Unification Thought

By Dr. Sang Hun Lee

Chapter IV - Ethics

In the future, the establishment of an unshakable ethical system will be of paramount importance. Unification Thought holds that the ethics of the family is the basis of all ethics. In this Chapter the basic questions of the establishment of a view of ethics will be answered, and the defects of traditional ethical theories such as those of Bentham, Kant, and Moore will be pointed out.

Section A - The Necessity of Unification Ethics and its Origin in the Unification Principle

a. The Necessity of Ethics

The ideal of the Unification Principle in the future is to found an ethical society centering on God's love. Accordingly, the problem of ethics is sure to be one of the most important social questions of the future society, just as it is already considered a great problem in the present society. judging from the present tendencies of the weakening of community consciousness and the collapse of the perception of value, nothing is more urgently required than the establishment of a new ethical viewpoint and system.

In this situation, Unification Thought will try to establish a new ethics, namely an ethics that reveals the goal for the future and satisfies the urgent need of the present society.

b. The Basis of Ethics in the Unification Principle

The following are the ethical bases which are closely related to the establishment of a new ethics according to the Unification Principle.

God -- God, whose essence is love (Heart), is the ultimate subject of love and goodness from the viewpoint of value and practice. Therefore God should be the ultimate basis of ethics.

Family -- God's love is actualized through the Four Position Base of the family centering on God's love (God, father, mother, and children). In other words, the family is the base for the realization of the love of God. Consequently ethics should be established on the basis of the relations of Heart among family members.

Love -- The source of the values truth, goodness, and beauty is love, so love is the core of ethics.

The Purposes of the Triple Objects and Triple Subjects-Every position of the Family Four Position Base has both the purpose of triple objects and triple subjects. In other words, as both subject and object, the children have relationships with God, their father, and mother; the father with God, his wife, and children; and the mother with God, her husband and children; and of course, God relates to the father, mother and children. Unification ethics will be established on the basis of these four factors mentioned above.

Section B - The Definition of Ethics

What does ethics mean? According to Unification Thought, it is referred to as the norm for human conduct based on the family. Ethics, in Principle, is the ethics of the family which is the basis of all ethics. Though there may be social, national, business, and world ethics, the basis and core of all of them is family ethics. In other words, all of these ethics are expanded forms of family ethics.

Social ethics is the social expansion of family ethics, and national ethics is their national expansion. Ultimately, all ethics originate from family ethics. Therefore where there is ignorance of family ethics, there can be no hope of establishing any social ethics. This is the definition of ethics based on the Unification Principle.

Section C - Ethics and Morality

Here the difference between the concepts of ethics (Sittlichkeit) on the one hand and morality (Mortalitat) on the other, will be made clear. They generally seem to be considered as having the same meaning, but a strict distinction is made between them in Unification Thought. Viewed through the Unification Principle, ethics is the standard of conduct of a family member based on the family, whereas morality is the standard of conduct based on the internal "duty" (Sollen). Accordingly, ethics is the objective standard, whereas morality is the subjective one. To express this in ontological terms, ethics is the standard which a connected body observes, while morality is the standard which an individual truth body follows. Man forms an Outer Quadruple Base as a connected body with a family, and the standard of action which mutually connected bodies observe is ethics. Morality is the living standard of action which individual truth bodies maintain, according to "duty" (Sollen), through forming the eternal Inner Quadruple Base. Thus ethics is objective (norm) and morality is subjective (volition). However, they are not completely separated. Though morality is subjective, its form is ruled by ethics, the objective norm.

Section D - Family Four Position Base and Ethics

a. God's Ideal of Creation and the Family Four Position Base

According to the Unification Principle God is the subject of love and His ideal of creation is the fulfillment of love. For God's love to be actualized, the family Four Position Base, the base of love, should be established. Since the Four Position Base is a relationship of position, God's love comes to appear through positions. The love that appears through each position is called "Divisional Love", namely parental love, conjugal love, and children's love. God's love itself is unified and absolute, but His love is actualized divisionally and relatively through the family base. Love is divided because man was created to be the heir of God's Heart, and this succession of heart is possible only through physical life. Therefore throughout their lives as children, husband and wife, and parents, man and woman practice love in order to experience God's love.

b. The Actualizing Process of Love

As love is emotional, it is necessary to establish its purpose by emotion and its direction by will. Namely, first the direction and goal of love are decided, and then mind moves toward the goal. That is will itself. It is emotion that moves the will. Where there is will, there is naturally emotion. Purpose is also set up by this emotion. Thus for God's love to be manifested in the divided expressions of man's love in the family means to manifest love directing toward a definite goal. For instance, a son loves his father, a husband his wife, and a mother her son. Thus there is direction in love; without direction, actual love can not appear. This is a necessary factor in the establishment of ethics.

Concretely speaking, every position of the Four Position Base actualizes love in three directions, that is, as a triple subject and as a triple object. Children face God, their father and mother; the father faces God, his wife and children; and the mother faces God, her husband and children. Every position of the Four Position Base has the purpose of realizing love toward three objects as a subject. Therefore, love becomes will which has a direction and moves toward three objects. This direction of will is the very form of will. Accordingly, in actualizing love, form is required. The standard of conduct that regulates this form of will is ethics. In this respect, there is an indivisible relationship between the family Four Position Base and ethics.

Next, each position of the Four Position Base also loves the other three positions from the standpoint of being an object. This is referred to as the purpose of triple subjects. The loving action which the object returns to its subject is beauty, and in the manifestation of this beauty, three forms are needed. According to these three forms of will, the basic forms of three actions are formed. These basic forms are nothing but the norms of conduct and also ethics. From the basic forms mentioned above appear loyalty, filial piety, and obedience, which are the traditional oriental ideas of morality. Filial piety is the form of action denoting the beauty which children return to their parents; obedience is the manifestation of beauty which the wife offers to her husband; and loyalty is filial piety expanded to a social and national scale. Loyalty is the form of the love of the people for their nation, of a servant for his master, and of a subject for the king. Thus all ethics are standards (norms) of action which fulfill the purposes of the triple objects and triple subjects. Thus there can be no doubt that family ethics is the basis of the ethics required in social life.*

All the love that man manifests is applied, changed or combined family love, and all the beauty that man feels is also the applied, changed, or combined beauty of the family. It may also be mentioned that all ethics, or standards of goodness, are applied, changed, and mixed family ethics: the expanded value systems of the family. The regulations (norm) of the family are called family rules and these family rules alone become the basis of all rules (laws). [Note: There are two kinds of concepts in the purpose of triple objects; one is the broad meaning and the other is the narrow meaning. The relationships mentioned above are the purpose of triple objects in the narrow meaning. The broad meaning of the purpose of triple objects contains both the relationships of the narrow meaning and the purpose of triple subjects. In the Unification Thought, only the purpose of triple objects in the broad meaning is recorded.]

Family rules are the ultimate standard for the basis of national or constitutional law. There are also norms and laws in the spiritual world, and these are also based on the family rules. Consequently he who maintains a harmonious family through household regulations can also observe national law or heavenly law.

c. The Principle of Order in Ethics

Since ethics is based on the family Four Position Base, this Four Position Base is a manifestation of the basic mutual relationships of the different positions. Therefore ethics also has a principle of order, for order means the arrangement of positions, and is the norm of the clear arrangement of the positions of God, father, mother, children, brothers and sisters. The Unification Principle contains the principles of order and love. Their basis lies in the manifested norm and principles of family life. There can not be a norm without order, and where there is no order, no principle of love can be actualized.

The peculiar feature of modern society can be said to be its loss of order which has resulted in the present state of chaos. The positions of upper and lower, before and after, and left and right have all been broken down. This collapse of the ideas of value and ethics is due to the loss of the arrangement of positions, that is to say, order. In families today, the parents, husband and wife, children, brothers and sisters do not keep their proper positions. There is an increasing tendency for children and wives to treat their parents and husbands as strangers. All this comes from leaving their own positions, and it has finally brought about a lack of ethics. Accordingly, in order to reform the collapsed idea of value and ethics, order must first be established.

For that purpose, it is first necessary that the family Four Position Base be established in one's place of work, to say nothing of the home. For example, the teachers of a school should teach the students from the standpoint of parents, the young students should face their teachers as they do their parents, and should face the older students as they do their elder brothers. From ancient times, family ethics were formed in the Orient under Confucian influence, and because of this background, students have been respectful to their teachers, in the same way that children are respectful to their parents, and teachers have assumed the leadership of the students as though they were their own children. But now this ethical system is falling down everywhere causing modern society to be thrown into confusion. The establishment of the ethical system based on the family Four Position Base is the most urgent question in the present day society. Then how shall the family Four Position Base be established? We need to remember that the ancient traditional family ethics were based on the Confucian religion. In other words, a sort of "modern Confucianism" is indeed needed in order to establish family ethics, since ethics can not be established without a religion. This "modern Confucianism" need not be like the traditional Confucianism, but a religion which can set up family ethics is necessary in order to try to rectify the value system which is collapsing. In this meaning, as far as its relationship to the establishment of family ethics, the Unification Principle may be likened to a sort of "modern Confucianism."

d. Order and Equality

The word "equality" is so charming that everyone likes it. But in the strict sense of the word, there can be no equality. Equality originally means no discrimination, but there can not but be the discrimination between ages, sexes, and occupations. Also since the capabilities, characters, and hobbies of people are different, there can hardly be an expectation of equality in economic life. Furthermore, as every person in charge of certain levels of posts, organizations, nations, or the world is to be given appropriate rights, neither can there be equality of rights. Thus equality can not exist in the realms of biology, occupations, economy, and rights.

Man is only equal before the law. Though man is equal before the law, this is far from complete equality. Nowadays, many people in the democratic societies feel inequality even though they are supposedly equal before the law. In a certain sense, the capitalist contradictions and defects may be said to have been aggravated under the shadow of "equality before the law."

Then is equality eternally unrealizable? No, it can and should be realized. How can it possibly be done? It is possible only within order. Genuine equality is in love; there is true equality only in God's love, and God's love is manifested only through order. Where there is no order, God's love can not appear. Love is the flow of heart and where an orderly system centering on God is established, heart flows and love is realized. This creates equality.

Equality is an equality of the effect of satisfaction and joy. In other words, it does not mean a mere equality of economy and rights, but an equality of "feelings" by which all people are thoroughly pleased-feelings of freedom, value, and happiness. Therefore, without heart and love, equality can not exist. When order centering on God is established, true equality can be expected because love, the flow of heart, is fully realized. Consequently true equality is not realized in the external world through an atheistic destruction of order, but in the internal world through a theistic established order. Yet this does not mean one should ignore the external world.

According to the Unification Principle, Sung Sang is accompanied by Hyung Sang. Thus as inner equality is externally developed a reduction of material differences is automatically realized. That is economic equality in a genuine sense.

Thus equality is realized only within order and love, and the basis of order and love is the family. Therefore when the family order, namely the family Four Position Base is formed and family ethics are established, the basis will also be formed on which complete equality can be realized.

Section E - Critique of the Traditional Theories of Goodness

a. Critique of the Modern Viewpoints of Goodness

(i) Bentham's Utilitarianism

With the sudden rise of the economy-centered modern culture based on individualism, which followed the collapse of the religious social order of the ecclesiastical medieval world, the viewpoints of ethics and goodness have changed considerably.

Bentham is one of the typical new ethical thinkers.

He advocated the principle of utility as the basic principle for judging the right and wrong of public and private actions. This means that whatever promotes pleasure is good, whereas whatever promotes pain is evil. Finally, Bentham considers, the greatest happiness of the greatest number as the ultimate standard of good and evil. He attempted a mathematical calculation of the quantity of pleasure and pain.

The Unification Principle has no objection to putting the basis of good and evil as the quantity of happiness, because, according to the Unification Principle the ultimate purpose of this world is the joy of God and man. The question is, however, what are the contents of this happiness?

Happiness does not mean a mechanically totaled amount of pleasure. True happiness is far beyond the passive pleasure which comes from material conditions. The feelings of freedom, worth and satisfaction which come when a man has realized truth, goodness and beauty and is living within God's love; these are happiness.

For men to live within God's love, means they convey God's love to others. Therefore the man who lives within God's love feels joy and loves others even amidst persecution. Many martyrs lived happy lives, loving all people as their own. This however does not mean one should disregard material conditions in relation to happiness. A more exact view according to the Unification Principle is to say that original happiness is realized only through the combined conditions of Sung Sang and Hyung Sang. However, since the subject element of the two is the Sung Sang, where nothing is made of the Sung Sang love there can be no realization of happiness. Accordingly there can be no happiness without God who is the source of love.

Bentham's scheme to disregard the relationship with God and seek happiness not in the love of God and ethics, but in material pleasure, is an inadmissible and anti-ethical thought according to the viewpoint of Unification Thought. Reacting to these defects of Bentham, J. S. Mill said, "I would be a dissatisfied man rather than satisfied swine. I would be a discontented Socrates rather than a contented dunce." Emphasizing the conscience and moral feeling of man, John Stuart Mill tried to complement the defects of Bentham's Theory.

(ii) The Categorical Imperative of Kant

Thus Bentham tried to make "the greatest happiness of the greatest number" the standard of good and evil. But Kant advocated that it can not be moral in the genuine sense of the word to regard the means to accomplish a purpose as a moral act.

If a man is honest in order to be popular, this can lead to the conclusion that a man who does not want to win popularity need not be honest, and it also leads to the conclusion that once a man had gained popular favor, then he could lie. Then honesty itself can not become an absolute law for everyone to observe. If it is right to be honest, it should be right regardless of popular favor. Namely what is right should be absolute. Kant meant that morality was absolute. To give absoluteness to moral rules, Kant said that morality should not be an action done by the hypothetical imperative of gaining popular favor, but there should be a form of categorical imperative which can instruct one to be honest unconditionally. Kant, furthermore, advocated that everyone must act such that his "maxim" of will may be true to the universal legislative principle. Kant maintained that when one governs his actions in relation to a moral principle such as to "be honest" rather than as the means to accomplish worldly profit, this is a genuine moral act.

Kant's assertion seems to have appeared in order to counter the potential selfishness of the utilitarian moral viewpoint, and to establish an absolute norm of human conduct which is impartial to individual gain. It is just like Jewish legalism to treat only the form of conduct as absolute, disregarding the purpose and usefulness of the act. These aspects become an issue in the viewpoint of the Unification Principle. Can anything which is not a means to any purpose be valid as the universal legislative principle? How can there be action without a purpose?

There are no human actions which do not try to accomplish some definite purpose. Both active and passive actions have some purpose. This can be seen to be true just by common sense, but how much more evident it is when one recognizes God's purpose of creation.

No matter how absolutely and universally valid a moral action may be, there is without fail some purpose to it. It is a suicide of action to exclude purpose from moral principles.

In order to have moral action not be meaningless, the purpose of action should first be established, for purpose alone can be the standard for the universal validity of moral action. Kant considered that pure reason, which recognizes the principles of the objective world (sensory, phenomenal world), is quite different from practical reason which gives moral principles to man. Here a question arises. According to Kant, human moral action itself is "duty" and purpose, and this purpose is established only through practical reason. If this occurs without involving pure reason, the purpose (motive) established before the deed may, in a sense, attain universality by obtaining the consent of all people; but after the deed is done following that particular purpose, there can Be no guarantee that those people who didn't know of the purpose beforehand will objectively perceive and agree that the deed was just. If there is no assurance of objectivity and actuality in the purpose, there is no assurance of objectivity in the norm of conduct (maxim in Kant's conception). This norm of conduct comes to have significance only through its relation with purpose. To put it in plain terms, Kant's categorical imperative may have ideological coherence and validity, but there is no way to identify any actual contradictions in or the continuity of actions while using his theory.

However, in the Unification Principle, the purpose of ethical actions, or the norm deductively derived from the purpose, is concrete, objective and actual. In the first place, ethical actions have the purpose of the triple objects and triple subjects. These purposes are to establish love relationships with concrete beings in the phenomenal world, such as one's father, mother, brother, sister, spouse and children as well as the actual love-relation with God. Since this purpose is objective and concrete, the norm of loving one's parents, brothers, spouse and children can also be objectively and concretely determined. The Unification Principle does not ignore the particular positions within the Four Position Base and does not present vain and abstract standards such as maxims for everybody to observe, regardless of time and place. Even in the love one person gives, differences exist in the manner of loving according to the object being loved. For example, one expresses love to his parents, spouse and children in different manners. Different attitudes are also required according to each position and standpoint. Even the same action may be regarded as evil if its direction, time and quantity break away from the purpose.

Thus the purpose is established first; and the good and evil of one's actions are determined in relation to the purpose, and one's conduct norm differs according to his position. If this is all true, then where can the universal and absolute assurance of the moral principles be found?

Here an important question arises. Is the standard God or man? If man becomes the standard of moral action, no matter how honest and sincere his actions may be, he may find himself unhappy, because if he does not act to gain popular favor, people may not be able to understand his actions as moral actions. But when God, the Absolute Being, becomes the moral standard, there can never be this kind of misjudgment of human value. Also, even though man may ignore God's purpose of creation, the purpose never disappears, and each man will be rewarded or have to pay indemnity according to his actions.

Therefore, if the evaluation of the good and evil of human actions is made according to the degree of fulfillment of the purpose which was set up by man's own free will, this evaluation will become relative, as Kant pointed out. But when God's own purpose of creation becomes the standard, the evaluation will not be relative. The moral principle loses its absoluteness not because it becomes merely the means to accomplish a particular purpose, but because it becomes the means to fulfill only human purposes which oppose (or have no regard for) God's purpose of creation. If a moral principle is for the realization of God's own purpose of creation, it does not lose absoluteness, but rather it will be guaranteed absoluteness.

The second question which arises here is that of the misunderstanding which occurs due to confusing the Sung Sang purpose with the Hyung Sang purpose. According to the Unification Principle man is God's substantial object as a direct image created by the development of God's duality. Thus man has both Sung Sang and Hung Sang purposes. "To give love to the triple objects" is the Sung Sang purpose (purpose for the whole) of man, so it is eternal, unchangeable, absolute. Meanwhile "making money" and "becoming the divisional chief" are Hyung Sang purposes (purposes for the individual). The purpose for the whole is fulfilled only through the purpose for the individual, and the significance and value of the purpose for the individual are determined only through the purpose for the whole. Yet, because God bestowed freedom on man, He gave man only the purposes for the whole and the individual and left the methods and forms for fulfilling the purposes up to man himself. For example, though the purpose to give love to the triple objects is absolute and unchangeable, the way and process of doing this are left up to man's free will. Therefore if we separate a method or means from the absolute purpose, and if we judge the good or evil of any action only by this separated method or means, our judgment can only be relative. The means or form itself, separated from the purpose, can not be the standard for judging good and evil.

Accordingly, from the limited viewpoint that "the standard of moral judgment should be laid on the action as a means or method regardless of purpose", Kant's assertion may be right, but if the action is connected to a purpose (especially the purpose for the whole) Kant's assertion must be wrong. After all, to judge morality by actions which fulfill the purpose for the individual regardless of the purpose for the whole, or by actions as mere means in themselves is wrong, and to determine good and evil in relation to the purpose for the whole (Sung Sang purpose) is right.

There is another point of Kant's assertion which should be criticized. He said that the determining factor of good will is neither God's purpose nor His command, but one's own practical reason which regulates moral principles with the categorical imperative. According to Kant it is practical reason which gives direction to the will.

We regard Heart, namely love, as the ultimate incentive to moral action. Love moves will through a norm and then determines the form of good will. Although one comes to have the will to act due to reason, what moves reason itself is love, for love is Heart. Purpose itself comes about through the Heart (desire), and it brings about the voluntary action which brings about moral action. Therefore, good will does not really come about to actualize reason, but to realize love's purpose.

Of course, reason is needed to concretely form and examine the purpose, but the motive itself and purpose itself of ethical behavior is not reason but love. Only in this case does true joy appear. Thus, the norm necessary for realizing purpose is not felt as a restraint but rather as an assurance of actualizing the purpose which is to feel joyful and thankful. Though a world consisting only of duty, as Kant contends, may exist, it would be a mechanical world where only inhumane cold principles would rule. Because this kind of world is one of inconvenience and restraint, where duty alone is forcibly required, there is no room for joy in it.

The world created by God is not one based on restraint like the army, but one of harmony which is maintained through the order of family love based on desire and purpose.

b. Critique of the Current Viewpoints of Goodness

Reflecting on, and reacting against, the medieval ethical viewpoint established by Scholasticism, new ethical theories such as utilitarianism (Bentham) and the categorical imperative (Kant) appeared in the modern age. These modern rationalistic ethical theories reached their zenith in the German idealism from Kant to Hegel. After that, due to the class struggle which arose in capitalistic society, and the brilliant progress of science, optimistic modern rationalism has come under severe criticism. As a result, current philosophies such as Marxism, existentialism, vitalism, analytical philosophy (logical positivism), pragmatism and the like have appeared. Communism, A Critique and Counterproposal criticizes Marxism in detail, and "The Original Human Nature," in this book criticizes existentialism. Here only the ethical theories (theories of goodness) of logical positivism and pragmatism will be criticized.

(i) The Intuitionism of Moore (1873-1958)

Analytical philosophy developed in connection with the progress of natural science at the beginning of the 20th century. It tried to make philosophy a scientific study by expelling all the unscientific concepts not verifiable by experience. This was accomplished by logically analyzing philosophical terminology. Moore, one of the advocates of this school of thought, said that ultimate good in itself can not be derived from a scientific judgment of the fact, but rather by moral intuition. He contended that, in principle, the judgment of a fact should be distinguished from the judgment of value. This is called Intuitionism.

According to Moore, the concept of good is simple and indistinguishable just ' like the concept of "yellow." Accordingly a general definition can not be given through language but only through intuition. He contends that good, as meaning bringing about good, can be objectively known only by reducing it to an intuition of the good through the medium of scientific cognition. But this way of thinking can not be sustained from the viewpoint of the Unification Principle. Goodness is never undefinable. In goodness, there are the precise purposes of the triple objects and the triple subjects, and a clear standard (norm) can be defined corresponding to purpose. By means of this norm the forms of good will and good action are settled, and the entire process of action becomes the object of logical and positive cognition.

(ii) The Emotive Theory of Logical Positivism

What made Intuitionism even more radical is the emotive theory of Schlick (1882-1936) and Ayer (1910- )

According to Ayer, an ethical proposition, such as "to steal money is bad", is nothing but the speaker's own feelings and mood of moral disapproval. Thus it is a pseudo proposition, and is neither true nor false. Accordingly, no objective character of good can be intuited or expressed, and finally no study of ethics can be formed. From the viewpoint of the Unification Principle such a theory of ethics is absurd. The concept of good has a clear basis of existence, namely the family Four Position Base, and the clear purposes of the triple subjects and triple objects. This is a scientifically definable concept.

To steal money is bad because it breaks one's heart relation with the person from whom the money was stolen and thus makes the love-relation between brothers hard. Goodness is a clear and objective concept, which originates from God's purpose of creation. It is not merely one's feelings or mood. The critique of the rest of this theory is the same as that given to Moore's theory.

(iii) The Instrumentalism Theory of Pragmatism

Pragmatism appeared in America right after the Civil War (1861-1865). The changes in traditional Christian thought due to the technical progress of science was its main motive. Instrumentalism is the outcome of a harmonization of the conflict between Christianity and science. This theory was advocated by Pierce (1839-1914) and clarified by James (1842-1910) and developed to Instrumentalism by Dewey (1859-1952).

The fundamental thought of the theory was to apply the scientific experimental method to the analysis of ideas and concepts. According to this theory, the significance of an idea or concept is determined by the practical results derived from the idea or concept. For example, the meaning of "something is heavy" is that "without a force to support the matter, it will fall." Pierce, the advocator of this standpoint, called it Operationalism. He contended that the meaning of an idea is nothing but the contents of the actions which result from the idea.

Making this assertion more radical, Dewey said that general concepts are hypotheses and experimental plans developed in order to interpret each situation. The authenticity of these concepts is determined by the effectiveness of the result of the actions based on them. Accordingly all the laws and the intelligence guiding them are merely the means, methods and instruments needed in order to deal with things effectively. Consequently, reality can be recognized only through the means of natural science. Dewey denied the existence of anything transcendental; in this, however, his standpoint is quite different from that of William James who recognized the religious view of the world and tried to give appropriate coordinates to it.

Is pragmatism right? Before criticizing it, let us explain the relationship between purpose and means in view of the Unification Principle. It goes without saying that a purpose needs a means. We know that there was a purpose for creation when God created the universe. Accordingly there is no need to say that means are necessary in order to fulfill the purpose. Yet there are purposes for the whole and the individual in the purpose of creation. To fulfill the purpose for the whole, the realization of value is required, whereas to realize the purpose for the individual, values are sought after. There are Sung Sang values such as truth, goodness and beauty, and Hyung Sang values such as treasures or commodities. All of these values are the means necessary to fulfill the purpose mentioned above. Accordingly, Sung Sang values can be called the Sung Sang means for the fulfillment of purpose, and Hyung Sang values can be called the Hyung Sang means for the fulfillment of purpose. Strictly speaking, even natural laws may be seen as the means to achieve the purpose of creation, while the spiritual laws such as the law of indemnity can also be regarded as such means. In this case, the spiritual laws can be called Sung Sang laws whereas the natural laws can be called Hyung Sang laws. The natural world is ruled over by the Hyung Sang principles, and spirit world is ruled by the Sung Sang principles such as those of indemnity and restitution. There can be no doubt that these principles are also the means to realize purposes.

Thus we can see that there are both Sung Sang means (Sung Sang values and laws) and Hyung Sang means (Hyung Sang values and laws) for accomplishing purpose. But the means (tools) for "dealing with things" which Dewey advocated are Hyung Sang means, and to him these means alone can be the means for "dealing with things." (This dealing may relate to the purpose for the whole or the purpose for the individual.) Dewey's mistake is that he considered even the Sung Sang means (truth, good, and beauty, morality, justice, ethics, love, etc.) merely as Hyung Sang means for "dealing with things." This mistake originates in his overlooking the existence of the everlasting spirit man, the spirit world, and the existence of purpose which contains Sung Sang contents such as truth, goodness, and beauty in human life. [Note: In the above, even law and value were dealt with as "means" ("Hyung Sang means" and "Sung Sang means"), but only to effectively criticize pragmatism by the Principle. To avoid confusion, law, value and the like should not be regarded as means in the common sense.]

 Download entire page and pages related to it in ZIP format
Table of Contents
Copyright Information
Tparents Home