From Libertarian Paternalism to Nudging—and Beyond

Barton, Adrien; Grüne‐Yanoff, Till

doi:10.1007/s13164-015-0268-x

Cited by 120 publications

(87 citation statements)

References 60 publications

(67 reference statements)

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“…If strategies that respect or promote people's rationality, like informing or rationally persuading them, actually work, we have a prima facie reason to prefer those. In some cases, we can even try to “boost” their cognitive capacities instead of merely taking them as given (Barton & Grüne‐Yanoff, ; Hertwig & Grüne‐Yanoff, ). While opponents are more optimistic in this respect, nudge proponents typically stress scenarios where external nudges do better.…”

Section: Arguments Against Nudgingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethics of nudging: An overview

2020

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So‐called nudge policies utilize insights from behavioral science to achieve policy outcomes. Nudge policies try to improve people's decisions by changing the ways options are presented to them, rather than changing the options themselves or incentivizing or coercing people. Nudging has been met with great enthusiasm but also fierce criticism. This paper provides an overview of the debate on the ethics of nudging to date. After outlining arguments in favor of nudging, we first discuss different objections that all revolve around the worry that nudging vitiates personal autonomy. We split up this worry into different dimensions of autonomy, such as freedom of choice, volitional autonomy, rational agency, and freedom as nondomination. We next discuss worries that nudging is manipulative, violates human dignity, and prevents more important structural reform. Throughout, we will present responses that proponents of nudging can muster. On the whole, we conclude that the objections fail to establish that the nudge program as a whole should be rejected. At the same time, they give us important guidance when moving towards an ethical assessment of nudges on a case‐by‐case basis. Towards the end, we provide some possible ways forward in debates around the ethics of nudging.

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Section: Arguments Against Nudgingmentioning

confidence: 99%

The ethics of nudging: An overview

2020

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“…On one hand, mechanism-oriented typologies of nudges aim at identifying the psychological mechanisms nudges work by. [8][9][10]14,21 Such typologies have been introduced primarily to address the ethical issues raised by nudging. 7,16,[22][23][24][25] Indeed, understanding the underlying psychological mechanisms of nudging is necessary to address recurrent ethical critics such as "nudges work better in the dark".…”

Section: Nudge Types: An Integrative Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…6 Some authors have addressed that conceptual issue by amending the original definition of nudge, 3,7 others by distinguish-ing different types of nudges. [8][9][10] The present paper relies upon the three main definitions of nudge advanced by T&S and Sunstein. 11,12 We first distinguish between broad and narrow senses of the term "nudge".…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nudge: Towards a Consensus View?

Berthet¹,

Ouvrard²

2019

Psychol Cogn Sci Open J

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This article presents a particular viewpoint on how nudge should be understood. The concept of nudge has generated considerable interest among academics and policymakers. However, ten years later, what is meant exactly by "nudge" is still a matter of debate. In fact, there is a fundamental discrepancy between the (original) narrow definition of Thaler and Sunstein (nudge in the narrow sense, NN) and the (later) broad definition of Sunstein (nudge in the broad sense, NB). These two definitions differ regarding the instrumental use of rationality failures, and accordingly whether the provision or disclosure of information counts as a nudge or not. From a pragmatic perspective, the paper argues for a position that consists of adopting the broad definition of a nudge while acknowledging several types of nudges, which we provide in an integrative view. We suggest that future research should assess the effectiveness of these different types of nudges separately.

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“…Our model is related to the "nudges" literature. The aim of nudges is to achieve a desirable outcome without coercion, e.g., by means of defaults; for a recent discussion, see Barton and Gruene-Yanoff (2015). In order for nudges to be welfare-improving, we have to assume that once people have been nudged into a certain choice, they end up being content and will not want to change their decision (even though they could).…”

Section: Efficiencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Social planning and coercion under bounded rationality with an application to environmental policy

Hintermann

Rutherford

2016

Int Tax Public Finance

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We develop a theory of social planning with a concern for economic coercion, which we define as the difference between consumers' actual utility, and the "counterfactual" utility they expect to obtain if they were able to set policy themselves. Reasons to limit economic coercion include protecting minorities, preventing disenfranchised groups from engaging in socially costly behavior, or political economy considerations. If consumers are fully rational, we show that limiting coercion is equivalent to placing more welfare weight on coerced consumers at the expense of others. If, however, consumers' rationality is bounded, counterfactual utility becomes endogenous to current policy, and the welfare loss associated with limiting coercion increases. We set up a numerical version of our model and find that the bias-related welfare loss can be substantial.

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From Libertarian Paternalism to Nudging—and Beyond

Cited by 120 publications

References 60 publications

The ethics of nudging: An overview

The ethics of nudging: An overview

Nudge: Towards a Consensus View?

Social planning and coercion under bounded rationality with an application to environmental policy

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