This is the audio from a public lecture delivered 4 February 2020 at Newman House, University College Dublin.

During the age of Enlightenment new types of criticisms of idleness began to appear. Philosophers opposed idleness not on the traditional ground that it would require others to work. Rather it prevented each of us from realizing our talents and skills. Idlers were supposedly akin to 'savages' and 'barbarians'. This talk looks at some of the strange and biased arguments against idleness found among these philosophers.

Brian O'Connor is Full Professor of Philosophy at University College Dublin. He is the author of Idleness: A Philosophical Essay (Princeton 2018) together with a number of other monographs and edited volumes on Modern German Philosophy.