Nudges, Agency, Navigability, and Abstraction: A Reply to Critics

Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Special Issue on Nudges, Forthcoming

21 Pages Posted: 13 Mar 2015 Last revised: 25 Mar 2015

See all articles by Cass R. Sunstein

Cass R. Sunstein

Harvard Law School; Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS)

Date Written: March 23, 2015

Abstract

This essay, for a special issue of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology, responds to ten papers that explore the uses and limits of nudges and choice architecture. The essay has three general themes. The first involves the objection that nudging threatens human agency. My basic response is that human agency is fully retained (because nudges do not compromise freedom of choice) and that agency is always exercised in the context of some kind of choice architecture. The second theme involves the importance of having a sufficiently capacious sense of the category of nudges, and a full appreciation of the differences among them. Some nudges either enlist or combat behavioral biases but others do not, and even among those that do enlist or combat such biases, there are significant differences. The third general theme is the need to bring various concerns (including ethical ones) in close contact with particular examples. A legitimate point about default rules may not apply to warnings or reminders. An ethical objection to the use of social norms may not apply to information disclosure. Here as elsewhere, abstraction can be a trap. We continue to learn about the relevant ethical issues, about likely public reactions to nudging, and about differences across cultures and nations. Future progress will depend on a high level of concreteness, perhaps especially in dealing with the vexing problem of time-inconsistency.

Keywords: behavioral economics, nudges, choice architecture, default rules

JEL Classification: D003, D10, D11, D18, D60, D80, K0, K2

Suggested Citation

Sunstein, Cass R., Nudges, Agency, Navigability, and Abstraction: A Reply to Critics (March 23, 2015). Review of Philosophy and Psychology, Special Issue on Nudges, Forthcoming, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2577018

Cass R. Sunstein (Contact Author)

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Harvard University - Harvard Kennedy School (HKS) ( email )

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