A Study On The Origin And Formation Of Ancient Chinese Scientific And Technological Ethics

The idea of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics was originated and formed in the era of primitive society to the Spring-Autumn and Warring States (403-221 B.C.). This paper is dedicated to construct the historical trajectory of the formation. The paper consists of two components, which contains five chapters and a prolegomenon. The first component consists of Chapter One only; it focuses on the origin of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics. The second component consists of the rest four chapters; it discusses the formation of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics. Chapter Two discusses the conditions required for its emergence and the signs which show the formation in a macroscopic level.Chapter Three to Five focus on the reasons for the formation of some branches of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics and their concrete content in a microscopic level. The following paragraphs will give a brief introduction on the content of each chapter.The introductory chapter reviews the significance of"The origin and formation of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics"and its application in real-life. Besides, it also reviews existing theories and the comments, talking about the features and the train of thoughts of this paper.Chapter one discusses how scientific and technological ethics drove from primitive social religious culture. The paper gives a brief introduction on the formation and development of science and religions in the Chinese primitive societies.Based on this, it analyzes how the earliest social behavior norms played importance in the human beings exploration nowadays and the modification of the Mother Nature.Besides, the paper also discusses the reasons for its formation and development, explaining the formation of taboos of the ancient Chinese religions and the rituals of offering sacrifices to gods and ancestors during agricultural production. The paper has made a reference to theoretical studies made by Goneng Sect of social anthropology to understand Chinese ancient mythologies. The author believes that Chinese ancient mythologies have reflected some moralities and spiritual features derived from exploration and modification by the ancestors, pointing out that ancient mythology has become the starting point for all the scientific and technological ethics since the Chinese became civilized.Chapter Two studies the formation of ancient Chinese scientific and technological ethics. The paper discusses in great details the historical conditions required for such formation. For instance, the scientific advances in Pre-Qin period allowed the codes of conducts of human beings to be established based on the mastering of the pattern of cause and effect; the division of labor had assisted the formation of technological workers'professional lives; maturation of ethical cerebration permitted the thinkers to introduce ethical theories so as to solve problems in scientific and technological ethical realms. The paper has suggested that the application of moralities in scientific ethical areas, the categorization of scientific and technological ethical ambits and the formation of scientific workers'professional moralities have constructed the important symbols which show the formation of scientific and technological ethics.The formation of time conception in agriculture and its agricultural ethical connotation are dealt with in Chapter Three. The paper explores the formation of time conception in agriculture, talking about its major features and distinct characteristics, which are objective, humane, experiential and religious. Through sophisticated analysis on this question, it is not hard to conclude that agricultural time view was a product of agricultural economy and its main objective was to guide and assist agricultural production. There were profound historical reasons for such guidance.Furthermore, this chapter discusses the relationship between the Yin Yang Theory and agricultural time views, pointing out that the Yin Yang Theory had raised the agricultural time views to a higher level. With the Yin Yang theory, the agricultural time views had not only risen steadily to the realm of heaven-people-relation, but also sublimated to become a theoretical form with ethical flavor. The four seasons had been granted with moral attributes; phenology, meteorology and astrology become the embodiment of time moralities; production according to time achieve moral demonstrations; the political mode, which simultaneously punished the offenders and used moral administration, had a firm ethical foundation. The paper has also looked into the ethical impacts of the agricultural time views on real agricultural production, suggesting that the function could be described as:"no disobeying of the time order of agriculture","paying respect to and treasuring time"and"making reference to time order constantly". Moreover, the paper analyses in great details the role played by the agricultural time views in enhancing the human-nature-relation and the relationships among human beings.Chapter Four explains the foundation, moral norms, and valuation of ancient scientific and technological ethics. The paper states the three major reasons for the formation of technological ethics, which are necessity to adjust and enhance the relationship between technology and other social members, the permeation of ethic culture into technology realm and the reflection of problems in technological societies.The paper discusses two rules for the ethics in Pre-Qin period:"productivity is the most important thing"and"being opportunistic is undesirable"; it also talks about important policies carried out to ensure that these two rules yield substantial results.The paper also explores the technological valuations of the thinkers in Pre-Qin period in the conceptual level. The Confucianists in Pre-Qin period believed that the manufacture of various appliances should make reference to the etiquette, usage of the appliances was to promote ethics and the social ranking systems should be maintained; Mohist School advocated that they should dedicate to prosper ordinary people's lives instead of using the technology for making intricate designs and decorations; The Taoists advocated that Tao can transcend technology, worried that Tao could not be the carriers of technology ( they were concerned about spirits being constraint by the objects and the people who overused machines might becomeopportunistic) and they pursued ideal realm of the integration of Tao and technology.Chapter Five devotes to the formation and main thesis of ancient ecological ethical thoughts. The article argues that people in Pre-Qin Period could not only understand the relationship between human and nature in a scientific prospective, but also use philosophical perspective of"integration of heaven and human beings"to consider the relationship between man and nature. The paper concludes that the ecological ethics had begun to thrive. The paper summarizes the ecological ethical thoughts of Pre-Qin Period in four aspects: the mode of production, the mode of consumption, the mode of development of technology and the mode of society, using the integration of"growing according to time"and"forbidding according to time"to sum up substantial development in Pre-Qin Period. Finally, the paper reveals the ecological ethical connotation of"Dismissing extravagancy and promoting frugality".