{"title":"The Role of Moral Principles in Resolving Intergenerational Conflicts of Interest","authors":"Toshiaki Hiromitsu","doi":"10.17645/pag.7722","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"With the increase of human power, intergenerational conflicts of interest have emerged as new problems, particularly in terms of environmental and financial sustainability. This study examined the role of moral principles in inducing people to act, taking into account the interests of future generations. A survey was conducted among a representative sample of Japanese citizens to investigate the function of eight moral principles in resolving conflicts in terms of participants’ assessment of the appropriateness of the principles and their willingness to follow them. With respect to the absolute level of the function of moral principles, the results offer some, albeit cautious, promise of a strategy to resolve conflicts through moral principles. Overall, participants responded positively to these principles. Furthermore, the survey revealed that older and more educated individuals responded better. Given their leading roles in society, this finding supports the use of the principles. However, it also suggests that reaching out to those who did not respond to the strategy is challenging. The study revealed that a non-negligible proportion of respondents had only weak responses to any of the principles and that they either needed to be exposed to different principles or provided with different resources to develop sensitivity to moral ideas. The survey also revealed the relative order of principles. Egalitarianism and utilitarianism scored lower, but some principles, including Mill’s harm principle and Scheffler’s argument that the survival of humanity and the world itself has value, scored higher.","PeriodicalId":51598,"journal":{"name":"Politics and Governance","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.5000,"publicationDate":"2024-03-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Politics and Governance","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.7722","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"POLITICAL SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
With the increase of human power, intergenerational conflicts of interest have emerged as new problems, particularly in terms of environmental and financial sustainability. This study examined the role of moral principles in inducing people to act, taking into account the interests of future generations. A survey was conducted among a representative sample of Japanese citizens to investigate the function of eight moral principles in resolving conflicts in terms of participants’ assessment of the appropriateness of the principles and their willingness to follow them. With respect to the absolute level of the function of moral principles, the results offer some, albeit cautious, promise of a strategy to resolve conflicts through moral principles. Overall, participants responded positively to these principles. Furthermore, the survey revealed that older and more educated individuals responded better. Given their leading roles in society, this finding supports the use of the principles. However, it also suggests that reaching out to those who did not respond to the strategy is challenging. The study revealed that a non-negligible proportion of respondents had only weak responses to any of the principles and that they either needed to be exposed to different principles or provided with different resources to develop sensitivity to moral ideas. The survey also revealed the relative order of principles. Egalitarianism and utilitarianism scored lower, but some principles, including Mill’s harm principle and Scheffler’s argument that the survival of humanity and the world itself has value, scored higher.
期刊介绍:
Politics and Governance is an innovative offering to the world of online publishing in the Political Sciences. An internationally peer-reviewed open access journal, Politics and Governance publishes significant, cutting-edge and multidisciplinary research drawn from all areas of Political Science. Its central aim is thereby to enhance the broad scholarly understanding of the range of contemporary political and governing processes, and impact upon of states, political entities, international organizations, communities, societies and individuals, at international, regional, national and local levels. Submissions that focus upon the political or governance-based dynamics of any of these levels or units of analysis in way that interestingly and effectively brings together conceptual analysis and empirical findings are welcome. Politics and Governance is committed to publishing rigorous and high-quality research. To that end, it undertakes a meticulous editorial process, providing both the academic and policy-making community with the most advanced research on contemporary politics and governance. The journal is an entirely open-access online resource, and its in-house publication process enables it to swiftly disseminate its research findings worldwide, and on a regular basis.