Abstract

The aim of this essay is to argue that the human capacity for boredom is philosophically interesting because it illuminates the kinds of problems that evaluators face just in being evaluators. I aim to challenge the “boredom as problem” approach to understanding boredom that is pervasive throughout the multi-disciplinary literature on boredom. I examine five quite different contexts of boredom that illuminate five different reasons why evaluators sometimes find the world not worth their attention and address a set of puzzles about boredom, e.g., why meaningless diversions are an especially attractive method of escaping boredom and why both regimented work time and unregimented leisure time might be primary occasions for boredom.