Social Ethics as an Extension of Family Ethics

From the perspective of Unification Thought, human relationships in the wider society are simply an extension of the relationships carried out among family members at home. For example, in relationships where people’s ages differ by thirty years or so, the senior individual should love the younger person as their child, and the younger individual should respect the senior individual as their parent. If the difference in age is ten years or less, the elder person should love the younger person as a younger brother or sister, and the younger person should respect the elder person as an elder brother or sister.

From this viewpoint, family ethics is the basis of all ethics. If family ethics is applied to society, it becomes social ethics; if applied to corporations, it becomes corporate ethics; if applied to the state, it becomes state ethics.

Accordingly, the following values (virtues) come to be established. In a country, the president and public officials should love the people while standing in a parental position, and the people should respect the president and public officials in the same way as they respect their parents. In a school, teachers should educate students well while standing in the position of their parents, and students should respect their teachers in the same way as they respect their parents. In a society, senior members should care for junior members, and junior members should respect senior members. In a business organization, superiors should guide their subordinates, and subordinates should follow their superiors. These are a few examples of the social extension of the vertical values (virtues) of the family.

When the fraternal love experienced among brothers and sisters is extended to one’s colleagues, neighbors, society, nation, and the world, one should also actualize such horizontal values (virtues) as reconciliation, tolerance, obligation, fidelity, courtesy, modesty, compassion, cooperation, service, and sympathy. Our societies, our nations, and the world today are all experiencing unprecedented chaos. The reason for this is that family ethics, which is the basis of all ethics, has become weakened. Therefore, the fundamental way of reviving society is to establish a new kind of family ethics, a new perspective on ethics. By doing so, we can progress toward saving families from collapse, and ultimately we can save the world.

It has been more than two hundred years since industrial capitalism emerged. During that entire period of time, labor-management relations have been a constant issue. It might even be said that Marx and Lenin appeared for the sole purpose of solving that particular problem, which they tried to do through their theory of violent revolution. In the end, their attempt proved to be a complete failure. Moreover, Communism is declining worldwide. It is the position of the Unification Theory of Ethics that in order to provide fundamental solutions to the problems of exploitation and labor-management problems, one must first establish corporate ethics on the basis of family ethics.