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Survey says the nation's morals are on the decline

According to a survey conducted this month by an educational foundation, more than 70 percent of people polled said that the nation's moral values were declining.

The Millennium Cultural and Educational Foundation, together with National Chengchi University, polled 1,070 people nationwide.

The survey found that more than 87 percent of respondents felt that people were less sincere now than they were six years ago and more than 82 percent felt that an increasing number of people were dishonest.

Fan Chu-tsai (樊楚才), president of the foundation, said that the reason morals were perceived to have declined over the last six years was because the year 2000 marked important changes in the country -- such as the installation of a new ruling party and the introduction of educational reforms.

Moral challenge

Fan said that with the crime rate, suicide rate, scams and political scandals all on the increase, moral values and principles were being challenged. As a result, the foundation decided to conduct a survey to gauge public perception of morality.

The survey showed that 79.9 percent polled felt that people were less kind and 71.9 percent felt that people had become less law-abiding than they were six years ago.

Although more than 70 percent felt that the public had become less law-abiding and strongly believed that bribery was illegal, almost 60 percent also felt that they should help the people they know (relatives, friends, close connections) before helping others. This could possibly lead to problems such as nepotism, said Hu Cheng-wen (胡正文), the director of the foundation's research division.

In terms of social problems, 76.7 percent felt that those who committed suicide were irresponsible, while 72 percent felt the same way about cash and credit card abusers, the survey found.

Decline

Judging by the survey's findings, it could be inferred that many people had begun to regard "crooked" values as normal, leading to a gradual worsening of social problems, Hu said.

Hu added that 94.9 percent of respondents believed that moral principles should be taught in schools from a young age, although 52.8 percent said that parents had more influence on children's morals than schools.

However, Chou Chu-ing (周祝英), a professor of education at the university, said that respondents should be separated by age. Those in their twenties were likely to think issues such as bad language on the Internet were far less of a problem than respondents in their forties or fifties, Chou said.
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