Reciprocity
The expectation that benefits received will be returned, which grounds obligation in relationship.
What it commits you to
Reciprocity is the Confucian li made into an ethical principle: social order arises from mutual responsiveness rather than from imposition. It is the most plausible common ground between the care tradition and the Chinese ethical tradition, and unlike universalisation it can accommodate genuine asymmetry of position and need. Its limits are the familiar ones: it cannot say who starts.
Which realms lean on this
Ethics is where the realms argue about what counts: the parties, the pleasures, the duties, the care.
ethics · 9 realms — The Benthamite Foundry, The Care Weft, The Contractual Court, The Kantian Citadel, The Longview Foundry, The Middle Kingdom, The Stoic Ramparts, The Ubuntu Weave, The Virtue Garden.
See also
Li
philosophyRitual and propriety: the shared practices through which a life becomes coherent.
Ren
philosophyHumaneness: responsiveness to the particular person in front of you.
Shu
philosophyReciprocity: consider others from their perspective, as you would want to be considered.
Care ethics
ethicsObligations arise inside relationships, are partial, and resist general principles.