Abstract

One aspect of the intellectual changes taking place in China in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was the emergence of utilitarian ideas. Although it may be useful to think of modern Chinese thought from the perspective of the emergence of social Darwinism and nationalism, it is significant that the country's most progressive scholars at the turn of thecentury derived their inspiration from utilitarianism. Utilitarianism was accepted as a weapon with which to challenge traditional social, political, and cultural ideas, and to justify social and political reforms.