I’m Not a Bad Roommate, Bro, I’m Following Deontological Ethics

Look, Craig, I truly would do the dishes but it would be a direct violation of my strict adherence to the Deontological ethics brilliantly espoused by noted philosopher Immanuel Kant, bro.

It’s about duty, reason, and moral law. You think this is about not “helping out” or “doing my share,” but that is totally just your heterodoxical philosophical framework talking, man. You know Kant said morality isn’t about the consequences of our actions, it’s about whether they come from a pure sense of duty. So if I wash the dishes because you want me to, that would not be truthful to the moral imperative. That’s servitude, dude.

Don’t be a dweeb dude. That’s totally what you sound like right now trying to nullify my transcendental idealism and make me do the dishes. Do you think Arthur Schopenhauer was sitting around cleaning dishes like some ignorant troglodyte? No bro, he was being chill and chatting about Noumenal Will.

And I know what you’re going to say next, Craig. “If you don’t do the dishes could you at least take out the trash.” Are you serious bro? Does the Categorical Imperative mean nothing to you? If I take it out now, I imply that everyone should take their trash out all the time. But if that were universalized dude, society would crumble. Nobody would ever produce trash again because every time you put something in the trash, you’d have to put on your Nike slip-ons and go downstairs and put it away.

I did think about taking it out, I really did. I studied the matter for days through the lens of Epicureanism, you know the ancients were always spitting facts. Epicurus says the goal of life is to seek pleasure and avoid pain, and I can assure you there is no pleasure in leaving the serenity of the couch and a white claw to move waste from one place to another. The rational thing, the moral thing, was to avoid creating suffering and killing pleasure. So I chose instead to cultivate inner tranquility by watching old episodes of Deadliest Catch.

You might call that lazy; Epicurus would call it ataraxia, bro.

John Stuart Mill would also think you’re being a total buzzkill broski. You and I both know his Utilitarianism ethical frameworks states the most moral actions are those that produce the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. If I am taking down the trash all the time and not sitting with a brewski and playing 2k, I’ll be totally bummed out. That’s a net loss of vibes and society crumbles.

And don’t hit me with some BS like “In the time you spent reading hundreds of treatises and surveying the entire canon of Western philosophical inquiry, you could have found the time to Venmo me for utilities this month.” You’re thinking about time all wrong, Kimosabe.

My boy Heidegger said time isn’t just some neutral sequence of moments moving from past to future like some dumb ConEd billing cycle. It’s classic primordial temporality, bro. The past, present, and future all coexist in a single ecstatic unity of Being. So when you say I haven’t Venmoed you, you’re just operating from an inauthentic, linear conception of time. From my perspective, the true ontological perspective, I both have and have not Venmoed you. The Venmo exists, Craig. It is simply unfolding across different modes of temporality, it’s not my fault you’re too much of a noob to perceive that.

I want you to know I’m not mad at you for your transgression of core philosophical tenets, bro. After all, my girl Hannah Arendt said “Forgiveness is the only thing that frees us from the consequences of what we’ve done.” and I can tell you need to be freed. So you’re welcome.

Also can I borrow 100 bucks for a parlay, it’s a lock bro.