Can I slack off and get a PhD?
Can I slack and get a PhD?


Yes, definitely. I have known PhD students that graduated, which I can only describe as lazy.

Now the more important question is Why the heck do you want to? If your goal is to stay in research, slacking off during your PhD time is career suicide. If you do not want to stay in research, and you are not particularly interested in the research contents, then a PhD degree will not be much more than a piece of paper to put on your office wall. A piece of paper for which you have accepted 3+ years of lousy pay.

Edit:


  I want to become a college professor so a PhD is a requirement I need to fulfill.


I correct my point from above: "If your goal is to stay in academia, slacking off during your PhD time is career suicide". Let me put it this way - faculty positions, including those at liberal arts colleges, are typically competitive to get into. Having a PhD that shows that you are less than enthusiastic about your field will likely not land you such a job. If this is your career goal, you need to ask yourself not "What is the minimum amount of work I need to put in to get a PhD?" but rather "What is the minimum amount of work I need to put in to have a real shot at scoring a position afterwards?" (where the second effort is substantially larger than the first effort).