Scientism, technocracy, and morality in China

Journal of Chinese Philosophy

Volumn 30, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 177-193

  Ouyang, Guangwei ^a,b  

^a Department of Philosophy ^*

^b DOUGLAS COLLEGE   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61049402865     PISSN: 03018121     EISSN: 15406253     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1540-6253.00113     Document Type: Article

References (23)

1. Lynn H. Miller, Science and Dissent in Post-Mao China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1996), p. 8
2. Robert Merton described "the ethos of modern science" as being guided by four imperatives: (1) universal/objective-truth-claims, whatever their source, are to be subjected to preestablished impersonal criteria; (2) communitarian-the process of certification is communal; (3) disinterested-truth- seeking is to be valued above personal aggrandizement; (4) organized skepticism-temporary suspension of judgment and detached scrutiny of beliefs are methodologically mandatory, The Sociology of Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), pp. 267-278
3. Ge Sheng, "Fang Lizhi-A Model of Chinese Intellectuals," China Spring Digest 18, no. 1 (March-April 1987): 1
4. Miller, p. 63
5. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), p. 406
6. Marx's historical materialism assumed that social development always follows its law of nature-from primitive, slave/master, feudal, capitalist, to socialist and communist
7. Marx/Engels, Selected Works in One Volume (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1968), p. 89
8. Science, Technology and Society: A Cross Disciplinary Perspective, edited by ma Spiegel-Rosing and Derek de Solla Price (London: Sage, 1977), p. 563
9. Miller, p. 13
10. Alasdair Maclntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981), p. 72
11. Frederick W. Taylor, quoted in Samel Florman, The Existential Pleasure of Engineering (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1976), p. 8
12. V. I. Lenin, "The Immediate Task of Soviet Government," Izvestia, 28 April 1918, trans., in Lenin, Selected Works, vol. 2 (Moscow: Foreign Language Publishing House, 1947), p. 327
13. Robert Merton, foreword to Jacques Ellul, The Technological Society, by Jacques Ellul (New York: Vintage Books, 1964), p. vi
14. For example, one of the key reasons for the incredibly fast metropolitan development in China is that governmental projects such as road and highway construction take absolute priority over an individual's right to live in his or her old residence. The government can virtually draw a line in the map and build a sky train without paying any attention to a single complaint from affected citizens
15. "Resolutions in the CCP Central Committee Regarding Import Questions on Promoting Socialist Ethical and Cultural Progress," adopted at the Sixth Plenum of Fourteen CCP Central Committee, 10 October 1996, Beijing Review (4-10 November 1996), p. 22
16. In recent years, several corruption cases were reported that had detrimental effects on the Chinese economy in total measure. The Yuanhua smuggling case involving hundreds of local, provincial, and central government officials were said to slow down Chinese economic development by half a year. So far, more than twenty government officials involved in this case were executed
17. In recent years, the Chinese government has introduced a series of policies to guide the minimal standard of living for this marginalized group. For example, the pension fund and social security fund have been modestly increased. The expenditure cap of Medicare for seniors has been raised. However, the motivation behind these policies is to avoid marginalized people becoming a threat to social stability, which is the precondition for fulfilling economic growth in China
18. To name a few, Jacque Ellul's The Technological Society, Loren Graham's Between Science and Value (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981)
19. Robert Merton's The Sociology of Science and Martin Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology (translation with introduction by William Lovitt [New York: Harper and Row, 1977])
20. Leonard Angel, Enlightenment-East and West (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994), chap. 2
21. Mencius 6A:15
22. "Thoughtfully aware" is replaced by "think" in Wing-Tsit Chan's A Source-book in Chinese Philosophy, translated and compiled by Wing-Tsit Chan (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1963)
23. Angel (1994), p. 44