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The Challenges Aheadfor “Future Design” Studies
By Keiichiro Kobayashi

The Difficulties of Intergenerational Issues
Important policy issues that we face today can all be seen as
investment projects with extremely long timelines that span
generations.
Take public finance. If the current generation bears the “cost” ofincreasing taxation or cutting expenditures, this will yield the“return” for future generations 30 to 40 years from now of avoiding
the economic distress arising from fiscal bankruptcy. Public finance,
then, is an investment project with an intergenerational time lag
between “cost” and “benefit”. This structure can be observed on
environmental issues as well. Take climate change. If the current
generation bears the “cost” of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG)
emissions, future generations 50 or 100 years from now will reap the“return” of climate stabilization. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuelfrom power stations is a similar issue. The construction of a nuclear
reprocessing plant comes with an enormous political cost merely to
select a site for it. If the current generation pays this cost andconstructs the plant, the benefit of avoiding the contamination of theenvironment will accrue decades later to future generations.
The policy challenges posed by these intergenerational“investment projects” comprise sets of issues that could not havebeen anticipated within the framework of democratic decisionmaking that prevails today. Such sets of policy issues came into viewin the second half of the 20th century with the emergence of newtechnologies and institutions. Such issues were almost nonexistentin the 18th century, when the philosophical foundations ofdemocracy were being laid out. Thus, the process for turningintergenerational policy projects into reality did not develop within
the democratic framework.
Democracy is a system in which political decision-making is
conducted by a society consisting of modern, rational (and selfish)
individuals. It goes without saying that only adults who are alive canparticipate in the decision-making process. The unborn and minors— “future generations” as conceived here — cannot take part in thedecision-making process today. Indeed, there is no way thatgenerations current and future can engage in debate in a legislativebody. Thus, outcomes in which future generations transfer some of
the return that they will receive to the current generation cannot be
negotiated.
This means that the current generation will bear the entire costand receive no benefit whatsoever when an investment project that
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Author
Keiichiro Kobayashi

spans generations is implemented. The current generation, as agroup of rational and selfish individuals, certainly cannot agree toundertake a policy project for which it merely pays the cost.
Japan and other developed countries have seen massive
development in technology coinciding with the emergence of asociety in which altruism towards future generations is diminished
due to the decline of religion and traditional norms. It is natural thata society consisting of rational individuals who are insufficiently
altruistic towards future generations cannot implement
intergenerational policy projects if they use the democratic decisionmaking process.

Protecting the Interests of Future Generations
There is a need to construct a framework that maintains thesustainability of society that transcends economic rationality fromwithin the political system. This could be more a matter of politicalscience than economics. How should the interests of future
generations that do not yet exist be protected within the existing
political decision-making process? Should we not consider
incorporating a mechanism in the political system to protect theinterests of future generations?
One idea that could provide a hint for such a reform of the politicalsystem is currently being debated among academic economists.
“Future design” — a concept proposed by Professor Tatsuyoshi
Saijo, director of the Kochi University of Technology Research Center
for Future Design — is bringing together researchers from a wide
variety of areas including experimental economics, psychology,
urban engineering, and neuroscience to carve out new areas forinterdisciplinary research (Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Future Design, Keiso
Shobo, 2015, in Japanese). Engaging in future design means
conceiving a desirable future from the perspective of future
generations — not a forecast of the future from our current
perspective — and designing policy to turn that future into reality.
More specifically, the basic concern of future design is to consider
ways to bring actors who represent the interests of future
generations onto the political decision-making stage.
A typical representation of this way of thinking can be seen in the
future redesign experiment conducted in 2015 in the township of
Yahaba in Iwate Prefecture. According to Keishiro Hara andTatsuyoshi Saijo (“Future Design — Sankagata Togi no Jissen kara
Mieru Kanousei to Kongo no Tenbo [Potential Seen from thehttps://www.jef.or.jp/journal/

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Implementation of Participatory Debate and Future Prospects],
Mizukankyou Gakkai-shi [Japan Society on Water Environment
journal], Vol. 40(4), 2017), Yahaba undertook the creation of atownship-building “vision” for the year 2060 at the behest of the
Cabinet Office, and a future design research group led by KeishiroHara, associate professor at Osaka University, took part in thedevelopment process. Hara and his team asked the residents tocreate the original draft of the vision through group discussions andsorted them into four groups of five to six residents each. To create avision, two of the groups were tasked with conducting a typicalresidents discussion from the standpoint of the current generation,
while the other two were tasked with doing so from the perspectiveof future generations by becoming “the people of 2060”, to play thevirtual role of future generations in a role-playing game. Saijo calls
this “wearing the cap of future generations” and proposes calling thepeople playing this role “imaginary future-generation members”.
Particularly notable in the report on this Yahaba experiment in
future design is the finding that that there was a clear difference
between the visions emerging from the residents’ discussions by thetwo current-generation groups and those by the two imaginary
future-generation groups. Specifically, the current-generation groups
tended to draft visions of the future based on existing constraints(nursing care for the elderly, solutions to the issue of waiting lists forchildcare, etc.), while the two imaginary future-generation groups
were able to transcend the constraints to build on the strengths of
the region. While the thinking within the current-generation group
followed the trajectory of public administration as it was currently
conducted, the imaginary future-generation groups tended to extract
contemporary administration issues from a desirable future and to
take on difficult policy issues.
The results of this experiment indicate that the orientation ofpolicy decision-making may be altered just by having people
participate in political decision-making by playing the role ofimaginary future-generation members. In other words, it may bepossible to strengthen altruism towards future generations bymaking institutional adjustments to the political system.
Saijo and his team also interviewed the participants in theimaginary future-generation groups six months after the residents’
discussions to investigate whether there may have been conflicts
between the “self as a member of the current generation” and the“self as a member of an imaginary future generation”. To theirsurprise, the responses expressed the view that “they were able tosee themselves as members of both future and current generations
and to reconcile the two from a comprehensive perspective andconsider the present and future from a comprehensive perspective.”
This cognitive conditioning persisted even after the end of the future
experiment. The interviewees stated that six months after theexperiment, they still had occasions on which they engaged inthinking that considered the present and future from acomprehensive perspective and that they derived pleasure from this.

The results of this experiment indicate that there is a possibility
that the experience of the future design experiment had an enduring
effect on the thought process of the subjects. Researchers recognize— albeit yet to be reported in research papers and the like — that
there is a possibility that people given the role of imaginary futuregeneration members in future design experiments undergo powerfulemotional changes. Reports on future design experiments conductedin Onuma town in Hokkaido, Matsumoto city in Nagano Prefecture,
Kochi Prefecture, and elsewhere were given at the First Future
Design Workshop hosted by the Research Institute for Humanity andNature from Jan. 27-28, 2018. Multiple researchers taking part inthese experiments experienced emotional changes in the participants
who took on the role of imaginary future-generation members.
Although it has yet to be scientifically determined whether suchobservations reflect actual changes in the activities of the brain,ideas for research plans to investigate changes in brain activity using
functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were discussed. It
may be in the not-too-distant future that we will be able to conduct
quantitative research on the impact of future design experiments onhuman consciousness and brain activity.
If some change occurs at the level of human brain activity byassuming the role of an imaginary future-generation member, it may
be possible to alter actual policy to reflect the interests of future
generations by incorporating players (such as public institutions)assigned the role of imaginary future-generation members to thepolicy-decision process through the reform of the political process.
The ultimate aim of future design is the reform of the politicalprocess to introduce actors as agents of imaginary future
generations.

Three Challenges for Future Design
I would like to raise three issues going forward for research on
future design. First, will an imaginary future generation (a public
institution such as a Ministry of the Future) function? A Ministry of
the Future may not act in the true interests of future generations
since its personnel consist of members of the current generation.
However, if the results of the experiment in which subjects are
given the role of a future generation hold true generally, i.e. thepersonality of someone given the role of representing future
generations truly changes, an institution like a Ministry of the Future
will also function properly. The personnel of the Ministry of the
Future will assume the personality of future generations when they
are assigned the role of agents for future generations.
This hypothesis, which posits that the preferences of agents vary
according to the assigned tasks, is the equivalent of the hypothesisthat sympathy has the effect of altering behavior, which Adam Smithemphasized in The Theory of Moral Sentiments, since a person thatis assigned the role of representative of future generations will
receive the sympathy of his/her coworkers and the world at large byJapan SPOTLIGHT • July / August 201845

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fulfilling his/her functions. To test this hypothesis, it is necessary to
uncover the character formation mechanism of imaginary futuregeneration members through neuroscience and statistical methods
for psychological studies.
Secondly, can the establishment of an imaginary future generation(a new institution such as a Ministry of the Future) be justified in a
democracy? If it can be scientifically confirmed that a stable supplyof imaginary future-generation members can be generated, newsystems such as a Ministry of the Future can certainly be effective inprotecting the interests of future generations. However, to establish
such a system, it is necessary to show that it has legitimacy within
the current democratic system and secure a broad public consensus
for it. For example, there is strong opposition among jurists andpolitical scientists to Demeny voting, proposed as a voting method toreflect the interests of future generations (minors are given voting
rights, which are exercised by proxy by their guardians), because it
violates the one-person, one-vote principle. It may be necessary for
future generations, but that alone may not be reason enough to gain
broad acceptance.
To secure wide public appeal, it is necessary to construct thepolitical philosophy foundations of the proposition “Theestablishment of imaginary future generations is just.” This may bepossible by using the social contract theory based on the “veil of
ignorance” put forward by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice. Rawls
argued that if people could agree to a political system in a situation
where they know nothing about their own attributes (physicalstrength, intelligence, assets, etc.), that system would be fair andjust. Under the veil of ignorance, people would agree to a politicalsystem that would maximize utility for the least-fortunately born(difference principle).
The establishment of imaginary future generations can be justified
as follows under Rawls’ difference principle. If people agree to asocial contract under the veil of ignorance, under which they cannot
know which generation they will be born in, they will fear being bornin the least fortunate generation (a generation that would be harmed
by global warming and fiscal bankruptcy) and agree beforehand toestablishing imaginary future generations as a system to reduce theburden on that generation. The reason for this is that utility for the
least-fortunate generation would be greater in a world in which
imaginary future generations exist if such an institution functions asa system.
The need to make headway in this debate from the politicalscience and philosophical sides is another reason why theparticipation of political scientists in research on future design isstrongly desired.
Thirdly, what should be done to make ordinary people assume therole of imaginary future-generation members as a matter of course?
This is a question of how to enhance altruism towards future
generations among ordinary people. This may be a matter beyond
the realm of science, belonging to the world of political philosophy.
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It is necessary for the equation “contribution to future generations= contribution to the permanent” to be true if the current generation
is to contribute to the subsequent generation in general beyond theirfamilies, just as parents willingly make sacrifices for their children.
Humans have a desire for immortality (the desire to connect themortal self to the immortal). If a belief system that satisfies thisdesire can be provided, it will be a driving force for their altruism.
The “next generation” that we should contribute to must berecognized as being permanent. It must also be irrefutable for now,
since the belief system cannot be sustained if the permanence isrefuted scientifically. For example, it is expected that human
intelligence will continue to evolve as it is augmented by artificial
intelligence (AI). This “augmented reason” can be called a permanent“next generation”. Since the potential of AI is unknown at this point,
the prospect that the AI-augmented reason will keep on evolving
forever cannot be scientifically refuted for now. Humans may be able
to determine the learning method of AI, but it is impossible for us tounderstand how self-learning AI recognizes the world. In this sense,humans cannot understand how AI thinks or know for now what its
limits are.
If this belief that “there is value in contributing to the progress ofaugmented reason” is shared, it will generate sympathy amongpeople with the result that each individual will also believe that suchaction has value when choosing their own actions. Actions that
contribute to the progress of augmented reason will be recognized
as an option that has significance for the individual. To be specific,
such actions mean taking measures to protect the environment andrehabilitating public finance through the implementation of global
warming countermeasures and execution of fiscal rehabilitation tocreate an environment in which it is easier for the reason of the next
generation to function. It will be easier to understand how such selfsacrificing acts for the next generation can be induced if the belief inthe “progress of augmented reason” is understood as an asset. If
damage to the value of the asset is foreseen for future generations,acting now to prevent this means maintaining the current value ofthe asset. In other words, actions for the next generation can beunderstood as rational actions to maintain the value of an asset thatis possessed by the current generation. Thus, we need to develop
and share a notion of “justice as an intergenerational asset”.
Future design has the potential to transform not only the social
sciences but also a wide range of intellectual activity ranging fromneuroscience to ideology and philosophy.

Dr. Keiichiro Kobayashi has experience in the economic policy-making
process as a former government official at the Ministry of Economy, Trade andIndustry. His interest in economic research led him to join RIETI and pursue anacademic career. His current interests cover areas such as innovation andincome inequality.