Withdrawing Versus Withholding Freedoms: Nudging and the Case of Tobacco Control

Abstract

Is it a stronger interference with people's freedom to withdraw options they currently have than to withhold similar options they do not have? Drawing on recent theorizing about sociopolitical freedom, this article identifies considerations that often make this the case for public policy. However, when applied to tobacco control, these considerations are shown to give us at best only very weak freedom-based reason to prioritize the status quo. This supports a popular argument for so-called "endgame" tobacco control measures: If we believe that cigarettes would and should be withheld from entering markets in hypothetical scenarios in which they do not yet exist, then we also have reason to seek their abolition in situations, such as ours, in which cigarettes do exist-if necessary by banning their sale. The same considerations are then used to disarm objections that have recently been raised to using nudges in public policy.

Estimating Biases in Smoking Cessation: Evidence from a Field Experiment

“…An alternative to taxes would be a smoking ban. A ban on the sale of cigarettes has been proposed many times in the public health literature (e.g., Proctor, 2013), but is often criticized for restricting personal freedom (Schmidt, 2016). Typical analyses of the welfare effects of bans would start by examining the lost consumer surplus as revealed by the demand curve.…”

Behavioral policies and inequities: the case of incentivized smoking cessation policies

“…Should, for instance, governments encourage private companies and regional health services to adopt ISCP? In the rest of the paper, I will examine the methodological dimension of this question, leaving important ethical and political issues regarding ISCP aside (see Bovens, 2016;Schmidt, 2016; for a discussion of these matters). Indeed, I am solely interested in the question of whether ISCP should be adopted on evidential grounds; more specifically, which evidential sources warrant a positive evidential assessment of ISCP.…”

Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “Withdrawing Versus Withholding Freedoms: Nudging and the Case of Tobacco Control”

“…Andreas T. Schmidt, University of Groningen I thank the commentators for their thoughtful pieces written in response to my "Withdrawing Versus Withholding Freedoms: Nudging and the Case of Tobacco Control" (Schmidt 2016b). In that article, I discuss whether withdrawing options people currently have is a stronger interference with their freedom than withholding similar options they do not have.…”