Nudging and Participation: a Contractualist Approach to Behavioural Policy

Häußermann, Johann Jakob

doi:10.1007/s40926-019-00117-w

Cited by 8 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 118 publications

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“…As can be seen from Figure 4, the government is by far the most frequently mentioned candidate to perform nudging. Some authors even define nudging as an act performed by the government, or as a policy tool (Grüne-Yanoff, 2018;Häußermann, 2020). This can be attributed to Thaler and Sunstein's (2008) plea for governmental nudging to improve citizen wellbeing.…”

Section: Nudgermentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Sugden asks: “Even if we can specify what it would mean to have these supernatural powers, how do we discover how some ordinary human being would act if he were somehow to acquire them?” (Sugden, 2008: 232). Therefore, the reconstruction of true preferences is criticized as “preference purification” (Häußermann, 2020: 47) or preference “laundering” (Dold and Schubert 2018: 226). The true preferences critique of welfare promoting nudges is thus that since it is impossible to reconstruct someone’s true preferences, true preferences cannot be used as a justification for nudging.…”

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…For proponents of welfare nudges, the reason that agents fail to optimise their welfare is that due to bounded rationality, willpower and self-interest, agents fail to make optimal choices. Agents suffer from “limitations of attention, information, cognitive ability, or self-control” (Häußermann, 2020: 47) and hence fail to identify which choices will lead to the greatest welfare. Instead of reasoning about their preferences, agents rely on fast heuristics, which make them susceptible to biases such as hyperbolic discounting, status quo bias, endowment effects, hot and cold states, social proof, and optimism- and availability bias (Kahneman, 2011).…”

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

“…They maintain saving accounts while paying for expensive credit (Thaler, 2015). The key conviction in a large part of the literature on nudging is that “inconsistent choices may be treated as mistakes” (Häußermann, 2020: 47).…”

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

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Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging

Kuyer

Gordijn

2023

Rationality and Society

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In this article, we systematically review the literature on the ethics of nudging. Since the publication of the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in 2008, a rich literature has been developed on the question whether it is ethical to nudge people. This is an important area for research as nudges are commonly used by governments and private corporations to alter the behaviour of citizens and consumers. In order to gain a complete overview of this literature, we conduct a systematic search of academic sources. We investigate which ethical issues with nudging are discussed. We find four major ethical issues, namely worries regarding 1) autonomy, 2) welfare, 3) long-term adverse effects, and 4) democracy and deliberation. We discuss each ethical issue by highlighting how it is defined, what the critique constitutes, what its sub-issues are, and which defences of nudging have been argued for. In this way, the systematic literature review provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on the ethics of nudging to date. The results of our systematic review contribute to a better understanding of the ethical issues with nudging, as well as of the current state of the literature on these topics.

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Section: Nudgermentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Ethical Issue: Welfarementioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging

Kuyer

Gordijn

2023

Rationality and Society

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“…Though any attempt to shift others’ behaviour risks accusations of exerting paternalism over others’ lives (Leggett, 2014) and unintended consequences—especially when consumer research and behavioural theory are lacking (Veríssimo et al., 2019). Thus, behaviour change efforts of any kind should be implemented cautiously, with careful thought about their potential negative impacts on target groups (Häußermann, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using theory and evidence to design behaviour change interventions for reducing unsustainable wildlife consumption

et al. 2021

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Nudge Me If You Can! Why Order Ethicists Should Embrace the Nudge Approach

Mukerji

Mannino

2022

J Bus Ethics

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Order ethicists favour incentives as a means for making moral progress but largely ignore an alternative method, namely, nudging, which has come to prominence through the work of behavioural scientists in recent years. In this paper, we suggest that this is a mistake. Order ethicists have no reason to ignore nudging as an alternative method. Arguments they might press against it include worries about paternalism, manipulation, autonomy, and unintended bad consequences. These are, we argue, largely unfounded insofar as they involve misconceptions or affect incentives as well. In particular, we contend that only some, but not all, nudges are paternalistic, manipulative, and autonomy-reducing. The same is true of incentives. Also, both nudges and incentives can have unintended bad consequences. Therefore, order ethicists cannot endorse arguments against nudges without undermining their favourable view of incentives. In addition, there might be positive reasons to prefer nudges to incentives, for instance, when they are more freedom-preserving, more effective, cheaper, easier to implement, or less inequality-inducing than the latter.

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Nudging and Participation: a Contractualist Approach to Behavioural Policy

Cited by 8 publications

References 118 publications

Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging

Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging

Using theory and evidence to design behaviour change interventions for reducing unsustainable wildlife consumption

Nudge Me If You Can! Why Order Ethicists Should Embrace the Nudge Approach

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