Nudge, nudge

By W.W. | HOUSTON

REVISITING a hot topic from the middle of last decade, David Brooks of the New York Timesweighs in on a notional debate over so-called "libertarian paternalism", the idea that, in Mr Brooks' words, "[g]overnment doesn’t tell you what to do, but it gently biases the context so that you find it easier to do things you think are in your own self-interest". Mr Brooks then calls this debate for the "libertarian paternalists":

[T]he anti-paternalists win the debate in theory but the libertarian paternalists win it empirically. In theory, it is possible that gentle nudges will turn into intrusive diktats and the nanny state will drain individual responsibility.

But, in practice, it is hard to feel that my decision-making powers have been weakened because when I got my driver’s license enrolling in organ donation was the default option. It’s hard to feel that a cafeteria is insulting my liberty if it puts the healthy fruit in a prominent place and the unhealthy junk food in some faraway corner... The concrete benefits of these programs, which are empirically verifiable, should trump abstract theoretical objections.

But there aren't any "anti-paternalist" objections to making organ donation the default or featuring healthy food in cafeterias, because these ideas have nothing to do with paternalism.

I mean, what could organ donation possibly have to do with paternalism? How can the disposition of one's organs after one dies possibly redound to the welfare of one's corpse? This whole discussion is rife with this sort of conceptual and linguistic muddle. In "Nudge", the 2008 book by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler that brought the Orwellian terminology of "libertarian paternalism" to a popular audience, "libertarian" was used, sensibly enough, to mean "choice-preserving" and "paternalism" was used with such flagrant disregard of conventional meaning that it was made to include everything that might help anyone ever make a good decision. For example, in the "Nudge" scheme, signs on men's and women's restrooms would count as paternalistic "choice architecture" simply because they structure choices in a way that helps us do what's best by our own lights—in this case, not mortifying ourselves barging into the wrong restroom. But that's just muddle-headed. Helping others make good decisions by pointing them in the direction they want to go is called "being helpful", and has nothing to do with paternalism.

Paternalism has to do with making people go in a direction they don't want to go. The gist of paternalism is that it takes away choices other people think are bad for us to make. By definition, "choice-preserving" policy is not paternalistic policy. By definition, paternalistic policy is not libertarian. If "libertarian paternalism" is stipulated to be a programme of "choice-preserving decision architecture", to use Messrs Sunstein and Thaler's barbaric jargon, then "libertarian paternalism" is nothing but a profoundly confusing, completely superfluous synonym for anti-paternalism. In that case, there can be no debate between the "libertarian paternalist" and the anti-paternalist, and one side cannot win it "in theory", while the other side comes out ahead "empirically". Mr Brooks is confused.

The insidiousness of "libertarian paternalism" is not in the slippery slope from the non-coercive nudge to explicitly coercive limits on individual liberty. Rather, the problem is that, as a piece of language, "libertarian paternalism" renders difficult the ability to conceive of a principled distinction between policy that respects and policy that violates individual autonomy. But there is a distinction, and the ability to defend our liberty depends on maintaining it.

There is nothing novel in the idea of policy that "gently biases the context so that you find it easier to do things you think are in your own self-interest". It's an ancient and obviously worthwhile idea. Recent discoveries in behavioural psychology have taught us a little something about the mistakes to which we are prone, and those discoveries are well worth applying to the policies of governments, corporations, cafeterias and so on. By all means, move the fruit! By all means, default workers into retirement-saving plans that ratchet up in size over time! But nothing in these discoveries has any bearing whatsoever on the meaning of "paternalism" or "libertarian". If the sensitivity of human decision-making to the vagaries of context calls into question the wisdom of leaving citizens free to make decisions about their own welfare, then that would suggest an argument against libertarianism and for paternalism. Go ahead. Make the argument against autonomy, if you think it's an argument worth making. But, for God's sake, leave the English language alone.

(Photo credit: AFP)