This dissertation asks the most basic of philosophical questions: what is it? More specifically, it asks the nature of leisure, including its nature within liberal life. Chapter One turns to Aristotle, who offers the most substantial and elevated account of leisure. I interpret and defend Aristotle’s account as a “way of being,” which means it is itself the end and goal of several virtues, material equipment, and a thorough education. This particular way of being is found to be the goal and purpose of Aristotle’s ideal regime. The liberal project, however, presents a competing ideal in the example of the laborer. In Chapter Two, I argue that Locke holds work and labor to be necessary to human happiness, especially with work’s necessary role in rational self-authorship. This interpretation is offered as a more complete account of liberalism, where the tendency is to view work and labor as merely a means to legitimate wealth. I argue that Locke’s defense of work and labor is more thorough, leading to both political as well as individual felicity. And instead of stopping here, at this comparison of the competing poles of leisure and labor, I also analyze vocation as both a complement to the labor described by Locke, but also as a way of incorporating elements of leisure into contemporary life. In the same way that Aristotle understands leisure as the ground of doing something for its own sake, Weber also understands vocation to be a “living for,” even if it is always also a “living from.” Though there are important points of distinction between leisure and vocation, and though vocation has its own internal pathologies, vocation is our best answer to and incorporation of classical leisure.
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