What do paternalistic mean

Putting a warning label on a cigarette pack does not interfere with the liberty of autonomy of any cigarette smoker. Basically, the definition of paternalism in Libertarian Paternalism is focused solely on the fact that nudges are being used to make the agents being nudged better off. Whether this expansion of the definition of paternalism is warranted or not is a matter of what issues are being explored and whether such an expansion makes things clearer or more confused.

There are nudges which are not paternalistic on their definition because the aim is to promote the general good—even if the chooser is not benefitted. Nudging building managers to put in elevators with braille buttons, influencing people to contribute to Oxfam by putting up pictures of starving infants, are examples where the good to be promoted is the welfare of people other than those being influenced.

However one comes out on the issue of whether the definition of paternalism is useful or not we turn to the more important issues about whether, and in what circumstances, nudges are justifiable ways of influencing persons to make certain choices. Given that nudges are not coercive, that they are intended to promote the good of individuals as they themselves perceive that good, that they have been shown to often be effective, are there any plausible normative objections to their use?

As with any policy intervention, either by the state or by private organizations, there are possible misuses to worry about. Perhaps there are slippery-slopes to be avoided. Perhaps proponents of nudging over-estimate the amount and seriousness of faulty reasoning by agents; mistakes that nudgers wish to harness to promote the agents welfare.

Perhaps they are mistaken about what agents really value when they claim people prefer health to more sugary beverages. But these objections are not objections to nudging but to the misuse of this type of behavioral intervention. Are there objections to the very nature of nudging itself? There is one feature of many nudges that must be considered which, although not intrinsic to the concept of a nudge, is often present in the background as a crucial feature.

One author actually links these background conditions to the definition of Libertarian Paternalism. Libertarian Paternalism is the set of interventions aimed at overcoming the unavoidable cognitive biases and decisional inadequacies of an individual by exploiting them in such a way as to influence her decisions in an easily reversible manner towards the choices she herself would make under idealised conditions. Rebanato 6. An example of this use of cognitive biases is changing opt-in to opt-out.

It is because of cognitive bias to doing nothing to change the status quo that there are relatively fewer opt-outs than might be expected. Given this background, there are at least three objections that have objected to features intrinsic to some—by no means all—nudges. The first is that nudging often occurs without the nudged being aware they are being nudged. The second is that nudging often works by harnessing defects in the thinking of those being nudged.

The third is that some nudges besides those subject to the first two objections are forms of objectionable manipulation. One issue with many nudges is what the person being nudged knows about the nudge.

In the Cafeteria example the students are aware that food has been placed at different levels of eyesight. In that sense the nudge is transparent to them.

It is not like subliminal messaging in which they are not aware of messages directed to them. Let us call nudges which are transparent in this sense narrow nudges. This did increase the rate of payment. Most workers questioned about the painting either had not noticed it at all or made no connection with the issue of payment.

In the cafeteria example while aware that the food is on different levels the students are not aware that the placing of the food has been done in order to promote a certain end—eating more healthy foods. The placement of the food is not random, nor motivated by aesthetic considerations.

It is deliberate and motivated by a particular set of considerations. Some nudges are more transparent in the sense that it is obvious they have been deliberately introduced and their motivation is also clear.

Call these broad nudges. There is some evidence that making nudges broad does not interfere with their efficacy. A recent study in the context of end-of-life care showed the effect of a default is not weakened when people are told that a default was chosen because it is usually effective Lowenstein et al. Note that there could be an even more transparent feature of nudges—call them very broad nudges.

This would be when the mechanism by which the nudge influences is made public as well. Suppose we presented an opt-out set up and said 1 we are doing this to increase participation in the retirement program, and 2 if this is effective it is because people have a tendency to stick with the status-quo.

Nudges which are neither narrow nor broad—such as subliminal messages to movie-goers to buy fruit instead of popcorn—might be an effective way of encouraging consumption of healthier food. But they seem to have a morally dubious character. Even if the facts are that such messages have rather weak efficacy we object to their by-passing any possibility to avoid or resist them.

Choice architecture should be transparent and subject to public scrutiny, certainly if public officials are responsible for it. At a minimum, this proposition means that when such officials institute some kind of reform, they should not hide it from the public…If officials alter a default rule so as to promote clean energy or conservation, they should disclose what they are doing.

This formulation leaves open a number of issues. The government could announce in advance that they are going to use subliminal messages on television programs to promote health. Sunstein believes that this would satisfy his transparency condition but that it might be objectionable on grounds of manipulation. It remains open for discussion how to formulate a norm which is closer to the intuitive idea of transparency, to distinguish various sense of transparency—such as narrow and broad—and to debate whether such transparency is a necessary component of legitimate nudges.

Must, for example, the public utility which hopes to encourage energy conservation preface its informational message about the average consumption of your neighbors with the fact that they are sending this information because they think it will encourage conservation?

Does it have to disclose they believe it may do so because people have a tendency to conform to what their neighbors are doing? Why is transparency required? One possible objection to non-transparency is that it interferes with the autonomy of those influenced.

Another issue concerning autonomy is whether it is affected by both intentional and unintentional nudges. Are the choices more autonomous in this case than in a case in which the food is placed in exactly the same way but deliberately in order to affect the choices?

The second objection to nudges has to do with a specific mechanism through which the end of nudging—promotion of agent ends—is sometimes accomplished. Consider the cafeteria example. The reason we place the healthy foods at eye level is because there is a tendency to choose what is at eye level over options that are not.

The thought is that nudgers can harness this tendency by putting healthy foods at that level. Since the positioning of foods is not a rational ground for choosing nudgers use this non-rational tendency so that healthy foods are chosen.

Note in this case we get both a lack of transparency and the harnessing of non-rational tendencies. Some argue that taking advantage of our non-rational tendencies, even for good ends, is objectionable. Consider the opt-out nudge. It relies upon, and works in virtue of, the fact that we tend to go with the given even if there are better options easily available. It is because we irrationally choose the worse option that we present the better option for the agent to choose irrationally.

Framing effects: It is one of the most confirmed findings of empirical decision theory that subjects decisions are affected by different ways of presenting information. This is exactly the same information but those told A are more likely to choose the operation than those given B. It is irrational to make the decision differently depending on how it is worded. This harnessing of the irrational for our own good is not paradoxical but it strikes some as problematic in the same way getting children to read by offering them financial incentives is problematic.

We are getting them to read for the wrong reasons. At least in these cases there is the idea that once reading they will come to appreciate the pleasures and importance of reading for its own sake. But do people who stick with opt-in out of a tendency to stick with the given learn to change their faulty heuristic?

If anything, it is reinforced because their faulty heuristic has a good consequence. If we think of cases of rational persuasion, then in the ideal case, we would find that the agent chooses because she believes she has been given reasons, these reasons support her choice, and she acts because of those reasons.

In the case of harnessing non-rational tendencies for nudges these conditions are not satisfied. It is a good thing that, usually, we act not simply in accordance with the reasons there are to act, but also out of, in recognition, of those reasons.

It is clear that while many nudges as defined harness bad reasoning, most do not. Some do not harness reasoning at all, e. Since nudges are defined to exclude coercion, and they usually are not cases of outright deception as opposed to a lack of transparency the concept that is often used to criticize nudges is that of manipulation. The charge of manipulation is raised often against the acts of others even when, like nudging, they are benevolently motivated.

We think of manipulation, like other forms of paternalism as failing to respect us as rational and capable choosers. After all, if we were capable choosers why not just present us with the reasons which favor our acting in particular way?

Nudging uses the clever tricks of modern psychology and economics to manipulate people. Wilkinson, see Other Internet Resources. The problem is that manipulation seems a very amorphous and ill-understood concept. There is widespread disagreement about what kinds of influence are manipulative and the conditions under which they are wrong. More Definitions for paternalism. See the full definition for paternalism in the English Language Learners Dictionary. Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Log in Sign Up. Save Word. Definition of paternalism. Examples of paternalism in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web At most these appear as budget rules or transfer rules that play little or no part in cost-benefit analysis, and figure nowhere into regulatory aggregates even as paternalism and normalization of dependency may trump much else. Williamson, National Review , 13 May These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'paternalism.

This is a paternalistic approach that does not help build trust in the government and public health authorities among poorer communities. Gender discrimination reflected paternalistic notions of female frailty.

This double standard also seems to be rather flagrantly gender-based—grossly unfair to men and paternalistic toward women.

Among the explorers, a state of mind developed that was patronizing and paternalistic. Yet the activists, for all their feminist rhetoric, are indeed promoting a disturbingly paternalistic view of women. A major problem is that this contact has been paternalistic and poisoned by the myth of racial superiority. Image credits. Word of the Day goodwill. Blog Outsets and onsets! Read More. November 08, To top. English Business. Sign up for free and get access to exclusive content:. Free word lists and quizzes from Cambridge.