Sloth as a Capital Vice

On p 122, Taylor attempts to prove that the slothful are also greedy in order to show that sloth, like all other vices, fits Aquinas' definition of a capital sin ("adopting immoral means in order to achieve a passionately desired end"). Her challenge to the statement “the slothful are free from greed” and therefore incapable of harming others is “the slothful, like all the vicious, are negligent in their attitude towards others, and so may well strike the other as being cruel or brutal.” But just because others may perceive the slothful as cruel or brutal doesn’t mean they really are. Taylor goes on to say that they may be guilty of “the cruelty of indifference,” explaining that the slothful will be unable to commit or fulfill the rolls others expect them to play. But such an occurrence would depend just as much on the actions of others as on the agent. That is to say, in a world of subjective good, just because Olga expects a lasting relationship from Oblamov, doesn’t mean that he is cruel to not give her one. He might be cruel of a relationship is something he promised or implied, but then his capital vice is dishonesty or lust, not sloth.

Even if Taylor does succeed in proving all vices come from greed and can result in the harm of others, she still has to prove why harming others is innately harmful to the subjective good of the agent. I believe she does this by arguing the vicious generally attack so that they may protect their own self-image. When this happens, they are actually just perpetuating a self-image that is inaccurate, thus self-deceiving and presenting a false self to the world. But even if the slothful do harm others, it is not to maintain their self-deception. All the cases that Taylor offered of the sloth harming others were inadvertent harm, harm through his inaction (not motivated by protecting his self-image). So it cannot follow that the sloth’s harm to others is also damaging to his own subjective good.