Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/313153 
Year of Publication: 
2022
Citation: 
[Journal:] Journal of Business Ethics [ISSN:] 1573-0697 [Volume:] 186 [Issue:] 2 [Publisher:] Springer Netherlands [Place:] Dordrecht [Year:] 2022 [Pages:] 309-324
Publisher: 
Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht
Abstract: 
Order ethicists favour incentives as a means for making moral progress but largely ignore an alternative method, namely, nudging, which has come to prominence through the work of behavioural scientists in recent years. In this paper, we suggest that this is a mistake. Order ethicists have no reason to ignore nudging as an alternative method. Arguments they might press against it include worries about paternalism, manipulation, autonomy, and unintended bad consequences. These are, we argue, largely unfounded insofar as they involve misconceptions or affect incentives as well. In particular, we contend that only some, but not all, nudges are paternalistic, manipulative, and autonomy-reducing. The same is true of incentives. Also, both nudges and incentives can have unintended bad consequences. Therefore, order ethicists cannot endorse arguments against nudges without undermining their favourable view of incentives. In addition, there might be positive reasons to prefer nudges to incentives, for instance, when they are more freedom-preserving, more effective, cheaper, easier to implement, or less inequality-inducing than the latter.
Subjects: 
Incentives
Manipulation
Nudging
Order ethics
Paternalism
Unintended consequences
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article
Document Version: 
Published Version

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.