Skip to main content
Menu

Main navigation

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
    LOADING...
  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit
    LOADING...
  • Publications
    • Studies
    • Commentary
    • Books
    • Reviews and Journals
    • Public Filings
    LOADING...
  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
    • Meet the Development Team

Issues

  • Constitution and Law
    • Constitutional Law
    • Criminal Justice
    • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Economics
    • Banking and Finance
    • Monetary Policy
    • Regulation
    • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Politics and Society
    • Education
    • Government and Politics
    • Health Care
    • Poverty and Social Welfare
    • Technology and Privacy
  • International
    • Defense and Foreign Policy
    • Global Freedom
    • Immigration
    • Trade Policy
Live Now

Cato at Liberty


  • Blog Home
  • RSS

Email Signup

Sign up to have blog posts delivered straight to your inbox!

Topics
  • Banking and Finance
  • Constitutional Law
  • Criminal Justice
  • Defense and Foreign Policy
  • Education
  • Free Speech and Civil Liberties
  • Global Freedom
  • Government and Politics
  • Health Care
  • Immigration
  • Monetary Policy
  • Poverty and Social Welfare
  • Regulation
  • Tax and Budget Policy
  • Technology and Privacy
  • Trade Policy
Archives
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • October 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • July 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • April 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • July 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • February 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • June 2009
  • May 2009
  • April 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • August 2007
  • July 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006
  • July 2006
  • June 2006
  • May 2006
  • April 2006
  • Show More
March 25, 2013 4:29PM

Three Cheers for Autonomy

By Trevor Burrus

SHARE

In today’s New York Times, philosopher Sarah Conly gives “Three Cheers for the Nanny State,” specifically, NYC’s famed big soda ban. Invoking aspects of the theory of “nudge,” made popular in a book by Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein, Conly argues that, sometimes, the government can rightfully save us from ourselves.

The popularity of “nudge theory” is closely tied to the recent spate of popular science books on the foibles of the human brain. Books such as Predictably Irrational and A Mind of Its Own are part of a new self-help fad: the idea that scientists studying the error-prone human brain can help us understand why we are unable to quit smoking, lose weight, and many other common problems.

It was only a matter of time until government regulators and their champions embraced this new science in order to put a fresh spin on an old impulse—their never-ending desire to save us from ourselves. But despite the valid insights of cognitive neuroscience, both nudge theory and Conly’s editorial are no more defensible than any other paternalism. We should not be deceived into believing that there is any new wine in those old wineskins.

The error at the heart of nudge theory is that scientists and regulators can discover what our true preferences are absent a choice that reveals those preferences. Traditional economics relies on the theory of “revealed preferences”—the idea that our choices reveal what, at that moment, we really want. This is not to say that we might later regret those choices or that some of those choices may be bad for us. Instead, it merely says that, given the information and desires you had at the time, your choice revealed your preference.

Nudge theory holds that “true preferences” can be discovered in a different way: by mapping the conditions under which we are prone to error and then divining our true preferences by asking what our choices would have been but-for those systematic biases. What results is not the traditional type of paternalism that imposes the preferences of regulators upon the citizens; instead it is new type of paternalism that imposes your “true” preferences upon yourself.

Do you constantly say you want to lose weight but never can find the time to exercise, or perhaps today was just a day when you really wanted a cheeseburger? Well, then regulators can help you achieve your true preferences. Do you wish you could quit smoking but the pressures of each day are made easier by cigarettes? Well, they can help you with that too.

The fundamental problem: Is there any reason the “you” who says he needs to lose weight is more “true” than the “you” who has a cheeseburger? Do you even know which preference is your “true” one? Does that question even make sense? The secondary problem: Is there any way for regulators to discover which is the true “you” and any reason for us to believe they have the incentives to do so? Moreover, can we trust them to not succumb to their own cognitive biases as they help nudge you onto the path towards your “true” self?

In Conly’s words, “the crucial point is that in some situations it’s just difficult for us to take in the relevant information and choose accordingly,” therefore “we need help.” And although she admits that it is not “always a mistake when someone does something imprudent,” the “needs of the majority” must be taken into account.

Although it is not explicitly stated, Conly is discussing costs imposed on "the majority" via the medical system, at least in the context of the big soda ban. Without these shared costs, Conly’s argument is much more difficult to make. With these shared costs, however, there is no personal lifestyle choice that cannot, on principle, be regulated under the theory that the “needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” And the Affordable Care Act is only increasing the collectivization of our health-care costs.

Conly hopes to avoid this slippery slope problem by invoking the rationality of regulators, which is a particularly odd thing to do in an opinion piece mostly dedicated to the irrationality of human beings. We need not worry, she says, because “successful paternalistic laws are done on the basis of a cost-benefit analysis: if it’s too painful, it’s not a good law.” Yet the painfulness here is, of course, subjective—for example, the pain of not being able to purchase a big soda or a pack of cigarettes. Yet these are exactly the sort of subjective pains that Conly and other proponents of nudge theory are prone to explain away by saying they aren’t “true” preferences.

And even if the slippery slope were true, argues Conly, “Banning a law on the grounds that it might lead to worse laws would mean we could have no laws whatsoever.” Here, again, she misses the point. We can ban laws that have no conceivable limiting principle, are based on faulty assumptions about human nature, and infantilize adults into wards of the state without worrying about undercutting all laws. 

Finally, Conly does not touch upon the broader consequences of having the government treat adults like children who do not know what is best for themselves. There is immense value in having decisional autonomy. John Stuart Mill, who Conly strangely invokes to justify her vein of paternalism, would have found her program abominable. In On Liberty, Mill wrote:

If a person possesses any tolerable amount of common sense and experience, his own mode of laying out his existence is the best, not because it is the best in itself, but because it is his own mode. Human beings are not like sheep; and even sheep are not undistinguishably alike. . . . If it were only that people have diversities of taste that is reason enough for not attempting to shape them all after one model. But different persons also require different conditions for their spiritual development . . . 

In other words, free choice is also valuable because it is your choice. But it is not surprising that Conly disagrees, seeing as she is the author of Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism.

The new paternalists are no different than the old paternalists. By invoking new scientific studies new paternalists hope to make their programs both easier to swallow and harder to see. While we sometimes might need to be saved from ourselves, that’s what family, friends, churches, and community are for. If the new paternalists takeover, however, who will save us from them?     

Related Tags
Constitutional Law, Regulation, Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies

Stay Connected to Cato

Sign up for the newsletter to receive periodic updates on Cato research, events, and publications.

View All Newsletters

1000 Massachusetts Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20001-5403
202-842-0200
Contact Us
Privacy

Footer 1

  • About
    • Annual Reports
    • Leadership
    • Jobs
    • Student Programs
    • Media Information
    • Store
    • Contact
  • Podcasts

Footer 2

  • Experts
    • Policy Scholars
    • Adjunct Scholars
    • Fellows
  • Events
    • Upcoming
    • Past
    • Event FAQs
    • Sphere Summit

Footer 3

  • Publications
    • Books
    • Cato Journal
    • Regulation
    • Cato Policy Report
    • Cato Supreme Court Review
    • Cato’s Letter
    • Human Freedom Index
    • Economic Freedom of the World
    • Cato Handbook for Policymakers

Footer 4

  • Blog
  • Donate
    • Sponsorship Benefits
    • Ways to Give
    • Planned Giving
Also from Cato Institute:
Libertarianism.org
|
Humanprogress.org
|
Downsizinggovernment.org