Sloth Causing Lust--Can Sloth Co-Exist with Lust?

A student in a past class asked a great question about Sloth and the other vices it can cause, like Avarice, Gluttony and Lust.  The point of his question was whether, as a matter of fact, if Sloth causes another vice, like Lust, then the Sloth must end when Lust begins.

We might say that Sloth has to end, since the Lustful person clearly partakes of aim-driven activity, namely the search for sexual gratification.  Thus, the aimlessness characteristic of Sloth seems incompatible with the aim-driven nature of Lust.  Sloth can cause Lust.  But Sloth cannot co-exist with Lust.  We might however say that Sloth must continue to exist, because it "feeds" Lust:  Lust is a constant reaction to Sloth, and in order for that to be true, Sloth must still be present, must co-exist with Lust.  Call these two positions (A) and (B) respectively.  The student favored (A) when we last talked; I favored (B).  Who is right?

I now think neither of us is quite right, although each of us is tracking something.  To explain, I need some distinctions from Aristotle.  Aristotle distinguishes two types of potentiality and two types of actuality, but the second type of potentiality and the first type of actuality are the same.  Here's what he means.  Consider a baby born to English speakers.  It is a potential speaker of English.  That means that the child (assuming it is normal and its environment typical) will eventually acquire the ability to speak English.  But of course it cannot now speak English.  Compare to the baby a teenager who is sulky and silent.  The teenager is more than a potential speaker of English as the baby is, but, since the teenager refuses to speak, the teenager can be called a potential speaker of English in another sense.  To see that, compare the teenager to an adult who is now speaking English.  The adult is actually a speaker of English.  Compared to the adult, the teenager is potentially a speaker of English (the teenager could speak if he wanted to do so and would need nothing more than the will to do so to begin to speak).  Compared to the teenager, the baby is a potential speaker of English, but in a different sense, because the baby cannot speak if it wants to and would need training to begin to speak).  Call the baby a potential(1) speaker of the language and the teenager a potential(2) speaker.  We can also say that, compared to the baby, the teenager is an actual speaker of the language, but in a different sense from the adult, so we can also say the teenager is an actual(1) speaker of the language.  The adult is an actual(2) speaker of the language.  And so the teenager is simultaneously a potential(2) and actual(1) speaker of the language, since we can compare him to the baby or the speaking adult.  (Whew!)

I believe we can apply these sorts of distinctions to the issue between the student and me.  The person whose Lust is caused by Sloth is not merely potentially(1) Slothful.  No, he has been Slothful and in a sense still is.  But at the moment when he is actually(2) Lustful, he is not actually(2) Slothful.  Instead, he is potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful.  He is not actually(2) Slothful, since his aim-driven Lust prevents that.  But his Lust is a constant reaction to Sloth and so Sloth must be present in more than a potential(1) sense.  It seems to me that the best thing is to say that he is actually(2) Lustful but potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful.  He could relapse into (and likely does relapse into) Sloth at any moment, but especially when his Lust is either frustrated or sated.  This strikes me as a new view, call it (C).  It is like the student's (A), in that the Lustful person is not, while Lustful, fully actually Slothful (actually(2) Slothful).  But it is like my (B) in that the Lustful person, while not fully actually Slothful, is still in a sense Slothful (potentially(2)/actually(1) Slothful).

So I think the student and I are both wrong in a sense and right in a sense.  Often, that's how debates go in philosophy.

Green Day: Longview

Here're the lyrics to Green Day's "Longview".  I hope no one is offended by the lyrics, but the song (as you will see) rather exactly depicts Sloth.  You can watch the video here.

"Longview"

Sit around and watch the tube, but nothing's on
I change the channels for an hour or two
Twiddle my thumbs just for a bit
I'm sick of all the same old shit
In a house with unlocked doors
And I'm fucking lazy

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored I'm going blind
And I smell like shit

Peel me off this Velcro seat and get me moving
I sure as hell can't do it by myself
I'm feeling like a dog in heat
Barred indoors from the summer street
I locked the door to my own cell
And I lost the key

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored I'm going blind
And I smell like shit

I got no motivation
Where is my motivation?
No time for the motivation
Smoking my inspiration

Sit around and watch the phone, but no one's calling
Call me pathetic, call me what you will
My mother says to get a job
But she don't like the one she's got
When masturbation's lost its fun
You're fucking lonely

Bite my lip and close my eyes
Take me away to paradise
I'm so damn bored
I'm going blind
And loneliness has to suffice
Bite my lip and close my eyes
I was slipping away to paradise
Some say, "Quit or I'll go blind."
But it's just a myth

Paget on Sloth

"Yes, let us put together in thought the traits
which meet in the picture of accidie [sloth]; let us think of
it in its contrast with that brightness of spiritual joy
which plays around some lives, and makes the name-
less, winning beauty of some souls; aye, and even
of some faces; and we may recognize it, perhaps, as
a cloud that has sometimes lowered near our own
lives; as a storm that we have seen sweeping across
the sky and hiding the horizon, even though, it may
be, by God's grace only the edge of it reached to
us, only a few drops fell where we were. Heaviness,
gloom, coldness, sullenness, distaste and desultory
sloth in work and prayer, joylessness and thanklessness,
do we not know something of the threatenings,
at least, of a mood in which these meet? The mood
of days on which it seems as though we cannot
genuinely laugh, as though we cannot get rid of a
dull or acrid tone in our voice; when it seems impossible
frankly to rejoice with them that do rejoice,
and equally impossible to go freely out in any true,
unselfish sympathy with sorrow; days when, as one
has said, everything that everybody does seems
inopportune and out of good taste; days when the
things that are true and honest, just and pure, lovely
and of good report, seem to have lost all loveliness
and glow and charm of hue, and look as dismal as a
flat country in the drizzling mist of an east wind;
days when we might be cynical if we had a little
more energy in us; when all enthusiasm and confidence
of hope, all sense of a Divine impulse, flags
out of our work; when the schemes which we have
begun look stale and poor and unattractive as the
scenery of an empty stage by daylight; days when
there is nothing that we like to do when, without
anything to complain of, nothing stirs so readily in
us as complaint. Oh, if we know anything at all
of such a mood as this, let us be careful how we think
of it, how we deal with it; for perhaps it may not be
far from that sorrow of the world which, in those who
willingly indulge and welcome and invite its
presence, worketh death."  From The Spirit of Discipline

Sloth

Anger

Office Hours, Sorta (Coffee and the Sins)

I will head to a coffee shop after class today.  If you want to talk about SP1, or about the class, or about philosophy, or...basically...whatever, just tag along.  I will do the same tomorrow

and may have some afternoon time both days if right after class does not work for you.

Rickaby, Human Acts (Required Reading For Wednesday)

Here're a few pages (impefectly copied but readable) from Rickaby's *Four-Square*.  It offers a succint explanation of what a *human act* consists in.  This extends my response to Emily's good question on Monday.