Review of Thaler & Sunstein 'Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness' [Book Review]
Economics and Philosophy 26 (3):369-376 (2010)
Authors |
|
Abstract |
The present book makes a particularly engaging case for a whole range of policy implications of behavioural economics. The rhetoric is highly compelling, and their approach is already having a significant impact. However, while the wider audience for whom the book is written may not be interested in the justification of the underlying principles, it is precisely the cracks in the foundations that pose the greatest threat to the project. For example, if Thaler and Sunstein are to have any chance of their 'libertarian paternalism' meriting ‘libertarian’ credentials, it is essential that the re-engineering of choice architecture not be guided by any particular political or moral agenda. Their claim here is that what makes a nudge beneficial is not that it steers people in the direction of behaviour that is objectively ‘good’ but rather in the direction of behaviour that they won’t regret. That said, there are a number of points where it is hard to shake the suspicion that Thaler and Sunstein help themselves rather conveniently to the idea that, if a person’s choices are largely a function of various framing effects, say, then overriding those choices violates no autonomy, since there was no autonomy there to be violated.
In this review, I raise four concerns not adequately addressed in the book.
(1) Thaler and Sunstein are misleading in their use of the term ‘paternalism’, which is standardly defined as a matter of interfering with a competent person’s choices out of a motivation to improve that person’s welfare. As Thaler and Sunstein use the term, however, it becomes equivalent to beneficence: when the government acts to improve people’s welfare by influencing choices in any way, according to them, it is engaging in paternalism.
(2) Their appeal to the resistibility of nudges is a centrepiece of the account and particularly of its claim to be ‘libertarian’, but given what they themselves write about how effective nudges are and how poor we are at even noticing the influences to which we are subject, it is entirely unclear why we should expect nudges to be easily resisted.
(3) Thaler and Sunstein generally align themselves with the perspective of planners who half-pose the presumptuously rhetorical question, ‘Who would really mind?’ But the question is not just whether people would object, if they were consulted. People also care about whether they are consulted and whether they understand the influences to which they are subject. Thaler and Sunstein advise choice architects against being secretive about nudges, but this espousal of principle, in a late chapter responding to objections, is not borne out by the discussion in the rest of the book, which focuses almost exclusively and rather effusively on the possibilities for channelling individuals’ choice-behaviour toward better outcomes.
(4) Thaler and Sunstein tend to downplay alternative approaches to improving decision making that are perfectly compatible with the behavioural economics and social psychology discussed by Thaler and Sunstein, but less paternalistic. For example, there is a growing body of research on how to construct contexts of interpersonal deliberation to generate stable solutions to collective action problems, by improving people’s collective decision-making capacities, rather than subjecting them to nudges. More generally, one comes up with very different recommendations if one thinks of the problems to which nudges are supposed to be a solution not as a matter of human failings per se, but rather as a socially and historically contingent misfit between the decision-making capacities that particular policies and institutions require of individuals and the capacities that people actually have. Conceived in the latter way – in terms of what I have elsewhere dubbed ‘autonomy gaps’, it becomes an open question whether what is called for is a choice architecture that makes it easier to avoid regrettable decisions or, rather, various measures to improve individuals’ decision-making capacities, say, through education, ‘buddy’ arrangements, decision-making heuristics, etc.
|
Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1017/S0266267110000301 |
Options |
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Download options
References found in this work BETA
No references found.
Citations of this work BETA
Salvaging the Concept of Nudge: Table 1.Yashar Saghai - 2013 - Journal of Medical Ethics 39 (8):487-493.
Success Conditions for Nudges: A Methodological Critique of Libertarian Paternalism.Conrad Heilmann - 2014 - European Journal for Philosophy of Science 4 (1):1-20.
Governing [Through] Autonomy. The Moral and Legal Limits of “Soft Paternalism”.Bijan Fateh-Moghadam & Thomas Gutmann - 2014 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (3):383-397.
If Nudges Treat Their Targets as Rational Agents, Nonconsensual Neurointerventions Can Too.Thomas Douglas - 2022 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1:1-16.
Nudge Economics as Libertarian Paternalism.Nicholas Gane - forthcoming - Theory, Culture and Society:026327642199944.
View all 7 citations / Add more citations
Similar books and articles
Book ReviewsRichard H., Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008. Pp. 308. $26.00 ; $16.00. [REVIEW]Robert H. Frank - 2008 - Ethics 119 (1):202-208.
Free Markets and Social Justice, Cass Sunstein. Oxford University Press, 1997, VI + 405 Pages. [REVIEW]N. Scott Arnold - 2000 - Economics and Philosophy 16 (2):333-378.
Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle, Edited by Cass R. Sunstein. Cambridge University Press, 2005, XII+234 Pages. [REVIEW]Adam Oliver - 2007 - Economics and Philosophy 23 (3):395-401.
The Voice of the People in the Legal Reasoning of Cass Sunstein.David van Mill - 1998 - Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 1 (4):152-156.
Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications on Political Science, Donald P. Green and Ian Shapiro. Yale University Press, 1994, Xi + 239 Pages.The Rational Choice Controversy: Economic Models of Politics Reconsidered. Jeffrey Friedman . Yale University Press, 1996, Xi + 307 Pages. [REVIEW]Michael Laver - 1999 - Economics and Philosophy 15 (1):136.
Nudge, Nudge or Shove, Shove—The Right Way for Nudges to Increase the Supply of Donated Cadaver Organs.Kyle Powys Whyte, Evan Selinger, Arthur L. Caplan & Jathan Sadowski - 2012 - American Journal of Bioethics 12 (2):32-39.
J.D. Velleman, How We Get Along (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 232 Pages, ISBN: 9780521043403 (Pbk.). Hardback/Paperback: £52.25/16.14. [REVIEW]Antonio Gaitán - 2012 - Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (2):305-307.
Rational Decisions , Ken Binmore. Princeton University Press, 2009, X + 200 Pages. [REVIEW]José Luis Bermúdez - 2010 - Economics and Philosophy 26 (1):95-101.
Christian Philosophy. By Lawrence E. Lynch. Toronto: Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 1963. 108 Pages. $1.75. .St. Thomas and Philosophy. By Anton C. Pegis. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1964. 104 Pages. $2.50. [REVIEW]Stanley G. French - 1965 - Dialogue 3 (4):448-450.
Bioethics at the Movies, by Sandra Shapshay. [REVIEW]Trevor Stammers - 2010 - Human Reproduction and Genetic Ethics 16 (2):245-246.
Against Injustice: The New Economics of Amartya Sen, Edited by Reiko Gotoh and Paul Dumouchel. Cambridge University Press, 2009, X + 317 Pages. - Amartya Sen, Edited by Christopher Morris. Cambridge University Press, 2010, Xvi + 224 Pages. - Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities, Edited by Harry Brighouse and Ingrid Robeyns. Cambridge University Press, 2010, Ix + 257 Pages. [REVIEW]Miriam Teschl - 2012 - Economics and Philosophy 28 (2):275-287.
Genetics and Reductionism and Genes, Genesis God: Values and Their Origins in Natural and Human History: Sahotra Sarkar, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998, 256 Pages, Pound45 (Hb), Pound16.95 (Pb). Holmes Rolston III, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1999, 416 Pages (Hb), 432 Pages (Pb), Pound42.50 (Hb), Pound15.95 (Pb). [REVIEW]A. Clarke - 2001 - Medical Humanities 27 (2):107-109.
Analytics
Added to PP index
2010-09-14
Total views
178 ( #66,017 of 2,508,064 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
8 ( #89,100 of 2,508,064 )
2010-09-14
Total views
178 ( #66,017 of 2,508,064 )
Recent downloads (6 months)
8 ( #89,100 of 2,508,064 )
How can I increase my downloads?
Downloads