Intergenerational sustainability is enhanced by taking the perspective of future generations

Abstract

The intergenerational sustainability dilemma (ISD) is a situation of whether or not a person sacrifices herself for future sustainability. To examine the individual behaviors, one-person ISD game (ISDG) is instituted with strategy method where a queue of individuals is organized as a generational sequence. In ISDG, each individual chooses unsustainable (or sustainable) option with her payoff of $$X$$ X ($$X-D$$ X - D ) and an irreversible cost of $$D$$ D (zero cost) to future generations in $$36$$ 36 situations. Future ahead and back (FAB) mechanism is suggested as resolution for ISD by taking the perspective of future generation whereby each individual is first asked to take the next generation’s standpoint and request what she wants the current generation to choose, and, second, to make the actual decision from the original position. Results show that individuals choose unsustainable option as previous generations do so or $$\frac{X}{D}$$ X D is low (i.e., sustainability is endangered). However, FAB prevents individuals from choosing unsustainable option in such endangered situations. Overall, the results suggest that some new institutions, such as FAB mechanisms, which induce people to take the perspective of future generations, may be necessary to avoid intergenerational unsustainability, especially when intergenerational sustainability is highly endangered.

What is an emancipatory peace?

“…Yet, if such claims were socialised, environmentalised, empathised, pluralised and equalised in an inter-generational perspective (Shahen et al, 2021) it would become possible to refresh the concept of emancipation for general contemporary use in the global setting of order maintenance that peace praxis contributes to. However, the advent of digital governmentality as part of a broader digital shift in IR (Taylor, 2015) means that emancipation has taken on a new contradiction.…”

Deliberative Forms of Democracy and Intergenerational Sustainability Dilemma

“…Accountability holds when decision-makers and receivers are engaged in two-way communication, and it is established that people become fair and/or just when they are accountable for their decisions [86,87]. In the context of IS problems, such two-way communication between the current and future generations is not always possible, especially in the long-run perspective of non-overlapping generations [26], and the only possible communication path is unidirectional, or one-way communication from the current to future generations. Given this state of affairs, this research suggests IA mechanism along with deliberation in which people in the current generation are asked to be accountable for their decisions and leave their written reasons and advice to future generations, hypothesizing that IA brings fair and sustainable decisions in the current generation for IS.…”

“…In numerous democratic countries, children and/or women are not permitted to vote in elections, and it highlights that underrepresentation of some groups other than future generations emerges as a general social problem. Such an underrepresentation problem is present in IS problems, such as climate change, where future generations cannot participate in the current decision-making processes as they are yet to be born [11,26]. It affirms that a democratic system may need some new devices, innovations, reforms or transformations for addressing the underrepresentation as not only social, but also IS problems [5,23,[27][28][29].…”

“…We seek to experimentally examine and clarify how two deliberative forms of democracy with majority voting enhance IS as compared to majority voting without deliberation. One of the specific IS problems is described by "intergenerational sustainability dilemma" (IS dilemma), which is a situation where the current generation chooses to maximize (or sacrifice) its own benefits without (or for) considering future generations, compromising (or maintaining) IS [26,31,32]. Thus, we institute the IS dilemma game with three forms of decision-making models with majority voting by manipulating pre-voting components, and examine how they maintain IS in laboratory experiments.…”

Legacy thinking for long term sustainability: Innovative approach applied in the development of a codesigned co-produced Social Prescribing intervention

“…It is acknowledged that the evidence-base for using this approach is very limited, especially as Future Design is a novel approach. However, evidence of the use of FAB under laboratory conditions shows that considering future generation perspective before making a decision led individuals to make the most sustainable decision [12], including pro-selfindividuals from a capitalist society [13]. The aim of this study was to introduce the citizen's assembly (legacy) approach to focus groups and how this concept encourages long-term thinking among participants consequently ensuring that the well-being of future generations is considered and shapes strategies for delivering sustainable health and well-being outcomes.…”