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Philosophy
Is Procrastination Immoral?
Don't put off reading this - it may be unethical!
Posted March 20, 2010
The psychological causes and effects of procrastination have been extensively explored by scholars such as PT blogger Tim Pychyl. But its ethical aspects have not been investigated as much, though several of the contributors to the new book The Thief of Time: Philosophical Essays on Procrastination, that I edited with Chrisoula Andreou (also a PT blogger), do consider these relatively neglected issues.
In this post, I offer a brief discussion of how the three major schools of philosophical ethics—utilitarianism, deontology, and virtue ethics—look at procrastination. We'll see that all three approaches view procrastination as ethically wanting, but for very different reasons.
1. Given its widely recognized negative consequences, procrastination is most easily deemed unethical by a consequentialist system of ethics such as utilitarianism. Utilitarianism judges the ethical merit of actions by the goodness (or utility) to which they lead. (As you can imagine, the definition of utility or goodness is a topic of much debate among utilitarians; it matters far less to us now.) So insofar as prcorastination leads to inferior or bad outcomes—as it almost always does, both for the procrastinator as well as those who rely on him or her for timely action—it would be considered unethical by utilitarians.
(And even if we allow that occasionally procrastination may lead to good outcomes, that would be "the exception that proves the rule," and procrastination would still be judged unethical by rule utilitarians, who assess the general consequences of following a rule, allowing for occasional exceptions.)
2. But bad consequences are not all that is wrong with procrastination, or so deontologists would argue. Deontology is much more difficult to define than utilitarianism is, but most philosophers would agree that deontology allows for at least some nonconsequentialist considerations, some of the time, to determine the moral worth of an action. One common way to put this is that deontology emphasizes the right (or just) while utilitarianism (or consequentialism in general) emphasizes the good. Deontologists don't have to claim that the good never matters, but just that it is not the only thing that matters in all cases.
Just as utilitarians define utility or goodness differently, deontologists have different conceptions of what "right" or "just" means. Some deontological systems, like that of Immanuel Kant, base their idea of the right on the unique status of personhood, and the respect that it demands by virtue of persons' innate dignity. Following this line of thought, procrastination can be seen as failing to respect both the procrastinator him- or herself, as well as any other persons who rely on the procrastinator's timely performance.
Failing to respect other people—fine. But why does procrastination fail to respect the procrastinator? Kantian philosopher Thomas E. Hill puts it this way in his essay "Weakness of Will and Character" (in his book Autonomy and Self-Respect): when you orginally planned to do something, you made that plan for a reason, and when you procrastinate with respect to that plan, you fail to respect your own reasoning for making that plan in the first place. That's why procrastination often carries feelings not only of regret and disappointment, but also shame; by procrastinating, we let ourselves down. We did not live up to the standard we set for ourselves; we are not the people we want to be.
3. And that leads us nicely into virtue ethics, which shares an emphasis on character with Kant. Virtue ethics is as difficult (if not more so) to nail down than deontology is, but almost all virtue ethicists focus on the person and his or her character, rather than (as utilitarianism and deontology do) on his or her actions. So virtue ethicists would mostly agree with Hill's analysis above, especially as it focuses on the individual: procrastination reveals a lapse of character, a lack of virtue. In particular, procrastination involves a lack of the executive virtue of resolve or "stick-to-it-iveness," a virtue that backs up or helps the person execute more direct virtues such as courage and kindness. If you intend to send a check to support Haiti relief efforts, but never seem to get around to it, your failure at charity has been "enabled" by your failure at resolve. You may have meant well, but if you really meant well, you would have acted accordingly.
This emphasis on character that we see in Kantian and virtue-ethical approaches also answers an interesting question: is it immoral to procrastinate at an immoral action? Take the case of the procrastinating adulterer, who has the opportunity to cheat on his wife, but for some reason never gets around to it; he perversely judges that he should cheat now, but something (other than a moral awakening) always leads him to delay it. The simplistic utilitarian approach would say "good"—as long as he doesn't cheat, it doesn't matter how or why. (Most utilitarians would be more subtle and elaborate than this, but I am painting with somewhat of a broad brush here.) But neither the Kantian or virtue ethicist would say he's a good person for his failure to cheat, especially since he still intends to and judges it to be "right." His procrastination would actually compound his lack of character, for not only does he want to violate his marrriage vows and hurt his wife, he also does not follow through on his own plans (immoral though they are).
In summary, the utilitarian approach to procrastination simply confirms our intuitions that procrastination is harmful and therefore unethical. The deontological/Kantian and virtue-ethical approaches go further, pointing to a failing within the procrastinator him- or herself.
Practically speaking, this may lead to a new way to think about and try to resist procrastination: in addition to thinking about the bad effects of procrastinating, think about what it implies about you, if just to you:
Does procrastination represent who you want to be?
Do you want to be the kind of person who lets yourself down?
I doubt you do, and if you think about it, I think you'll agree. Think about that next time procrastination raises its ugly head, and see how it works—and let me know!
