Beginning from the middle of the 19th century, Western science and technology were diffused in China on a large scale. This was a great shock to Chinese thinkers who envisaged the philosophical significance of Western science and technology from the viewpoint of ethics.

During the historical period to be examined in this paper, the development of ethical thought on Western science and technology in modern China can be logically divided into two consecutive stages. During the former, including the "Western Affairs Movement" from the 60s to the 90s of the last century and the "Reformation" in the 90s, the ethical significance of Western science and technology was only superficially attended to. In the latter, during the well-known debate regarding "Science and the View of Life" in the 20s of this century, these philosophical reflections entered deeply into the level of culture.

Many important men of ideas, such as Kang Youwei, Liang Qichao, Tai Sitong, Yan Fu, Xue Fucheng and Guo Songtao, were devoted to the comprehensive study of the ethical significance of Western science and technology. The main results included the following five points:

The general relation between science-technology and ethics. Modern Chinese thinkers took as a starting point the search for truth as a way to save the thought rooted deeply in Confucianism, for which ethics was central. Therefore, it was natural for them to raise the problem of the relation between science-technology and ethics.

One of the important ways for saving the motherland they discovered was "to learn technology from the West." Kang Youwei observed advanced Western science and technology through visiting Hong Kong, reading many books on Western science, technology and history, and travels. This provided the source for his reform program. His formula for saving China was to establish an ethico-centric ideal society of "Universal Commonality." For Kang Youwei, the society of China must be motivated by the force of Western science and technology to approach gradually this ideal of "Universal Commonality". It is obvious that Western science and technology, on the one hand, and the social ethics of China, on the other hand, are united in Kang Youwei’s thinking.

Yan Fu who studied Western shipbuilding engineering and naval affairs further united ethics and Western science, technology and an ethical utilitarianism. This doctrine incorporated three thought elements derived from Western science and technology: the biological theory of evolution, social progress as promoted by science and technology, and ideologies of all forms including the science of society as an organic whole.

Mutual promotion between the development of science and technology and ethical progress. Modern Chinese thinkers were not content with making clear whether there is a connection between science-technology and ethics, but had greater interest in knowing the nature of that connection. This they found to be a relation of mutual promotion.

Xue Fucheng pointed out that the West always took "Humanity as the standard," as the guiding idea in developing science and technology. He saw the secret of the richness and strength of various countries of the West as consisting in developing material civilization through science and technology for public welfare. He thought that the civilization of science and technology had a great influence upon the ideal of life and society, and hence that traditional ethics should be abandoned and replaced by an evolutionary outlook in view of the changes of values. Utility is a natural concern for human beings and develops as science and technology advance. Having seen the accomplishments made by science and technology in the United States within the space of one century, Liang Qichao also concluded that success relies on human might, and that understanding is developed on the basis of wealth and power.

The problem of justice and utility. The problem of justice and utility in Chinese traditional philosophy also became a focus in the thought of modern philosophers inquiring into the ethical significance of Western science and technology. The reformationists emphasized the utility of the progress of science and technology for the promotion of the ideals of life and society. Yan Fu justified self-interest by appealing to Western biology which takes utility as its value orientation. Tan Sitong showed that Western machinery leads to abundant products and high prices, and thus utility for people. Guo Songtao also noted that the development of such technology as the steam engine in the West was of great utility for the state and the people.

Intimately connected with the above was attention to the relation of science-technology to social ethics. They noted connections of utility as well as of justice between individuals and the collectivity or society. Huang Zunian pointed out that in Western societies, in order to attain the goal of utility via science and technology, individuals are united by the moral concentric force produced by law, order and feeling to form communities devoted to the interests of their members themselves and all society through their competition, excitement and union.

Analysis of traditional moral norms. Modern Chinese philosophers reexamined some particular traditional moral norms for the connection of science and technology, and concretely analyzed moral behavior. An example is Tan Sitong’s analysis of the traditional idea of "advocacy of saving." He saw luxury and saving as relative. The problem here was "the advocacy" of saving which led to a decrease of products and hence to poverty. In this context saving is a false virtue not favorable for either oneself or others. Inversely, "luxury" becomes advisable where necessary. Thus, Western technology should be utilized to develop production, e.g., to work a mine, so that riches would appear. Luxury and saving can be compared with opening and closing a source. To open a source leads to prosperity, but to close the flow leads to a lessening of prosperity.

The use of ideas and methods of Western science in the development of ethics. Giving full play to the ethical significance of Western science and technology, modern Chinese thinkers made direct use of the ideas and methods of science as principles in proposing and explaining their ethical outlook.

As mentioned above, Yan Fu used the biological theory of evolution to develop his utilitarian ethics. Similarly, Kang Youwei made use of the biological theory of evolution in the development of his social ideal of "Universal Commonality". He also employed the axiomatic method of Western geometry to advance his claim for "Universal Commonality" as a "geometric axiom of humankind."

Tan Sitong made direct use of such concepts of Western science as "ether" and "electricity" to define the central category, "ren" (benevolence), in his ethics, noting its primary sense as "the instrument by means of which communication can be attained."

The well-known debate on "Science and the View of Life" in 1923 formed an important part of the May 4th movement on new culture. Its central problem, as indicated by the title, is precisely the ethical significance of Western science. The debate, also called "the Debate on Science and Metaphysics," considered problems on the level of culture, especially of philosophy as the soul of culture in the context of the collision of Chinese and Western cultures. Here the thought of Liang Qichao, Hu Shi, Zhang Junli, Ding Wenjiang and Fan Shoukan should be noted.

Starting from phenomena, Western science empirically grasps nature, thus distinguishing itself from philosophy as ontology or metaphysics. Science as the main element in modern Western culture became the focus of the debate. Both sides accepted the influence of science as the form of Western culture and inquired regarding its ethical significance. Generally, they developed the following five points:

1. The object of ethics is life viewed as transcendental substance. Therefore, this study is not science, nor are scientific methods applicable to it. This point was developed by Zhang Junli, according to whom the object of ethics is transcendental spiritual substance or "ego", while science takes phenomena as its object and searches to discover law in phenomena; therefore science and ethics are in contrast, the method of science being objective, logical, analytic, causal and seeking identity, whereas the method of ethics is subjective, intuitive, synthetic, single and concerned with free will.

2. Ding Wenjiang held that ethics can be studied using a scientific method regarding phenomena, for the study of false substances is not only useless but harmful. True ethical knowledge can be obtained only by use of the scientific method and reducing the object of ethics to moral phenomena.

The problem of the life view is not separated from that of science; indeed the most basic ethical problems are moral phenomena which can be studied by science. For example, the problem of whether the nature of humans is good or evil is the same scientific problem as Darwin’s theory of competition, and both are solvable. Science has direct influence on the nature of humanity, and promotes moral progress as the best instrument for education and civilization. It enhances the human’s abilities to seek truth, to know, to imagine and to intuit, thus making human life happy.

On the other hand, he rejected the existence of moral substance and in this employed a Western epistemology which he characterized as skeptical idealism. A skeptical attitude to substance behind phenomena restricts knowledge to systematizing natural phenomena by mental concepts. In terms of this limitation he considers the ethics of moral substance to be not only absurd, but harmful.

3. Hu Shi’s "Scientific or Naturalist View of Life" divided human life between human behavior and general mental life. Scientific method and content applies to both sides. As human life is determined by the cosmos, knowledge about the cosmos through science becomes the norm of the view of life. Here the core idea is scientific causality and the theory of evolution. Based on science and biology regarding the cause and history of the evolution of living beings and human society, as well as psychology, it is clear that all mental phenomena have their causes.

The behavior of actual life is governed by the rules of the cosmos and explained particularly by science. At the same time, the internal life of humans, their ethical value, including free will, creative force, feeling and aesthetic sense, all can be described and regulated. Human freedom is not limited by causality; rather man is capable of explaining the past and of foreseeing the future by the virtue of causality. Even the idea of competition promotes man’s pity and his faith in the importance of mutual assistance.

4. It is imperative to make a distinction between moral substance and moral phenomena. The former is not the object of science, whereas the latter is. This viewpoint is represented by Fan Shoukan who divided knowledge of life into its ideal and actual aspects. The former is "a priori form", while the latter is "a posteriori content". The former is the substance of morality, while the latter is its phenomena. Study of the moral ideal is of fundamental importance for ethics, for which the study of moral actuality constitutes a preliminary step.

Moral substance is an issue which philosophers studied by methods of intuition. But it is not possible starting from the doctrine of moral substance to deduce consequences about ethical actuality, for which study scientific methods are required. It is imperative to distinguish scientific method and science as a system of knowledge. Ethics becomes a science by using the scientific method. But it remains distinct from natural science which is science in a strict sense, whereas ethics belongs to general science as a normative rather than explanatory dimension.

5. Liang Qichao divided human life into its mental and material aspects, respectively governed by intellect and feeling. Accordingly, the view of life can also be divided into two parts, of which that corresponding to the mental aspect cannot be studied by scientific methods, whereas that corresponding to the material aspect must be studied by scientific methods.

Life in its material aspect alone cannot exist without a world of things, which can be rationalized by the use of precise scientific methods and is based on facts. He emphasized that the mental or feeling aspect is a prime motive in life, which it is absurd to direct as if it were an empirical reality.