Comments on Philosophy, et cetera: Manipulation and Rationality

Richard, it's true, it's not clear to me whether t...

2009-06-05T18:03:57.623-04:00

Richard, it's true, it's not clear to me whether the nudge cigarette case is manipulation or not -- but isn't the job of a theory of X to help us figure out, where our intuitions are clear, whether some particular thing is an instance of X?

So take, for example, the following claim:

P is manipulation to the extent that P constitutes an attempt to influence someone's behavior without giving them reasons for behaving as desired.

I take it that this plausible definition would give us an answer on the nudge sorts of questions...

Thom - yet such concerns seem surprisingly common ...

2009-06-05T16:40:17.694-04:00

Thom - yet such concerns seem surprisingly common (I linked to an example in the post).

ADHR - yes, certainly; I believe Sunstein and Thaler also insist on a simple ("one click") opt-out option, even in cases where we decide that people should be "in" (e.g. as organ donors) by default. So I don't see any implied paternalism here.

Shouldn't we make such nudges as transparent as po...

2009-06-05T14:23:56.455-04:00

Shouldn't we make such nudges as transparent as possible? I worry about the paternalism implied in the idea of overcoming inherent biases in favour of rationality.

I think this is correct. Obviously so. I wouldn'...

2009-06-05T13:30:26.677-04:00

I think this is correct. Obviously so. I wouldn't have anticipated someone calling 'nudges' problematically manipulative, especially since there's going to be a default one way or the other in the first place.

Is it any clearer to you whether this is a case of...

2009-06-05T10:03:47.586-04:00

Is it any clearer to you whether this is a case of manipulation? If not, then that would seem to support my account. Hard or unclear cases regarding the question of manipulation will coincide with hard/unclear questions of rational choice.

(Of course, just because an answer is non-obvious doesn't mean that there isn't an answer.)

It seems unwise to have an account of manipulation...

2009-06-05T01:06:12.208-04:00

It seems unwise to have an account of manipulation that demands an underlying theory of rationality -- there are lots of cases where no such theory will be available.

Take the nudge cases. Suppose I have a high discount factor for cigarettes -- if someone does some nudge-style tinkering to make the long-term cost more salient than the short-term pleasure, are they supporting my rationality or undermining it? It doesn't seem at all clear to me.