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, 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.

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.

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; 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.

Bentham’s utilitarianism

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

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832) was 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 considered 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 constitutes 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 there is no 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, John Stuart 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, Mill tried to complement the defects of Bentham’s theory.

The categorical imperative of Kant. Thus Bentham tried to make “the greatest happiness of the greatest number” the standard of good and evil. But Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) advocated that it cannot 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 cannot 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. But 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 according to the viewpoint of the Unification Principle. Can anything which is not a means to any purpose be valid as a 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 suicide for an action to exclude purpose from moral principles.

In order for moral action not to 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 (the 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 (or motive) established before the deed is performed 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 can be 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 relationship 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 relationship 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; the good and evil of one’s actions are determined in relation to the purpose, and one’s norm of conduct differs according to his position. If this is all true, then where can universal and absolute assurance of 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 one’s actions may be — he may find himself unhappy, because if he does not act to gain popular favor, other 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 the value of man’s actions. 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.

If the evaluation of the good and evil of human actions is made according to the degree of fulfillment of a purpose which was set up by man’s own free will, this evaluation will therefore become relative, as Kant pointed out. But when God’s own purpose of creation becomes the standard, the evaluation will not be relative. Kant’s 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 one’s moral principle is the realization of God’s own purpose of creation, it does not lose its absoluteness, but rather it will be guaranteed absoluteness.

The second question which arises here is 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-His direct image, created by the development of God’s duality (of internal character and external form). Thus man has both Sung Sang and Hyung Sang purposes. “To give love to triple objects” is man’s Sung Sang purpose (purpose for the whole); so it is eternal, unchangeable, and 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, when 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 these purposes for man to determine.

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 particular 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. In other words, the means of form itself, separated from the purpose, cannot be the standard for judging good and evil.

Accordingly, from the limited viewpoint that “the moral standard should be imposed 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 of 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.

Another point of Kant’s assertion should be criticized. He said that the factor which makes will good is neither God’s purpose nor His command, but one’s own practical reason, which regulates moral principles by 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, which determines the form of good will. Although reason gives one the will to act, what moves reason itself is love, for love is heart. Purpose itself comes from the heart (desire), expressed in 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 felt not 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 an army, but one of harmony which is maintained through the order of family love based on desire and purpose.

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 (expounded by Bentham) and the categorical imperative (expounded by Kant) have 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 chapter on “The Original Human Nature” in this book criticizes existentialism. Here only the ethical theories of logical positivism and pragmatism will be criticized.

The intuitionism of Moore (1873-1958)

Analytical philosophy developed along with the progress of natural science at the beginning of the 20th century. It tried to make philosophy a scientific study by expelling all unscientific concepts not verifiable by experience.

This was accomplished by logically analyzing philosophical terminology. George Edward Moore, one of the advocates of this school of thought, said that ultimate good in itself cannot be derived from a scientific judgment of a 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 cannot be given through language but only through intuition. He contends that good (meaning bringing about good) can be objectively known only by reducing it to an intuition of good through the medium of scientific cognition. But this way of thinking cannot 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 these purposes. 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.

The emotive theory of logical Positivism

What made intuitionism even more radical is the emotive theory of Schlich (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 or moral disapproval. Thus it is a pseudoproposition, 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, for instance, 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.

The instrumentalism theory of Pragmatism

Pragmatism appeared in America right after the Civil War {1861-1865). To change traditional Christian thought in light of 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 William James (1842- 1910) and developed to instrumentalism by John 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 object, it will fall.” Pierce, the advocator of this viewpoint, 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, it is not necessary to say that means are required to fulfill the purpose. These means are composed of two types of values or laws. There are purposes for the whole and the individual within the purpose of creation.

To fulfill the purpose for the whole, 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, and 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 for “dealing with things” which Dewey advocated are Hyung Sang means, and to him these means alone can be the mean 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, 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.

*Sung Sang (invisible internal character in Korean) and Hyung Sang (visible external form) relate to each other as subject and object. Happiness results from the union in love of God (as Sung Sang) and man (as Hyung Sang).