find painting easier than me and so need to put in less effort. And she will say: no Jack, it’s just because you’re lazy.

So maybe laziness is more something like weakness of will. So Jack does want the reward as much as Mary and the amount of effort required from him is the same as it is for Mary. But he still doesn’t do it. This kind of thing does happen. People often fail to do things that are in their interest. It’s some kind of “inability to exert effort”.

The nature of this inability might be an inability to see the long-term benefits. So Jack only sees the effort he has to put in now. And he is unable to concentrate on the future reward. He suffers from distraction and procrastination. So then laziness is some kind of ‘future blindness’.

On the other hand, maybe this is just another case of P1 being false. If the agent can’t see the long-term benefits then they will want the reward less.

Someone might say to Jack that he should make some effort to overcome his inability to exert effort. But this is circular!

If Jack’s not doing the job is because of an inability to exert effort, then that’s still not laziness. Because the idea of laziness that’s it’s wilful and deliberate. But Jack didn’t choose to suffer from this inability. Any more than if he had some kind of inability due to his physiology. Like if he was unable to move his arms.

4.

Laziness is often equated with not being hard-working.

But then the question is why is the lazy person not hardworking? If it is because P1 is false then, again, it’s not laziness.

If Mary is more hard-working because she has more motivation, if the reward is greater or more valuable to her. Then she is not less lazy than Jack.

5.

Another reason somebody might fail to do something despite P1 being true is that they might doubt that their efforts will actually yield the reward.

For example Jack might think that he won’t be able to finish painting the fence because he isn’t able.

[Original post about 2016. Last revision May 2023.]