Purposeful or Indulgent? Making Good Use of Free Time

Sponsored by Georgetown University Press

Recorded on 10/26/2020
Posted in The Authority File

Episode 161

The Fullness of Free Time: A Theological Account of Leisure and Recreation in the Moral Life

Over the past three episodes, this series has explored what free time really is. It has explored how we can differentiate leisure from recreation and why we might want to do so. And it delved into the philosophical arguments about why it might be useful to carve out a subsection of Catholic solidarity that listeners can apply on a smaller, more human scale. The question then is, “So what? Why’s that useful to me?”

In this episode, Conor Kelly, assistant professor at Marquette University, thinks through some of the most common ways Americans use their free time: from watching television to lurking on Facebook to watching football and basketball, and how they might get the most out of their free time. Kelly illustrates the ways he thinks through using his own free time, and how his moral convictions inform his personal decisions. In an interesting case study, Kelly explains the moral considerations he brings to watching football, and how the difference between the compensation of professional versus student athletes complicates the question of whether he should or shouldn’t watch them compete.

About the guest:

Conor Kelly
Assistant professor of theology
Marquette University

Conor Kelly is an assistant professor of theology at Marquette University. He is a Catholic theological ethicist who works at the intersection of fundamental moral theology and applied ethics. He is the coeditor of Poverty: Responding Like Jesus with Kenneth R. Himes and has published articles in a number of journals, including Theological Studies, the Journal of Moral Theology, Horizons, and the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics.

Check out other episodes in this series:

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