Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-hc48f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-27T07:16:03.930Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Nudge FORGOOD

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2020

LEONHARD K. LADES Open the ORCID record for LEONHARD K. LADES [Opens in a new window]  and
LIAM DELANEY
LEONHARD K. LADES*
Affiliation:
University College Dublin, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy & UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy, Dublin 4, Ireland
LIAM DELANEY
Affiliation:
University College Dublin, School of Economics & UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy Dublin 4, Ireland
*
*Correspondence to: University College Dublin, School of Architecture, Planning and Environmental Policy, Dublin 4, Ireland. Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Insights from the behavioural sciences are increasingly used by governments and other organizations worldwide to ‘nudge’ people to make better decisions. Furthermore, a large philosophical literature has emerged on the ethical considerations on nudging human behaviour that has presented key challenges for the area, but is regularly omitted from discussion of policy design and administration. We present and discuss FORGOOD, an ethics framework that synthesizes the debate on the ethics of nudging in a memorable mnemonic. It suggests that nudgers should consider seven core ethical dimensions: Fairness, Openness, Respect, Goals, Opinions, Options and Delegation. The framework is designed to capture the key considerations in the philosophical debate about nudging human behaviour, while also being accessible for use in a range of public policy settings, as well as training.

Type
Article
Information
Behavioural Public Policy , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 75 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Akerlof, G. A., & Shiller, R. J. (2015), Phishing for Phools: The Economics of Manipulation and Deception, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alemanno, A., & Sibony, A.-L. (2015), Nudge and the Law: A European Perspective, London: Bloomsbury Publishing.Google Scholar
Alemanno, A., & Spina, A. (2014), ‘Nudging legally: on the checks and balances of behavioral regulation’, International Journal of Constitutional Law, 12, 429–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bar-Gill, O. (2019), ‘Symposium: algorithmic price discrimination when demand is a function of both preferences and (mis)perceptions’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 86, 217–254.Google Scholar
Barton, A., & Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2015), ‘From libertarian paternalism to nudging—and beyond’, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 6, 341–359.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Benartzi, S., Beshears, J., Milkman, K. L., Sunstein, C. R., Thaler, R. H., Shankar, M., … Galing, S. (2017), ‘Should governments invest more in nudging?’, Psychological Science, 28, 1041–1055.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bernheim, B. D. (2016), ‘The good, the bad, and the ugly: a unified approach to behavioral welfare economics’, Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis, 7, 12–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beshears, J., Choi, J. J., Laibson, D., & Madrian, B. C. (2008), ‘How are preferences revealed?’, Journal of Public Economics, 92, 1787–1794.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Binder, M. (2014), ‘Should evolutionary economists embrace libertarian paternalism?’, Journal of Evolutionary Economics, 24, 515–539.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Binder, M., & Lades, L. K. (2015), ‘Autonomy-enhancing paternalism’, Kyklos, 68, 3–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blumenthal-Barby, J. S., & Burroughs, H. (2012), ‘Seeking better health care outcomes: the ethics of using the “nudge”’, The American Journal of Bioethics, 12, 1–10.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bovens, L. (2009), ‘The ethics of nudge’, In Preference Change, Berlin: Springer, 207–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bovens, L. (2013), ‘Why couldn't I be nudged to dislike a Big Mac?’, Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 495–496.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bruns, H., Kantorowicz-Reznichenko, E., Klement, K., Jonsson, M. L., & Rahali, B. (2018), ‘Can nudges be transparent and yet effective?’, Journal of Economic Psychology, 65, 41–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bubb, R., & Pildes, R. H. (2014), ‘How behavioral economics trims its sails and why’, Harvard Law Review, 127, 13–29.Google Scholar
Camerer, C., Issacharoff, S., Loewenstein, G., O'Donoghue, T., & Rabin, M. (2003), ‘Regulation for conservatives: behavioral economics and the case for “asymmetric paternalism”’, University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 151, 1211–1254.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clavien, C. (2018), ‘Ethics of nudges: a general framework with a focus on shared preference justifications’, Journal of Moral Education, 47, 366–382.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conly, S. (2012), Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaton, A., & Cartwright, N. (2018), ‘Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials’, Social Science & Medicine, 210, 2–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dolan, P., King, D., Halpern, D., Hallsworth, M., & Vlaev, I. (2010), MINDSPACE. The Institute for Government. Retrieved from: https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publications/mindspaceGoogle Scholar
Fabbri, M., & Faure, M. (2018), ‘Toward a “constitution” for behavioral policy-making’, International Review of Economics, 65, 1–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Felsen, G., Castelo, N., & Reiner, P. B. (2013), ‘Decisional enhancement and autonomy: public attitudes towards overt and covert nudges’, Judgment & Decision Making, 8, 202–213.Google Scholar
Glaeser, E. L. (2006), ‘Paternalism and psychology’, University Of Chicago Law Review, 73, 133–156.Google Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2012), ‘Old wine in new casks: libertarian paternalism still violates liberal principles’, Social Choice and Welfare, 38, 635–645.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T. (2015), ‘Why behavioural policy needs mechanistic evidence’, Economics and Philosophy, 32, 1–21.Google Scholar
Grüne-Yanoff, T., & Hertwig, R. (2016), ‘Nudge versus boost: how coherent are policy and theory?’, Minds and Machines, 26, 149–183.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagman, W., Andersson, D., Västfjäll, D., & Tinghög, G. (2015), ‘Public views on policies involving nudges’, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 6, 439–453.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hagmann, D., Ho, E.H. & Loewenstein, G. (2019), ‘Nudging out support for a carbon tax’, Nature Climate Change, 9, 484–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, P. G. (2016), ‘The definition of nudge and libertarian paternalism: does the hand fit the glove?’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 7, 155–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hansen, P. G. (2019), The BASIC Toolkit: Tools and Ethics for Applied Behavioural Insights, Paris: Organisation for Economic Cooporation and Development (OECD).Google Scholar
Hansen, P. G., & Jespersen, A. M. (2013), ‘Nudge and the manipulation of choice: a framework for the responsible use of the nudge approach to behaviour change in public policy’, European Journal of Risk Regulation, 4, 3–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. M. (2012), Preference, Value, Choice, and Welfare. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hausman, D. M., & Welch, B. (2010), ‘Debate: to nudge or not to nudge*’, Journal of Political Philosophy, 18, 123–136.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heidhues, P., & Kőszegi, B. (2017), ‘Naïveté-based discrimination’, The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132, 1019–1054.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hertwig, R. (2017), ‘When to consider boosting: some rules for policy-makers’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1, 143–161.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jachimowicz, J., Matz, S., & Polonski, V. (2017), The Behavioral Scientist's Ethics Checklist. Retrieved October 8, 2018, from The Behavioral Scientist's Ethics Checklist website. Retrieved from: http://behavioralscientist.org/behavioral-scientists-ethics-checklist/Google Scholar
Jung, J. Y., & Mellers, B. A. (2016), ‘American attitudes toward nudges’, Judgment & Decision Making, 11.Google Scholar
Kahneman, D. (2011), Thinking, Fast and Slow, New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux.Google Scholar
Klein, G. (2007), ‘Performing a project premortem’, Harvard Business Review, 85, 18–19.Google Scholar
Loewenstein, G., Bryce, C., Hagmann, D., & Rajpal, S. (2015), ‘Warning: you are about to be nudged’, Behavioral Science & Policy, 1, 35–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Loewenstein, G., & Chater, N. (2017), ‘Putting nudges in perspective’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1, 26–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mittelstadt, B. D., & Floridi, L. (2016), ‘The ethics of Big Data: current and foreseeable issues in biomedical contexts’, Science and Engineering Ethics, 22, 303–341.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Mullainathan, S., & Shafir, E. (2013), Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much, New York: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Noggle, R. (2018), ‘Manipulation, salience, and nudges’, Bioethics, 32, 164–170.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nys, T. R., & Engelen, B. (2017), ‘Judging nudging: answering the manipulation objection’, Political Studies, 65, 199–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, A. (2013), ‘From nudging to budging: using behavioural economics to inform public sector policy’, Journal of Social Policy, 42, 685–700.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oliver, A. (2019), ‘Towards a New Political Economy of Behavioral Public Policy’, Public Administration Review. Retrieved from: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/puar.13093CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paunov, Y., Wänke, M., & Vogel, T. (2019), ‘Transparency effects on policy compliance: disclosing how defaults work can enhance their effectiveness’, Behavioural Public Policy, 3, 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rawls, J. (2009), A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Read, D. (2006), ‘Which side are you on? The ethics of self-command’, Journal of Economic Psychology, 27, 681–693.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rebonato, R. (2012), Taking Liberties: A Critical Examination of Libertarian Paternalism, London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Rebonato, R. (2014), ‘A critical assessment of libertarian paternalism’, Journal of Consumer Policy, 37, 357–396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rizzo, M. J., & Whitman, D. G. (2009), ‘The knowledge problem of new paternalism’, Brigham Young University Law Review, 2009, 905–968.Google Scholar
Saghai, Y. (2013), ‘Salvaging the concept of nudge’, Journal of Medical Ethics, 39, 487–493.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schubert, C. (2017), ‘Green nudges: do they work? Are they ethical?’, Ecological Economics, 132, 329–342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. (2008), ‘Why incoherent preferences do not justify paternalism’, Constitutional Political Economy, 19, 226–248.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sugden, R. (2017), ‘Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?’, International Review of Economics, 64, 113–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2014), Why Nudge?: The Politics of Libertarian Paternalism, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2015), ‘The ethics of nudging’, Yale Journal on Regulation, 32, 413.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2016a), ‘People prefer system 2 nudges (kind of)’, Duke Law Journal, 66, 121.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2016b), The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science, New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2018a), ‘“Better off, as judged by themselves”: a comment on evaluating nudges’, International Review of Economics, 65, 1–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2018b), ‘Misconceptions about nudges’, Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, 2, 61–67.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. R. (2019), On Freedom, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Sunstein, C. (2020), ‘Sludge audits’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1–20. doi: 10.1017/bpp.2019.32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R., & Reisch, L. A. (2019), Trusting Nudges: Toward a Bill of Rights for Nudging, Abingdon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R., & Thaler, R. H. (2003), ‘Libertarian paternalism is not an oxymoron’, The University of Chicago Law Review, 70, 1159–1202.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sunstein, C. R., Reisch, L. A., & Rauber, J. (2018), ‘A worldwide consensus on nudging? Not quite, but almost’, Regulation & Governance, 12, 3–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tannenbaum, D., Fox, C. R., & Rogers, T. (2017), ‘On the misplaced politics of behavioural policy interventions’, Nature Human Behaviour, 1, 0130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. (2015), The Power of Nudges, for Good and Bad. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/upshot/the-power-of-nudges-for-good-and-bad.htmlGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H. (2018), ‘Nudge, not sludge’, Science, 361, 431–431.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008), Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
The Behavioural Insights Team (2014), EAST: Four Simple Ways to Apply Behavioural Insights. Retrieved from: https://www.behaviouralinsights.co.uk/publications/east-four-simple-ways-to-apply-behavioural-insights/Google Scholar
Vugts, A., Hoven, M. V. D., Vet, E. D., & Verweij, M. (2018), ‘How autonomy is understood in discussions on the ethics of nudging’, Behavioural Public Policy, 1–16.Google Scholar
Waldron, J. (2014), It's All for Your Own Good. The New York Review of Books. Retrieved from: https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/10/09/cass-sunstein-its-all-your-own-good/Google Scholar
White, M. (2013), The Manipulation of Choice: Ethics and Libertarian Paternalism, Berlin: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar