Three reasons occur to me as important. First, there is an increasing tension, not least between Chinese ethics and Western ethics, with the former giving priority to collectivism and social order, while the latter prioritizes individuals’ rights, social liberty and political democracy. This supposed tension has been used by politicians to twist traditional ethics to serve a particular political purpose. Therefore, we need to go back to the original Confucian European ethics as a way to clarify what the true Confucian and Western ethics were and what their value is, in order to bridge ethical discourses in China and the West.

The second reason for comparative metaphysics of ethics is concerned with secularism and post-secularism (Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, 2007). Prevailing in much of the 20th century, secularism has both served and damaged humanity as a whole. Many people have realized this and sought different ways to remedy the undesirable consequences. For example, Tu Wei-ming proposes Confucianism as ‘spiritual humanism’ to counteract the secular humanism. Other people have suggested to replace secularism by post-secularism. Post-secularism is also, in a sense, a return to tradition en route the metaphysical root of ethics. This is the background for the debate over the nature of Confucian transcendence.

Thirdly, comparative metaphysics of ethics will help us clarify a number of issues important for comparative ethics and comparative religion. How can we go comparative while avoiding ethical bias? In the past, some scholars of comparative studies tend to be less careful in their categorical statements. For example, Hendrik Kraemer states that ‘All ethics in the world, except the Christian ethic, are some form of eudaemonism’. (Christian Message in a Non-Christian World, p.88), and Paul Tillich suggests that ‘In true faith, the ultimate concern is a concern about the truly ultimate; while in idolatrous faith preliminary, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.’ (Dynamics of Faith, p.12) What kind of methodology should we take when comparing different ethical systems and their metaphysical foundations and implications?