Sloth, Surely a Vice

I fully agree with Taylor that Sloth is a vice.

Taylor states that she is operating under the assumption that individual agents want to lead a flourishing life rather than a "narrow, miserable one." There is not much of an argument against the fact that the vice of sloth, when appropriated through one's life, greatly limits the ability of a person to explore their interests and experience unique things. The fact is that every experience one experiences is unique simply on the basis that the agent is a unique entity and as such, their thoughts, inhibitions, and reactions to certain stimuli and catalysts are unique as well; thus making every experience unique.

It is clear then, that slothfulness inhibits the ability of an individual agent to explore one's interests, finding one or many passions, progressing and interacting. To be slothful would then inhibit the ability of that individual agent to experience and pursue human projects, things that only humans can do. Such as cure a disease, compose some music, write a letter, or have a conversation. Everything one does, one can learn from. By depriving oneself of opportunities to learn, one is clearly doing an injustice to himself and inhibiting his ability to flourish as an individual.

Sloth seems to be an unwillingness to embrace the unpredictable. The unpredictability is a variable that is too much work to deal with, and the effort isn't worth the pay off. An individual agent who operates in the manner previously stated is one who is not flourishing, and if one believes one is flourishing, they are still not. Is one flourishing at the guitar if they learned two songs two years ago and have not learned or played anything in a year? Of course not. Is a relationship flourishing if two individuals have not had any contact within the past five years? Of course not. What is the common theme here? There is no progress, no learning and adding experience to one's life. A person is made up of what they know, what they do, and how they do it. If a person stops or limits the amount he will know in the future and the amount of activities they partake in (conversations to basketball), then that person is not flourishing, and that is caused by the presence of vice in one's mind and actions.