Department of Philosophy, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.
J Med Ethics. 2017 Aug;43(8):495-500. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2017-104153. Epub 2017 May 19.
Nudges-policy proposals informed by work in behavioural economics and psychology that are designed to lead to better decision-making or better behaviour-are controversial. Critics allege that they bypass our deliberative capacities, thereby undermining autonomy and responsible agency. In this paper, I identify a kind of nudge I call a nudge to reason, which make us more responsive to genuine evidence. I argue that at least some nudges to reason do not bypass our deliberative capacities. Instead, use of these nudges should be seen as appeals to mechanisms partially constitutive of these capacities, and therefore as benign (so far as autonomy and responsible agency are concerned). I sketch some concrete proposals for nudges to reason which are especially important given the apparent widespread resistance to evidence seen in recent political events.
助推——受行为经济学和心理学工作启发的政策建议,旨在引导人们做出更好的决策或表现出更好的行为——颇具争议。批评者声称,它们绕过了我们的深思熟虑能力,从而破坏了自主性和负责任的代理。在本文中,我确定了一种我称之为“推理助推”的助推,它使我们对真正的证据更有反应。我认为,至少有一些推理助推并没有绕过我们的深思熟虑能力。相反,应该将这些助推视为对部分构成这些能力的机制的呼吁,因此是良性的(就自主性和负责任的代理而言)。鉴于最近政治事件中明显普遍存在对证据的抵制,我概述了一些特别重要的推理助推的具体建议。