| This question <62|70> overall <68|70> Montecarlo: <1413|239>. graded A |
| Question 90: Is it a character flaw to be lazy in an exploitive system? |
| [69] Montecarlo: ADHH's argument in [2005fa:99] is that laziness is not a character-flaw within a system that is not based on incentives. Is the opposite then true? Does it become a character flaw to be lazy within an incentive-based system? Take the military for example, where promotions are based on performance. Perhaps laziness would be an impediment to advancement here. Or how about an employee who is party to a stock-sharing incentive plan, or one who sells for commissions? It seems unlikely that the substance of a person's character should be a function of whether their employment is within a system that contains an incentive component. Indeed, we should expect that character deficiencies are independent of external circumstances, such as working conditions. |
| Shelley [43] speaks of a “natural response” to a non-incentivized environment, based upon individual moral relativism. However, the question would seem to imply an objective morality, or at least it asks the reader to apply his own morality to the situation. If we claim relativism, then there can be no global answer to this decidedly positive question. One would say simply, “well it's true for me that it is not an immoral act to be lazy, and that's all that matters,” and no suitable retort could undermine such a position. Perhaps, in a strictly philosophical sense, this is a reasonable position, but I believe a fairly universal prescription can be concluded from the question. |
| Aytch argues in [57] that there is some sort of social balance of labor in which each person must meet his or her quota of production. Such a position would of course be based in the moral philosophy of “fairness”, or the balance of justice. This system may constitute a desirable, perhaps utopian goal, but it necessarily fails, in terms of descriptive power, to explain the current situation. |
| I must therefore argue the pragmatic view that morality should derive from necessity. A person's labor, used in the service of somebody else, is a direct substitute for using it for his own designs. Everybody has a basic need for the means of survival - food, shelter, etc. A person could spend all of his time doing these things himself, but it is more efficient, on a social scale, to divide the labor among those who are most skilled at it. A blacksmith then, in lieu of farming his own food, creates finished steel goods, and trades them for the food. However, it must not be forgotten that the labor he is creating is a substitute for meeting his own survival needs directly. So, to be lazy as a blacksmith is akin to being lazy as a hunter - which surely would endanger survival. Therefore, it is not recommended - perhaps even a flaw of character, to be lazy in employment, since that employment directly substitutes for procuring one's own survival by more primitive means. |
| Hans: The situation which we live under is not just a division of labor, but a social order in which, according to Marx's view, a small elite of non-workers has a good life at the expense of the toiling masses. Would you still say to the toiling masses, that they should be glad to be part of society at all, because outside of society they would surely perish? |
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