Notes on Nudging
or Why the "publicity principle" is their strongest argument
Thaler and Sunstein provide an interesting thought in the concluding chapter of their book on nudges. Guided by their principles of libertarian paternalism and their ground belief in"transparency" they reflect a maybe crucial doubt of the idea to nudge people, namely if nudging isn't manipulating people in a way that subliminal advertising does its job? It's quite a quandary if they point to their good will and hoping that all's well that ends well.
I'll quote from their defence that motivates a lot of thought in their book:
“Our own libertarian condition, requiring low-cost opt-out rights, reduces the steepness of the ostensibly slippery slope. Our proposals are emphatically designed to retain freedom of choice. In many domains, from education to environmental protection to medical malpractice to marriage, we would create such freedom where it does not now exist. So long as paternalistic interventions can be easily avoided by those who seek to adopt a course of their own, the risks decried by antipaternalists are modest. Slippery-slope arguments are most convincing when it is not possible to distinguish the proposed course of action from abhorrent, unacceptable, or scary courses of action. Because libertarian paternalists retain freedom of choice, we can say, with conviction, that our own approach opposes the most objectionable kinds of government intervention.[…] In many cases, some kind of nudge is inevitable, and so it is pointless to ask government simply to stand aside. Choice architects, whether private or public, must do something. If the government is going to adopt a prescription drug plan, some sort of choice architecture must be put in place. With respect to pollution, rules have to be established, even if only to say that polluters face no liability and may pollute with impunity. Even if states dispensed with both marriage and civil unions, contract law would have to be available to say what disbanding couples owe each other (if anything).Often life turns up problems that people did not anticipate. Both private and public institutions need rules to determine how such situations are handled. When those rules seem invisible, it is because people find them so obvious and so sensible that they do not see them as rules at all. But the rules are nonetheless there, and sometimes they are not so sensible.” (Thaler and Sunstein, p. 237)
The flipside of this sometimes "invisible" nature of choice architecture makes it prone to critic. Here is where the authors see the problem, when they are asking themselves:
"So do we embrace subliminal advertising—so long as it is in the interest of desirable ends? What limits should be placed on private or public manipulation as such? A general objection to libertarian paternalism, and to certain kinds of nudges, might be that they are insidious—that they empower government to maneuver people in its preferred directions, and at the same time provide officials with excellent tools by which to accomplish that task. Compare subliminal advertising to something just as cunning. If you want people to lose weight, one effective strategy is to put mirrors in the cafeteria. When people see themselves in the mirror, they may eat less if they are chubby. Is this okay? And if mirrors are acceptable, what about mirrors that are intentionally unflattering? (We seem to run into more of those every year.) Are such mirrors an acceptable strategy for our friend Carolyn in the cafeteria? If so, what should we think about flattering mirrors in a fast food restaurant?" (p. 244)
The good news are that besides their doubts they opt for a strategy which they name after a concept of John Rawls "publicity principle", that is exposing and defending publicly their proposals, which honors them not only as good scientist.
In the end there remain two convictions: 1. "understanding of choice architecture, and the power of nudges, will lead others to think of creative ways to improve human lives" (p. 252) and 2."nudging" is worth a continuous research! (Follow their blog under: http://nudges.org)