From New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein, a brisk, provocative book that shows what freedom really means―and requires―today
In this pathbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein asks us to rethink freedom. He shows that freedom of choice isn’t nearly enough. To be free, we must also be able to navigate life. People often need something like a GPS device to help them get where they want to go―whether the issue involves health, money, jobs, children, or relationships.
In both rich and poor countries, citizens often have no idea how to get to their desired destination. That is why they are unfree. People also face serious problems of self-control, as many of them make decisions today that can make their lives worse tomorrow. And in some cases, we would be just as happy with other choices, whether a different partner, career, or place to live―which raises the difficult question of which outcome best promotes our well-being.
Accessible and lively, and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, religion, and the arts, as well as social science and the law, On Freedom explores a crucial dimension of the human condition that philosophers and economists have long missed―and shows what it would take to make freedom real.
Cass R. Sunstein is an American legal scholar, particularly in the fields of constitutional law, administrative law, environmental law, and law and behavioral economics, who currently is the Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the Obama administration. For 27 years, Sunstein taught at the University of Chicago Law School, where he continues to teach as the Harry Kalven Visiting Professor. Sunstein is currently Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, where he is on leave while working in the Obama administration.
In this short book of 136 pages, Cass Sunstein makes the case that freedom is enhanced by the intentional restriction or gentle manipulation of free choice. Just as a GPS system guides you to the desired destination while preserving your freedom to take an alternate route, “nudges” can point you in the right behavioral direction while preserving your ability to choose otherwise.
A simple example is automatic enrollment in a 401K retirement savings program. This particular “nudge” is beneficial because it helps to overcome two common biases. The “present bias” makes it difficult for people to save for the future, and the “default option bias” makes it difficult for people to make changes to the status quo.
These two biases, acting together, prevent people from enrolling in retirement plans that are clearly beneficial, and so the “nudge” of automatic enrollment solves the problem. It enables people to make the right decision while still preserving their freedom to opt out. In this way, a nudge can be said to enhance freedom because, without a behavioral GPS system, people have difficulty navigating to their desired destinations in life.
All nudges work in this way, and in many cases the result is clearly beneficial. In the above example, if the person wants to save for the future, but has self-control problems in regard to spending, they will probably appreciate the automatic enrollment. In this case, the desired behavior is known by the chooser and the “choice architect” can easily identify the appropriate nudge.
But problems arise when the determination of the appropriate behavior is debatable. The ability of a “choice architect” to manipulate behavior to a desired end sounds a lot like coercion, and frankly, the idea of “choice architects” working for the government sounds like something out of a George Orwell novel.
However, as Sunstein explains, nudges are different from coercion because all nudges preserve freedom of choice. Any decision will already include a default option, whether it is consciously designed or not; in the example of 401K enrollment, non-automatic enrollment is nudging people to not save for the future. The nudge of automatic enrollment is simply presenting a more desirable default option from the perspective of informed choosers.
Informed choosers are choosers that are not influenced by nudges. They would enroll in 401K programs regardless of the default option, and so the appropriate nudge will align with these optimal choosers. And again, if you don’t like automatic enrollment in the 401K program, you can simply opt out.
On the other hand, the default option bias means that most people will not opt out, so in this way the choice architect does have quite a bit of influence depending on which behavior they’re trying to promote. This can get tricky depending on the situation.
If the chooser doesn’t have a clear preference, how does the choice architect decide which default option to present? For example, which is better, automatic enrollment in bronze medical plans, with low premiums and high deductibles, or gold medical plans, with high premiums and low deductibles?
How do you know which to choose? Do you go by the preferences of the chooser before or after the nudge, since some people have a different preference after being nudged? Or do you go by the option that promotes well-being in general?
One approach is to abide by the choices of informed choosers who are not affected by nudges either way, as described above. The default option is simply the option informed choosers would pick in any scenario. This approach seems reasonable, but only when the choices do not result in general harm. People, whether well-informed or not, sometimes exhibit behavioral biases that result in less than optimal behavior, and the point of nudges in the first place is to enhance outcomes.
For example, informed choosers might bypass healthy foods placed at the front location of a buffet for better tasting but unhealthy foods. In this case, it’s probably not a good idea to move the healthy foods to the back, especially if people will eat more healthy foods if they are placed up front. This is reinforced by the fact that many people will claim, after the meal, that they were glad they skipped the fried food and chose the salad instead. Their preferences before and after the meal changed, and it is their after-meal preferences that should be prioritized because this preference results in better health.
As you can see, nudges are not always straightforward, and careful consideration must be given when navigating the fine line between promoting beneficial behavior and coercion, and even when determining what the beneficial behavior is in the first place. Maybe eating better tasting foods is more important than marginal gains in health. Is it really moral for the choice architects to make this decision?
Despite the difficulties, in many cases it is clearly desirable to engineer choices in a way that nudges people towards better behavior, considering that you cannot avoid presenting a default option. Some real-life examples of beneficial nudges include the automatic enrollment in free lunch programs that provide millions of children with school lunch; automatic voter registration that could mean greater turn-out at the polls; graphic images of lung disease on cigarette containers to discourage smoking; and adding green arrows to the floor of a grocery store pointing to the produce section.
As for the book itself, it would have been nice to see more real-world examples rather than strictly hypotheticals, and the ideas could have probably been condensed into a long-form article rather than a book. But for a quick read it does a decent job of raising consciousness to the neglected problem of navigability in discussions of freedom. It raises the following difficult question: in what sense can someone claim to be free if they don’t know how to get to their desired destination, or if they cannot solve their problems of self-control?
Rather than allowing people to fend for themselves unguided, the use of nudges, employed carefully and thoughtfully, can go a long way in improving people’s lives while preserving freedom of choice.
Features in the environment affect decisions people make. Businesses would not spend $billions on advertising if it had no influence on consumer behavior. Research shows that people cheat less on a paid task when they are asked to recall the Ten Commandments just before starting. Such interventions don't force decisions on us, but we tend to respond differently in one circumstance than in another.
This short book is about "nudges," which are deliberate interventions in the environment that steer people in certain directions, but that also preserve freedom of choice. A PSA reminding viewers not to drink and drive is an example of a "nudge." Ditto for messages against smoking and distracted driving. Unlike a legal mandate or ban, nudges leave people free to make their own decisions. Those decisions may be influenced, however, by the "choice architecture."
Though nudges happen all the time, they are controversial mainly when they come from government. Cass Sunstein analyzes how to keep nudges compatible with choice so that people remain free to ignore the nudge.
Where people are poorly informed, their free choice may harm them; ditto where they are deceived, manipulated or enticed to make a decision that is against their interest. The best way to nudge, Sunstein concludes, is with educative nudges that help people make informed choices. When people are provided with accurate information they may lack, their abilty to make good decisions is enhanced.
To those who dislike govenment nudges, Sunstein reminds them that nudges are inevitable. "If the law establishes contract, property, and tort law, it will be nudging, if only because it will set out default rules, which establish what happens if people do nothing." Consequently,."It is pointless to exclaim 'do not nudge.'"
Critics of government nudges are suspicious of government, and with good reason. But their principal focus should be on mandates, bans, subsidies, and taxes, not nudges that preserve freedom of choice. Government nudges should be subject to critical scrutiny, however.
"Many nudges are designed to increase the likelihood that people’s choices will improve their own well-being. In such cases, the central goal of nudging is to “make choosers better off, as judged by themselves."
How should choice architects decide which choices to facilitate? Sunstein advocates the Ben-thamite approach: architects should craft nudges that really do promote people’s well-being. The difference between a nudge and manipulation is that the latter tricks people with deceptive advertising to serve the interest of the manipulator at the expense of its targets.
A recent estimate is if one percent of Medicaid recipients stopped smoking, it would save the government program $2.6 billion a year. If nudges could do the job, it would be well worth doing, both to save money and to improve the health of the quitters.
A more thorough source on this topic is in Sunstein's earlier book with Richard Thaler, NUDGE: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008). On Freedom is a succinct and informative introduction to the topic. ###
On Freedom supplies a concise compendium of worthy considerations when applying behavioral nudges, to determine whether they may enhance or constrict freedom.
I read this shortly after finishing How to Be Free: An Ancient Guide to the Stoic Life, and much as I respect Mr. Sunstein, he can’t compete with Epictetus and the stoics. In comparison to How to be Free, which is about the same length, On Freedom feels narrow and constrained. It’s less about freedom, as most people would understand it, and more an extension of Sunstein’s research on nudges and encouraging people onto certain paths and decisions.
How to Be Free considers freedom as something that arises from within a person – an individual choice independent of circumstance. Sunstein takes an oddly paternalist view that seems to suggest freedom is dictated by those who run a society.
I honestly don’t know what I would have thought of this book if I hadn’t read Epictetus first. As I did, all I can say is: If looking for a brief book on freedom, go read A.A. Long’s translation. If looking for a book by Cass Sunstein, let me suggest On Rumors or Impeachment. Not recommended.
Case Sunstein co-wrote Nudge with Richard Thaler and continued in many other publications including this essay praising the Nudge. This essay examines how Freedom is affected by the use of nudges. I enjoyed how Sunstein started out by describing freedom and how navigability comes into play, but when it came to describing how nudges don’t affect freedom he fell short. He didn’t touch on how the general moral good might not be the moral good of the person nudged, and many of his examples were simplistic and made the implicit assumptions that life is black and white and humans are simplistic in their actions. In order to describe how “aware” he is of the relevance and nuance of freedom, he quoted 1984 many times but not in a way that actually lends to the argument or makes much sense, just makes the reader assume that they *should* understand the point even though there was no deliberate explanation other than a fanciful relationship between a quote and an argument. Finally, Sunstein is a republican or republican-leaning. A point that he and Thaler could not but hint at in Nudge, and now openly implies here. I can only understand that his moral views are deeply Christian and as such believe in the moral compass of the highest good in a government with Christian leaning principles to guide choice architecture. Obviously, this goes against freedom.
In 90 paginette striminzite non si può pretendere di sviscerare un argomento cosí vasto e complesso come quello della libertà. Sicuramente, però, i punti di vista dell’autore sono originali, e basati sui suoi studî di economia comportamentale, e in particolare sui pungoli, sui pregiudizi e sulle architetture della scelta. Si concentra molto sulle scelte che noi umani facciamo ogni giorno, e su come vengono condizionante, e sul perché sia desiderabile (o no) condizionarle. Senza dubbio, anche per una maggior comprensione, consiglio la lettura anche del libro —molto piú corposo e argomentato— « Nudge: La spinta gentile.», scritto insieme al premio Nobel e collega Richard Thaler.
Consigliata la lettura, ma magari prendendo il libello in prestito in biblioteca, perché si legge davvero molto velocemente (neanche due ore).
For readers interested in behavioral economics as they pertain to "nudging" choosers into considering decisions typically made by the well-informed and generally leading to the most beneficial result for the largest number of choosers, start with Nudge. This book adds some additional color to that text, suggesting that choice architects should also consider navigability as a crucial criterion in true freedom of choice (without the means to navigate a desired choice, even when available, is one truly free to make said choice?), and that they should also look to promote decisions that leave the chooser happiest or best off "as judged by" the chooser themselves -- at the very least, that criterion should restrict the "universe of candidate solutions," making it easier to determine the eventual choice architecture.
Sunstein writes in such a clear and simple way, using mundane but relatable examples, so that readers can fully understand his argument — which actually dives into a pretty philosophical area. I can only wish that I can write like him. I can’t recommend this book enough to anyone curious about whether freedom of choice alone is the best way to maximize our well-being, because Sunstein is very persuasive in revealing the gaps of neg. freedom alone. (The GPS analogy is probably the best analogy I’ve ever come across, and the contrast between the final too quotes was so poignant and poetic, which I definitely did not expect!)
Non è una riflessione filosofica o politica (solo in minima parte) sulla realtà bensì una lunga disquisizione sul concetto di "nudge" (coniato dall'autore in un altro libro) e di come possa essere applicato con successo alla società contemporanea. Il tutto sempre considerando lo sfondo giuridico-costituzinale degli USA, non per niente Sunstein è uno studioso di diritto legale americano.
Per quanto mi riguarda trovo la teoria del nudge paternalistica e del tutto indatta a fornire ciò di cui realmente le persone avrebbero bisogno, ossia strumenti critici ed opportunità concrete.
The gist of this lecture-cum-short book can be summed up in this sentence: “Obstacles to navigability decrease freedom, even if people retain freedom of choice.” I had never thought about freedom in this context but then it became apparent to me immediately how so many poorly/difficult to navigate processes in ours and any society limit freedom. The book also discusses choice architecture and nudging.
I loved how concise this book was! It was full of interesting information and cleverly written. I am fascinated by the concept of Freedom, as it is one of my core values, and this book added a dimension to my thinking about Freedom - that of Navigability. Read the book to understand what that last word encapsulates.
A wonderful little jump into the world of nudging and behaviour insight through an ethics lens. I found the questions around navigability fascinating. Sunstein also manages to use clear examples, allowing the reader to understand complexities of choice architecture and how we can use ethics to better navigate nudge-based interventions
A few years ago, Sunstein and Thaler developed the idea of "nudges", which steer (but don't force) people toward outcomes that they are likely to value. That concept is not well-developed here, so if you'd like to understand it—and you should—I heartily recommend the book Nudges, which is quite readable and is one of my very favorite book.
In this very short book, Sunstein argues that "nudges" may increase freedom. I am a big fan of the concept, though “happiness” or “satisfaction” are more clearly realized than “freedom” per se. And in any case, the book is too short to do the concept justice.
Typical Sunstein-ian nudge faire on how the environment that choices are made affect underlying freedoms. Like much of the nudge work, heuristics are viewed as a negative rather than a positive, ideas of bias wins out over the idea of adaptive toolboxes Gigerenzer. Thoughtful, but incomplete, musings on the relationship of choice, behavioral theory, and humanism more broadly.
This book is a short, well presented, study of about 1/100th of the topic of Human freedom. The questions he asks are worth asking and his analysis is fairly well thought out within a very narrow (but relevant) set of concerns. I am happy to have read this book and expect to find it useful.
Troppe pagine per esprimere un concetto semplice. Spunti di riflessione abbastanza piatti e insipidi. Temi interessanti soprattutto per i cosiddetti "architetti della scelta" e la progettazione di esperienze.
I teach classes on Nudge theory, especially to people from the social sector, and I am often asked about the ethics of it. This book is highly recommended to all those who worry about whether Nudge Theory is compatible with their own liberal values.
Discusses ethical implications of choice architecture (implementing the findings of behavioral economics research to nudge people into making good decisions) and how to avoid encroaching on individuals’ freedoms.
Very quick read and an interesting introduction to the concepts of “nudging” and choice architecture from the field of behavioral economics, as they apply to our personal freedom.
Originally written as a speech, probably would be much more enjoyable that way. Nevertheless great arguments for the support of the "libertarian paternalism" of nudges.
Cass Sunstein continues to plough ahead with his theory of nudging, despite it having problematic psychological, economic and sociological foundations. It's just not a very good book.