8. Ethics

As explained in “Axiology,” the society we hope to build in the future will be a sincere, ethical, and artistic society. It will come about, not automatically, but with our effort, under God’s guidance. The theory that will enable us to build the new ethical society is referred to as New Ethics.

In an ethical society, people will lead the life of attendance to God, centering on the True Parents of mankind. (See Divine Principle, part I, Ch. VII, Sec. IV, 2.) All aspects of social, cultural, and economic life will be based on the life of attendance, and all mankind will form a united family.

Another characteristic is that in the ethical society the spirit-world and the physical world will come closely to cooperate with each other, since man will become a media tor between the two worlds. Moreover, the ethical society is a society of eternal love. Love is the emotional impulse to give to others and to become united with them. In love there can be found eternal joy, eternal freshness, eternal longing and eternal yearning. In order to bring about such a society, the existing views on ethics should be criticized and supplemented by a new theory of ethics.

I. Unification Ethics

A. The Foundation of Unification Ethics

Unification Ethics is derived from the Unification Principle and other teachings of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, as are other chapters of the present book. Its foundation include four main points:

1. God is the God of Heart
2. God is the subject of love, trueness, goodness, and beauty
3. God’s love is realized through a family quadruple base as three kinds of divisional love: parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love
4. Each position in the family quadruple base faces three objective positions.

With regard to the fourth point, each position can assume a subject-position, thus fulfilling the three objective purposes. The father, for example, has duties to the grandparents (who stand in the central position in the family quadruple base), to his wife, and to his children. The mother has duties to the grandparents, to her husband, and to her children. A child has duties to his grandparents, to his father, and to his mother. These are the three objective purposes.

B. Ethics and Morality

Ethics and morality are usually viewed as almost identical. The distinction Unification Thought makes is that ethics is the standard of conduct for family life, whereas morality is the internal standard of conduct for individual life. There are certain standards of conduct required of a man, whether he belongs to a company, plays sports, or in fact, whatever he may do and wherever he may happen to be. Man’s standard of conduct for family life is called ethics.

Morality, on the other hand, is the standard of conduct for an individual based on his internal conscience, or Sollen ("ought"). Ontologically, man is both an individual truth body and a connected body.¹ The standard of conduct that man should observe as an individual truth body is morality; the standard of conduct he should observe as a connected body is ethics.

Morality is related to the fulfillment of the first blessing (perfection of personality) given to man by God; ethics is related to the fulfillment of the second blessing (perfection of the family). In the Unification Thought view, morality consists of the formation of the original human nature: the united body of Sung Sang and Hyung Sang, which is realized through the harmonious give-and-take action between spirit-mind and physical mind.

Traditionally, especially in ancient Greek philosophy, morality also has been considered as the attainment of inner harmony. For example, Plato’s virtues of temperance, courage, wisdom, and justice are related to inner harmony, which is attained by controlling the irrational aspects with reason. Since I have already discussed the united body of Sung Sang and Hyung Sang in “Theory of Original Human Nature,” I will not deal with morality here.

We should consider also the fulfillment of the third blessing- the perfection of dominion. The third blessing refers, not only to dominion over creation, but also to abilities such as statesmanship and business management. In the Unification Thought view, the standard of conduct necessary for realizing the third blessing is nothing but an extension and application of the standard of conduct in family life—i.e. , ethics. When these ethical standards are applied to business, they become business ethics; when applied to a nation, they become national >ethics. The same standards can be applied also to man’s dominion over creation (especially parents' standard of conduct toward their children).

C. The Quadruple Base and Ethics

The standard of conduct for a family represents a practical way to actualize love among family members. Ethics can be defined as a method of realizing love in a proper direction. A family is formed by the relationships of parents and children, and husband and wife. When parents love their children, when husband and wife love each other, and when children love their parents, their conduct cannot but be an expression of love. Here, the parents will express love to their children even while scolding them.

A family is where man can actualize the love of God. In order to resemble God, people must love one another. In God, Sung >Sang and Hyung Sang as well as Positivity and Negativity maintain harmonious give-and-take action centering on Heart. The nature of God is harmony; those who want to resemble God must enter into harmonious give-and-take action with one another, thus actualizing love. Within such a family, God can find true joy.

As already mentioned, God is absolute and without form, while man lives in time and space and needs, therefore, to grow in order to actualize God’s love. The kind of love man experiences in a family changes as he grows. When young, a man actualizes love from the position of a child; this is children’s love. The love he actualizes when he grows up and marries is conjugal love; when he becomes a parent, he actualizes parental love. Children’s, conjugal, and parental love are the three basic forms of love. These, however, can be further subdivided into father’s love, mother’s love, elder brother’s love, younger brother’s love, elder sister’s love, younger sister’s love, and so forth. Each type differs from the others. Even a child’s love toward his parents, as well as the parents' love toward their child, changes in nature as the child grows through the various stages of life from infancy to adulthood, and also as the parents themselves grow. Conjugal love, also, changes, as husband and wife grow.

While on earth, all of us should experience these kinds of love through family life. Otherwise, we will never be able to feel true joy in the spirit world. If someone has actually experienced God’s love totally on the earth, he will be able to enjoy a life of love eternally in the spirit-world. Without such experiences, however, he will not be able to understand why other people are so happy loving each other; he will always feel lonely in the spirit-world.

The Unification Principle says that the spirit-man grows in the “soil” of the physical man. Spiritual development, therefore, can only take place on the foundation of the physical body. Accordingly, while he still has his physical body, man needs to love other persons and God by actualizing love within the family. Through realizing love, his spirit-man will grow, and he will attain eternal joy. Since no one on earth has ever fully achieved such a standard of love, no one has actually been totally happy in the spirit-world. Accordingly, spirit-men tend to remain earth-bound, seeking to attain vicarious experiences of these kinds of love through people living on earth.

In the fallen world, also, there are parental love, conjugal love, and children’s love, but in general, they are not based on God’s love. In other words, they are not the three basic kinds of divisional love that God intended to be manifested in the family. If parental love had manifested God’s love, it would have been several times-tens of times-broader and deeper than the parental love we know in the world today. The same can be said of conjugal and children’s love. But for the human Fall, we would certainly have experienced these kinds of love on earth and in Heaven. In that case, no man could have ever fallen, because the God-centered divisional love is supreme, and no other love would have been able to break up the relationships based upon it. Fallen man, however, has never been able to build such families; accordingly, people are easily drawn to anyone who loves them.

Each divisional love has its own direction. Parental love is directed downwards toward the children; children’s love is directed upwards toward the parents; conjugal love has a horizontal direction. Love should not remain only in the mind, but should be expressed in real actions. When parents love their children, for example, they express their love through concrete actions, such as providing food, clothing, shelter, and education.

Each type of love needs a different form of expression. Parents need to use warm-hearted words to their children, even when scolding them; if scolded lovingly, children will not be damaged in any way. On the other hand, children should be polite and respectful toward their parents. They should not say, for instance, “Hurry up, Father! Sit down here and eat!” This would be impolite, however dutiful the child might be. There must be a certain standard of conduct, and the child should be more polite, using such words as, “Father, please come here and have something to eat.” There are different positions at the table. A child should not sit at the head of the table and say, “Hey, Father, look sharp and sit down!” because he would be reversing the father-child position. It is important that children respect their parents and use suitable words and actions to show their respect. Husband and wife, also, must follow a certain standard of conduct in their mutual relationship.

Thus, there are rules to be followed in each position, but they are not hard to follow since they are based on love. Actually, it is a joy to follow these rules. When a child wants to make his parents happy but doesn’t know how, he will gladly try to find out how to do it. Standards (norms) of conduct, therefore, do not restrict man’s freedom at all.

Since there is little heart or love in the fallen world, people feel restricted when they have to act according to duty. When the standard of conduct is based on love, there is no such feeling of restriction. When parents tell their children to do something, the children will be happy to obey, because they know how deep their parents' love is.

To those educated in this way it will become second nature-almost like a reflex action-to observe the standards of conduct, not only in the family, but also in school, at work, or even in executing the laws of a nation. When in the spirit world, such persons will easily keep the heavenly laws and standards. Indeed, if one becomes accustomed to keeping family standards, one can easily keep the proper standards wherever one may go.

The ideal family represents the fulfillment of God’s ideal for the creation and the place where His love is realized. Family ethics are the foundation for all ethics, such as business and national ethics. The numerous labor problems in capitalist society, for example, can be solved, if family ethics are applied to the economic world. The relationship between the president of a firm, for instance, and his employees should be like that between a parent and his children; the relationships among workers, like those among brothers and sisters.

The idea that the president of a business organization should reap most of the profit is wrong. In order to create a family-like atmosphere, the president must have the heart of a parent. Parents exist for the whole family and want their children to earn money as well. The president should think of his employees as his own children or his own brothers and sisters, taking responsibility for them as if they were members of his family. His attitude should be that he is earning money, not primarily for himself, but for them.

There will be no need, then, for employees to strike in order to take money away from the president. They will try to cooperate with him, as if he were their parent or older brother, assisting him in the development of the company. In this way, they will really have something to live and work for. They may even say, “I have enough to eat, you don’t need to give me a big salary.” The president, however, may say in reply, “No! With prices as high as they are, your salary can’t be enough. You need more money to take care of your family.” As the president and employees enter into a close give-and-take relationship, the company prospers.

If this ethical system is expanded to the national level, it means that the President or Prime Minister of a nation will love the people as if they were members of his own family, thinking of them whether awake or asleep. As the people respect and support him as a parent, a harmonious atmosphere is created, and the nation develops.

D. Ethics, Order and the Heavenly Way

1. Ethics and Order

Love has different directions, depending upon the relative positions of the subject and the object within the family quadruple base. Without position and order, there is no direction, and love cannot be expressed. Ethical standards, therefore, deal with the order of love. Accordingly, ethics can be briefly defined as the establishment of order.

The main cause of today’s collapse of traditional views of value comes from the restlessness and collapse of order in the world. The starting point of the collapse of order in the world lies in the family. The order between parents and children, husband and wife, older brother or sister and younger brother or sister has become neglected, and all members of the family have become leveled horizontally.

The collapse of the order of love is closely connected with today’s disorder in sexual love. Sexual love should be for the realization of God’s second blessing—the establishment of a family centered on God’s love—but today many people have no such idea. In addition, mass communication scatters sexual stimulation and promotes immorality and free sex. The collapse of the order of sexual love necessarily leads to the collapse of order in the family, society, and world.

The disorder of sexual love originates from the Fall of the first human ancestors, Adam and Eve, as revealed by the Unification Principle. Accordingly, the Fall of man is the original cause of confusion in the world. God has sent saints to restore order in the family, society, nation, and world by establishing religions. Today, however, people are deviating from these various kinds of order, under the name of liberalism, democracy, and so forth. Accordingly, there is an urgent need to establish New Ethics, which is the ethics of order and, at the same time, of love.

2. Ethics and the Heavenly Way

The family system is a microcosm, or an integration of the whole universe. The ethical standard within the family, therefore, can be looked upon as the contracted, or integrated cosmic law. In other words, ethics is the cosmic law, or the Heavenly Way.

Accordingly, there are both vertical and horizontal kinds of order in the family, as there are in the cosmos. The relationships among grandparents, parents, children, and grandchildren are the vertical order; and the relationships between husband and wife, older brother or sister and younger brother or sister are the horizontal order. There must be standards of conduct suitable to each of these kinds of order. They correspond to the vertical view of value and the horizontal view of value, as explained in “Ontology.”

E. Order and Equality

The concepts of order and equality are often thought of as antinomic, so that if order is brought into force, equality suffers, and vice versa. It is argued that order—even for the purpose of ending confusion—will necessarily destroy equality. In communist societies, order is comparatively well established, but human nature and individuality have generally been trampled on; no true equality can be found there. In democratic societies, equality and freedom are highly prized; on the other hand, confusion abounds. Looking at the world today, therefore, it does seem that when order comes to the fore, equality suffers; and when equality is given priority, order is brushed aside.

We need to reconsider the meaning of equality. The French Revolution and the American War of Independence were fought to gain democracy; democratic systems have been maintained until today in the hope of realizing equality. True equality, nonetheless, has never been realized in democratic societies.

Democracy in ancient Greece meant democracy for the ruling class; slaves had few rights as human beings. Even today, the law provides only nominal equality. All adults have the right to vote, for example, but this right is exploited by the wealthy and influential. True equality is not bought with money or controlled by power. The communists accuse capitalist societies, saying, “Equality and freedom for whom? Freedom only for the rich and powerful? What kind of freedom or rights do workers enjoy?” There is some truth in these accusations.

There is no historical precedent for a truly democratic society. In spite of this, man has continued to strive for it. The concept of democracy is based on the principle of equality of rights, that people are born equal and that the nation is governed by the people. The American Declaration of Independence states that man is born equal before God. Man continues to strive for—but has yet to realize—true equality.

Although laws emphasize equality, I think there are few persons that will sincerely maintain that all people are actually equal. Biologists, psychologists, and sociologists tell us that all people are different from one another, physically—in build and constitution—and psychologically. Furthermore, we are different in age, sex, occupation, and rank, and in this sense there is no equality either.

We know that rights, being accompanied by duty, differ according to position, and there is no position without rights. Originally, equality as a democratic principle meant the equality of rights to protect one’s life, wealth and freedom. But there is a problem here: who determines the compass of the rights of an individual? How is it determined? Obviously, determining the compass of exercising rights depends chiefly on the subjective views of each person. For instance: if “A” and “B” are two individuals, A may regard B’s conduct as infringing on his fundamental rights; on the other hand, B may likewise regard A’s conduct as infringing on his fundamental rights. By the same token, there may be overemphasis on human rights, resulting in conflict with authorities. Things get out of control, confusion results, and peace is impossible. So, the idea of equality of rights fundamentally contradicts itself, and the demand for equality of rights is impossible to realize:

Then, can equality ever be realized? Yes, it can. The desire for equality is from the original mind. What is the equality that the original mind desires? It is not the equality of rights that it actually wants, but the equality of love. Since man has been robbed of his rights for so long, he seeks to secure them, and is willing to fight or even die for them. Nevertheless, it would be a mistake to think that equality of rights is what man is really after. Undoubtedly he needs rights, yet the equality he seeks is, not of rights, but of love.

It is because there is no love that man has been oppressed, alienated, and ignored. If man is fully loved and loves fully, he has no reason to complain. In our original mind, we think, “I want to be understood and loved by my superiors; if I were, I would respect them.” The subject should dominate the object with love, and the object should respect the subject who loves him. Because the subject has so often dominated, not with love, but with power or reason, the object has had reasons to complain.

Thus, what man wants is not actually equality of rights, but of love. Man suffers when he is alienated or ignored; he wants his individuality to be recognized and understood. He wants to be loved. Equality of love means equality of joy and satisfaction; when a man truly loves and is loved, he feels true joy. Though everyone is expected to maintain his own position, yet they feel joy and satisfaction in that particular position.

An older brother, for instance, has his own position; a younger brother has his; older and younger sisters have their own positions; and the husband and wife have their positions as spouses and as parents. Everyone, however, should feel great joy in their respective positions. This is true equality, which means equality of satisfaction-not that everyone has the same position, but that everyone is fully satisfied in whatever position he or she may have.

The equality of love can be expressed as the equality of personality, because parents would value the personality of their children, and children, that of their parents. True equality, therefore, is equality of love, personality, joy, and happiness.

Love is expressed in a certain direction, which, in turn, presupposes position and order. Without order, therefore, there can be no equality of love. Thus, order and equality, which appeared to be antinomic, are actually inseparable from each other; because there is true equality in true order. The conclusion of Unification Ethics is that when true order is established, true equality will be realized. Today’s democratic societies are going in the wrong direction in their search for equal rights. Democracy should pursue the equality of love. The task to actualize true equality, however, cannot be left to politicians. In order to revive democracy and realize true equality, sincerely religious and ethical people should undertake the responsibility and appeal to people all over the world to love one another and practice love in their daily lives. Only in this way will true democracy be realized.

During the past two hundred years, democracy has spread all over the world, and it has made comparatively sound development. This is because it has been supported by the Christian spirit of love, which made up for various faults in democratic systems. Today, however, Christianity has almost lost its vitality, and its spirit of love has declined. Christianity has become paralyzed in its role of supporting democracy. Accordingly, democracy is beginning to show its essential contradictions. These contradictions have appeared because democracy has tried to realize equal rights, which can never be realized.

True ethics is both the ethics of order and that of love. When the Principles of family ethics are extended to a society and a nation, they will become social ethics and national ethics. Then true equality will be realized in a society and a nation. Thus, in Unification Thought the problem of order and equality is solved through love. True democracy is the democracy of love, which is the ideal of the heavenly family.

II. A Critique of Traditional Views of Goodness

A. Bentham’s View of Goodness

While the Pope and the Church amassed great power and wealth in the Middle Ages, the rights and needs of the people came to be ignored. The Renaissance and Reformation developed, in reaction to that situation. The morality and ethics of the Middle Ages were to “keep God’s commandments,” but with the Renaissance and Reformation, questions like, “Is it good to keep God’s commandments?” “Has man become happy by keeping them?” “Don’t the commandments make man unhappy?” were asked. Views of value with man as their center developed, and one of them was Bentham’s Utilitarianism. Bentham thought that man lives for happiness-but that happiness is material happiness. He said that there is true joy in material prosperity—eating good food, wearing good clothes, and living in a good house, and goodness is to work for the happiness of the greatest number of people. Goodness is judged, he asserted, by “the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.”

I do not mean that Bentham did not consider spiritual happiness at all, but he did not distinguish between spiritual happiness and material happiness, and it seems that he mainly dealt with material happiness in his view of goodness.

With regard to people living in developed countries, such as the U.S.A. and Japan, though materially prosperous, can they, nevertheless, be called happy in the true sense? In those countries we still find anxiety, crime, misery, and confusion, showing that happiness cannot be realized only through material prosperity.

Unification Thought agrees that there is goodness in happiness, but the method of achieving happiness is different. Happiness does not lie in seeking material prosperity, but in love. In love one gives first, and then takes. In giving, therefore, is true happiness to be found. Happiness is not something of the Hyung Sang, but of the Sung Sang. This is a very important point.

Many people are lapsing into materialistic ways, and since we have been blindly seeking material prosperity, we have caused a serious shortage of natural resources. A movement to conserve these resources has finally begun, but we should have used them correctly from the beginning. If we had awakened a couple of decades ago, and taken corrective measures, we would not have the problems we have today.

Although we recognize that Bentham’s utilitarian movement contributed to the British social welfare system, utilitarianism is no longer important, because it was not effective in solving man’s fundamental problems.

So, true goodness is to “live for others.” In other words, it is the conduct of loving the family, society, nation, and mankind. Moreover, true happiness can be found in living this way. When the energy man uses to pursue material prosperity is used to realize love, a beautiful world can be built.

B. Kant’s View of Goodness

According to Kant, goodness is the conduct based upon the “categorical imperative” (Kategorischer Imperativ)—that is, the command from within man, the command of conscience.

Conduct based upon the categorical imperative is unconditional. If one acts in order to achieve a certain purpose, such as winning praise or financial profit, it is conditional behavior and not goodness. Goodness is acting unconditionally, without thinking of the potential gain.

To be honest unconditionally, in accordance with the categorical imperative “be honest,” is goodness. Kant says that even if someone is honest, but has the purpose of gaining the admiration of others because of his honesty, it is not true honesty. A categorical imperative is an unconditional order, while a conditional order is a hypothetical imperative (Hypothetischer Imperativ). When someone is suffering, our conscience says “Help him!” so we go and help. The one who is helped may thank us, of course, and may even pay us for our help, but because we have helped him without thinking of the reward, it is goodness. This is an example of acting in accordance with the categorical imperative.

Where does this categorical imperative come from? Kant says it is an order issued by practical reason. To what is this order issued? To the will (Wille). When the will receives the order to “do good” from practical reason, it is called good will (guter Wille). Good will determines conduct, and such conduct is goodness.

What is practical reason? The mind has three functions: intellect, emotion, and will. The ability to reason comes from one’s intellect; with it we can think deeply and perceive the truth. Also, with reason we determine our course of action or our way of life. Kant called the reason that perceives truth pure reason (reine Vernunft), or theoretical reason (theoretische Vernunft), and that which determines how we should live or act practical reason (praktische Vernunft).

Practical reason orders the will to do something and also determines the way to do it—the direction of the action. The will makes the decision to act in that direction. The will that makes decisions in accordance with practical reason is good will. When practical reason gives the order to “be honest,” for example, the will determines a concrete action, such as apologizing to others.

So, Kant’s view of goodness is to behave unconditionally according to the orders of practical reason, but there are several problems in this view. First, how can we judge the results of our actions? Kant separated pure reason and practical reason. So our behavior has nothing to do with pure reason, which perceives truth and makes judgments (because it is only practical reason that determines our actions). But as pure reason is not involved in our actions, we can only motivate our actions, not judge their results.

Kant’s view implies that if the motivation is good, the actions themselves are good. But what if someone is made unhappy by our actions? For example, suppose someone looks very pitiful and seems to need help, and my practical reason orders me to help him. I speak to him and take him to a hospital, because he is in pain. He may be somewhat annoyed, however, thinking, “I don’t need your help, I can go by myself.” On the other hand, I feel satisfied, because I have acted as my practical reason has ordered. This might happen, if pure reason does not play a part in judging the results of our actions. So, Kant’s categorical imperative attached importance only to motivation.

Second, reason is, by itself, very cold. Someone who has developed only his reason sees many defects and few good points in others. He is always watching others and examining whether their actions are in accord with his standard of judgment or not. Not only does he watch others, but he feels that others, also, watch him. His own conscience, or practical reason, watches him, others watch him, and he watches others. It is a world of observation, just like a military outfit. There is no real warmth where people are just watching one another. Knowing that they must act in goodness as the categorical imperative directs, they feel cramped and cold.

Kant’s view of goodness is similar to the Law of the Old Testament. At that time, people believed in God, and, knowing that they should obey God, kept the Law unconditionally. The Law of the Old Testament was given by God, but in the case of Kant, the standard of action, called “maxim,” is legislated by practical reason. But if man should unconditionally obey the maxim, just because of practical reason within him, he will feel distressed and will finally be unable to obey. With this view of goodness, we cannot establish true ethics, because ethics must be something that everyone is willing to practice.

Why did Kant’s ethics become so much like laws? Because he did not understand Heart. Heart (love), which comes from God, originally lies behind reason and is more essential than reason. Reason by itself does not issue orders; it is love and Heart that cause it to do so. There is motivation in orders, and that is Heart. Because of Heart, reason tells the will to “do good.”

Within motivation itself there is Heart and one feels warmth because Heart lies behind the orders of reason. Because of this, one is always willing to forgive others. If someone uses only reason, he may not forgive others when they make mistakes. But if he has Heart, he must forgive them.

We can understand that there is Heart behind reason if we think of the process of creation in the Original Image. In the beginning, centering on Heart (purpose), the Inner Sung Sang and Inner Hyung Sang engaged in give-and-take action to form the Logos, and creation took place according to Logos. In other words, before God’s creation began, there was Heart, and with Heart as the motivation, creation came into being.

It is the same with man. With Heart as the motivation, reason enters into give-and-take action with ideas and laws. Plans are produced, and actions take place according to those plans. So, reason itself cannot directly motivate actions. Since Heart (love) is the motivation, there is always purpose and direction in actions. In other words, in creation or action, purpose is necessarily formed from Heart. Kant, disregarding purpose and direction, called the action that follows a categorical imperative goodness. But good actions must be motivated by love, and there can be no love without a purpose and direction. So, the action of love, having purpose and direction, is goodness.