Abstract
In the last chapter, I discussed practical problems with libertarian paternalism based on information and interests, but I couldn’t seem to avoid the closely related ethical issues regarding respect and autonomy that are raised by value substitution. In a way, value substitution has been in the background since the first chapter of this book, since any economic model used to explain and predict behavior has to assume some goals that are likely not the goals of any real-world person. In that case, value substitution is a problem with designing models and interpreting results—a methodological problem—but it becomes an ethical problem largely when policymakers use these models to influence behavior, especially when they presume to do it in people’s interests. In other words, it becomes morally problematic when those in power act on the recommendations of behavioral economists, and the theoretical issues with behavioral economics are integrated into policy and start influencing people’s lives.
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Notes
Philosopher Immanuel Kant made this argument in his 1797 book The Metaphysics of Morals, ed. Mary Gregor (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 231. (This is standard pagination based on the Prussian Academy edition of his complete works. All citations of Kant’s work herein will give this pagination, which is used in all reputable editions of his work.)
John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, ed. D. Spitz (New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), pp. 10–11.
See Joel Feinberg, Harm to Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 12–16.
Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 106–107.
Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, “Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron,” University of Chicago Law Review 70 (2001): 1159–1202, at p. 1162.
Gerald Dworkin, The Theory and Practice of Autonomy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), p. 123.
Immanuel Kant, Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals, trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), pp. 429–430.
Daniel M. Hausman and Brynn Welch, “Debate: To Nudge or Not to Nudge,” Journal of Political Philosophy 18 (2010): 123–136, at p. 130.
Onora O’Neill, “Between Consenting Adults,” in Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant’s Practical Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 105–125, at p. 110.
To take this even further, Hausman and Welch raise the specter of subliminal messaging as the natural extension of the libertarian paternalist philosophy and argue against Sunstein and Thaler’s dismissal of the idea. (See “Debate: To Nudge or Not to Nudge,” pp. 130–132, and also Luc Bovens, “The Ethics of Nudge,” in Till Grüne-Yanoof and Sven Ove Hansson (eds.), Preference Change: Approaches from Philosophy, Economics and Psychology, (Dordrecht: Springer, 2009), pp. 207–219, at pp. 216–217.)
A study like this one: James J. Choi, David Laibson, Brigitte C. Madrian, and Andrew Metrick, “Defined Contribution Pensions: Plan Rules, Participant Choices, and the Path of Least Resistance,” in James M. Poterba (ed.), Tax Policy and the Economy, vol. 16 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002), pp. 67–113, at p. 86, cited in Sunstein and Thaler, “Libertarian Paternalism Is Not an Oxymoron,” p. 1173.
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© 2013 Mark D. White
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White, M.D. (2013). Why Nudges Are Unethical. In: The Manipulation of Choice. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313577_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137313577_5
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