The Ethics of Influence: Government in the Age of Behavioral Science

Cover 1 Praise for The Ethics of Influence 3 Half-title 5 Series information 6 Title page 7 Copyright information 8 Dedication 9 Table of contents 11 Acknowledgments 12 Chapter 1 The Age of Behavioral Science 15 A Growing Movement 19 Ethics and Personal Agency 25 Government’s Burden of Justification 27 A Preview 29 Chapter 2 Choice and Its Architecture 32 What’s Coercion? Which Tools? 32 Our World and Welcome to It 34 Without incentives 35 Law 37 The Trap of Abstraction 40 Motivating Nudges 40 Three Distinctions 45 Choice Architecture and Visible Hands 49 The defense of spontaneous orders 50 Dangers and risks 54 Illicit Reasons and Transparency 55 Chapter 3 ‘‘As Judged by Themselves’’ 57 Informed Judgments? 59 Self-Control 60 Preferences about Preferences 61 Ex Ante Judgments or Ex Post Judgments? 62 Objectively Good Lives? 64 Chapter 4 Values 67 Welfare 67 Means paternalism 68 Mill’s argument 70 Learning 73 Autonomy 76 Dignity 81 Self-Government 86 Ignorant or Biased Officials 88 Chapter 5 Fifty Shades of Manipulation 92 A Definition 96 Autonomy, Dignity, and Welfare 98 Insulting Deliberation 101 Manipulating System 1 104 Testing Cases 104 What’s Wrong with Manipulation? 110 Autonomy and Dignity 110 Welfare 112 Manipulation with Consent: ‘‘I Welcome It!’’ 115 Transparency and Manipulation 116 Hiding something 116 Transparency does not justify manipulation 118 Transparency about psychology? 119 Democratically Authorized Manipulation 119 Unifying Strands 122 Compelled Speech 123 Regulating Manipulation 125 Consumer Protection 127 Manipulation: Final Words 128 Chapter 6 Do People Like Nudges? Empirical Findings 130 A Principled Public? 134 Popular Nudges 135 Unpopular Nudges 140 Why Are Some Nudges Unpopular? 143 Implicit Principles 143 Partisanship 147 Nudges vs. Mandates 148 Sweden and the United States 149 Nudging System 1? 154 Values, Systems, and Reactance 159 Partisan Nudge Bias 164 The Effects of Transparency 166 Five Conclusions 171 Chapter 7 Green by Default? Ethical Challenges for Environmental Protection 173 Green Defaults: An Illustrative Survey 176 Paper 177 Green Energy 178 Energy Efficiency 181 Smart Grids 182 Why Default Rules Matter 183 When Default Rules Do Not Stick 187 Green or Gray? 190 Consumers (Without Externalities) 190 Consumers and Third Parties 191 Active Choosing, Influenced Choice, and Personalization 193 Neutrality and Active Choice 193 Influenced Active Choosing 196 Green Personalization? Gray Personalization? 197 A Framework 198 Environmental Ethics 199 Chapter 8 Mandates 201 Against Mandates 203 Illustrations 205 Humility and Respect 212 A Very Brief Recapitulation 213 Appendix A American Evaluations of Thirty-Four Nudges 217 Appendix B Survey Questions 223 Appendix C Executive Order 13707: Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People 228 Executive Order - Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People 228 Index 231