Immanuel Kant on Our Transactional Culture

What do we value and why?

(Source: Piqsels)

Humans are social animals; even I, a curmudgeonly introvert, understand that. People need to interact with other people to live and the more smoothly our interactions are with other people, the better life is for us.

Morality is about how we treat other people. Moral norms and expectations for how we conduct our interpersonal interactions will help smooth our dealings with other people. The more we share the same moral norms and expectations, the better we get along. When we are on the same page sharing the same goals, good things happen.

Being Transactional

To interact in any way with other people is to engage in a transaction. That’s true whether one is buying and selling or exchanging opinions. However, to be transactional in one’s relations with other people is different. It means that one is focusing on outcomes rather than the other person, expecting a payback for one’s actions, only doing x on the condition of receiving y. Being transactional implies a degree of cold selfishness.

A transactional relationship is one in which one or both people are thinking predominantly in terms of what they are getting out of the relationship. Such a relationship is not about giving and sharing but about getting and…