Dung Leonard
Institute for Philosophy II, Ruhr-University Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
Centre for Philosophy and AI Research, University Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany.
Bioethics. 2025 Oct;39(8):748-754. doi: 10.1111/bioe.70000. Epub 2025 Jun 15.
Nudging consists of interventions that aim to alter behavior in a certain way by changing the presentation or framing of options, without coercion or changing economic incentives. This paper discusses the effectiveness of nudging and the ethical implications of this effectiveness. Section 2 suggests that-if publication bias is adequately accounted for-recent comprehensive meta-analyses as well as high-quality experiments show that nudging is much less effective than previously assumed. Sections 3 and 4 discuss the ethical implications. I argue that the lack of effectiveness of nudging is an additional moral consideration against it. There are two reasons: First, reduced effectiveness makes nudging less cost-effective. Second, reduced effectiveness reduces the benefits of nudging but does not, to the same degree, weaken the moral reasons speaking against nudging. However, a comprehensive assessment of the effectiveness of various forms of nudging in diverse contexts, as well as their ethical permissibility, requires further empirical and ethical research.
助推包括一些干预措施，旨在通过改变选项的呈现方式或框架来以某种方式改变行为，而不施加强制或改变经济激励措施。本文讨论了助推的有效性以及这种有效性的伦理含义。第2节表明，如果充分考虑发表偏倚，近期的综合荟萃分析以及高质量实验表明，助推的效果远不如先前假设的那样显著。第3节和第4节讨论了伦理含义。我认为助推缺乏有效性是反对它的又一个道德考量因素。有两个原因：第一，有效性降低使得助推的成本效益降低。第二，有效性降低减少了助推的益处，但并没有同等程度地削弱反对助推的道德理由。然而，要全面评估各种形式的助推在不同背景下的有效性及其伦理可允许性，还需要进一步的实证研究和伦理研究。
