But more deeply, I have a transactional attitude towards my relationship with my fiancee. I'm with her because she makes me happy, and because I enjoy spending time with her, and because she seems like a good investment.
Suppose she gets hit by a bus and is now disabled. You calculate that she is no longer a good investment. Do you shrug and write her off as degraded capital? A healthy attitude to a relationship makes the other person an end in herself.
What is an end in itself? Well an end in itself (abbreviated simply as End from this point forwards) is something that is not pursued because of some motive, but that is itself a motive with no further reasons. [...] I think that many people pursue Ends other than happiness, such as the happiness of people they care about, certain life goals, and so on. Now some will say that these things are pursued only because they make the person pursuing them happy, meaning that you work towards the happiness of some other person only because doing that makes you happy. And this may be true for some people, but I doubt that it is true for everyone.
Perhaps it is worth noting that many people associated with the PUA/redpill/manosphere subculture are hostile to the notion that people can ever have a non-transactional relationship. But I put very little stock in their opinions.
Suppose she gets hit by a bus and is now disabled. You calculate that she is no longer a good investment. Do you shrug and write her off as degraded capital?
If circumstances changed sufficiently such that she was no longer a good investment, of course I would end the relationship. Being hit by a bus wouldn't do it, but I can imagine other things that might.
A healthy attitude to a relationship makes the other person an end in herself.
I agree with Caue below; that seems to be the opposite of a healthy relationship.
And not just an unhealthy relationshi...
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