Nudges and hard choices

Nudges are small changes in the presentation of options that make a predictable impact on people's decisions. Proponents of nudges often claim that they are justified as paternalistic interventions that respect autonomy: they lead people to make better choices, while still letting them choose f...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Raskoff, Sarah Zoe (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Wiley-Blackwell 2022
In: Bioethics
Year: 2022, Volume: 36, Issue: 9, Pages: 948-956
IxTheo Classification:NBE Anthropology
NCH Medical ethics
Further subjects:B Nudges
B incomplete preferences
B choice architecture
B Autonomy
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Summary:Nudges are small changes in the presentation of options that make a predictable impact on people's decisions. Proponents of nudges often claim that they are justified as paternalistic interventions that respect autonomy: they lead people to make better choices, while still letting them choose for themselves. However, existing work on nudges ignores the possibility of “hard choices”: cases where a person prefers one option in some respects, and another in other respects, but has no all-things-considered preference between the two. In this paper, I argue that many significant medical decisions are hard choices that provide patients with an opportunity to exercise a distinctive sort of “formative autonomy” by settling their preferences and committing themselves to weigh their values in a particular way. Since nudges risk infringing formative autonomy by depriving patients of this opportunity, their use in medical contexts should be sensitive to this risk.
ISSN:1467-8519
Contains:Enthalten in: Bioethics
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1111/bioe.13091