Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness (released in paperback last month), Sunstein and co-author Richard Thaler explain how enlightened “choice architecture” can close the gap between hedonism and wisdom though “libertarian paternalism”: a kind of minimalist interventionism designed to remedy some of the America’s greatest collective action problems.
with canny combinations of framing, informing, and cheerleading, they can inspire free decisions to eat more broccoli, enroll in retirement accounts, and perhaps even rip apart fewer mountaintops. Though he was a mild-mannered law professor at Harvard at the time this interview took place, Sunstein recently became director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. With Sunstein in the role of President Obama’s “regulation czar,” Americans should prepare to get nudged.
“The nudge approach would be, for energy use in homes and automobiles, to make very clear to people what the costs of their activities are to they themselves. When we’re driving cars, most of us don’t have a concrete sense of what it’s costing per year in gasoline to use a car with bad fuel efficiency. A nudge-like solution is to let bad actors, as we might call them, actually see the economic costs to themselves of what they’re doing.”
“I believe also that one big motivator of behavior is economic and another big motivator is moral, and for certain environmental activities we should appeal to people’s conscience. A lot of people are buying hybrids not because they save money, which they might, but because it’s the right thing to do. I just bought a hybrid myself. The reason I bought it was moral.”
“I favor for climate change some sort of carbon tax or some kind of emissions trading. I would distinguish the emissions trading approach from command-and-control, because it’s just much more flexible. The advantage is that you can accomplish the same goal much more cheaply, and that means you can get more ambitious about your goal because it’s less difficult for the economy.”
“A big nudge would be a greenhouse gas inventory, which we favor, in which every big contributor to the climate change problem gets listed in a public document. That’s a big nudge, because then you’re kind of a national villain. We think that publicity about who’s contributing to the problem would go a significant way towards reducing greenhouse gas emissions all by itself. At least it would be a pretty inexpensive experiment.”
http://www.grist.org/article/2009-green-nudges-an-interview-with-obama-re/
Cass Sunstein on Wiki:
Sunstein worked in the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Department as an attorney-advisor (1980-1981) and then took a job as an assistant professor of law at the University of Chicago Law School (1981-1983), where he also became an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science (1983-1985). In 1985, Sunstein was made a full professor of both political science and law; in 1988 he was named the Karl N. Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School and Department of Political Science. The university honored him in 1993 with its "distinguished service" accolade, permanently changing his title to Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor of Jurisprudence in the Law School and Department of Political Science.
Sunstein was the Samuel Rubin Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School in the fall of 1986 and a visiting professor at Harvard Law School in the spring 1987, winter 2005, and spring 2007 terms. He teaches courses in constitutional law, administrative law, and environmental law, as well as the required first-year course "Elements of the Law", which is an introduction to legal reasoning, legal theory, and the interdisciplinary study of law, including law and economics. In the fall of 2008 he joined the faculty of Harvard Law School and began serving as the director of its Program on Risk Regulation:[4]
The Program on Risk Regulation will focus on how law and policy deal with the central hazards of the 21st century. Anticipated areas of study include terrorism, climate change, occupational safety, infectious diseases, natural disasters, and other low-probability, high-consequence events. Sunstein plans to rely on significant student involvement in the work of this new program.[4]
On January 7, 2009, the Wall Street Journal reported that Professor Sunstein will be named to head the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA). [5] That news generated controversy among progressive legal scholars[6] and environmentalists.[7]
In his research on risk regulation, Professor Sunstein is known for developing, together with Timur Kuran, the concept of availability cascades, wherein popular discussion of an idea is self-feeding and causes individuals to overweight its importance . Professor Sunstein's books include After the Rights Revolution (1990), The Partial Constitution (1993), Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech (1995), Legal Reasoning and Political Conflict (1996), Free Markets and Social Justice (1997), One Case at a Time (1999), Risk and Reason (2002), Why Societies Need Dissent (2003), Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle (2005), Radicals in Robes: Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America (2005) , Are Judges Political? An Empirical Analysis of the Federal Judiciary (2005), Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge (2006), and, co-authored with Richard Thaler, Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (2008).
Sunstein's 2006 book, Infotopia: How Many Minds Produce Knowledge, explores methods for aggregating information; it contains discussions of prediction markets, open-source software, and wikis. Sunstein's 2004 book, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More than Ever, advocates the Second Bill of Rights proposed by Franklin D. Roosevelt. Among these rights are a right to an education, a right to a home, a right to health care , and a right to protection against monopolies; Sunstein argues that the Second Bill of Rights has had a large international impact and should be revived in the United States. His 2001 book, Republic.com, argued that the Internet may weaken democracy because it allows citizens to isolate themselves within groups that share their own views and experiences , and thus cut themselves off from any information that might challenge their beliefs, a phenomenon known as cyberbalkanization.
Sunstein co-authored Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (Yale University Press, 2008) with economist Richard Thaler of the University of Chicago. Nudge discusses how public and private organizations can help people make better choices in their daily lives. Thaler and Sunstein argue that People often make poor choices - and look back at them with bafflement! We do this because as human beings, we all are susceptible to a wide array of routine biases that can lead to an equally wide array of embarrassing blunders in education, personal finance, health care, mortgages and credit cards, happiness, and even the planet itself.[citation needed]
The "Nudge" idea has not been without criticism. Dr Tammy Boyce of public health foundation The King's Fund has said:
We need to move away from short-term, politically motivated initiatives such as the 'nudging people' idea, which are not based on any good evidence and don't help people make long-term behaviour changes.[8]
Sunstein is a contributing editor to The New Republic and The American Prospect and is a frequent witness before congressional committees. He played an active role in opposing the impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998.
In recent years, Sunstein has been a guest writer on The Volokh Conspiracy blog as well as the blogs of law professors Lawrence Lessig (Stanford) and Jack Balkin (Yale). He is considered so prolific a writer that in 2007, an article in the legal publication The Green Bag coined the concept of a "Sunstein number" reflecting degrees of separation between various legal authors and Sunstein, paralleling the Erdős numbers sometimes assigned to mathematician authors.
He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (elected 1992) and the American Law Institute (since 1990).
Sunstein's appointment to the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs by Obama was blocked by Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.). Chambliss objected to Sunstein's 2004 book Animal Rights, in which he argued that attorneys should be permitted to sue for violations of existing animal protection laws, naming the animals as plaintiffs.
[edit] Legal philosophy
Sunstein is a proponent of judicial minimalism, arguing that judges should focus primarily on deciding the case at hand, and avoid making sweeping changes to the law or decisions that have broad-reaching effects. He is generally thought to be liberal despite publicly supporting some of George W. Bush's judicial nominees, including Michael W. McConnell and John G. Roberts. Much of his work also brings behavioral economics to bear on law, suggesting that the "rational actor" model will sometimes produce an inadequate understanding of how people will respond to legal intervention.
In recent years Sunstein has collaborated with academics who have training in behavioral economics, most notably Daniel Kahneman, Richard Thaler, and Christine M. Jolls, to show how the theoretical assumptions of law and economics should be modified by new empirical findings about how people actually behave.
Sunstein (along with his coauthor Richard Thaler) has elaborated the theory of libertarian paternalism. In arguing for this theory, he counsels thinkers/academics/politicians to embrace the findings of behavioral economics as applied to law, maintaining freedom of choice while also steering people's decisions in directions that will make their lives go better. With Thaler, he coined the term "choice architect."
[edit] 1st Amendment
In his book Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech Sunstein says there is a need to reformulate First Amendment law . He thinks that the current formulation, based on Justice Holmes' conception of free speech as a marketplace “disserves the aspirations of those who wrote America’s founding document.”[9] The purpose of this reformulation would be to “reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.”[10] He is concerned by the present “situation in which like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another,”[11] and thinks that in “light of astonishing economic and technological changes, we must doubt whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals.”[12] He proposes a “New Deal for speech [that] would draw on Justice Brandeis' insistence on the role of free speech in promoting political deliberation and citizenship.”[10]
[edit] Animal Rights
Sunstein has also written often in favor of animal rights. “Every reasonable person believes in animal rights,” he says.[13] He also says that human “willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen … as a form of unconscionable barbarity… morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings,”[14] and that we might "conclude that certain practices cannot be defended and should not be allowed to continue, if, in practice, mere regulation will inevitably be insufficient—and if, in practice, mere regulation will ensure that the level of animal suffering will remain very high."[13] Specifically he thinks that, “we ought to ban hunting.”[15] He also thinks that “we could even grant animals a right to bring suit”[16] and that it is possible that “that before long, Congress will grant standing to animals to protect their own rights and interests.”[17] This all stems from his claim that "animals, species as such, and perhaps even natural objects warrant respect for their own sake, and quite apart from their interactions with human beings."[18]
[edit] Taxes
Sunstein has argued that “we should celebrate tax day.” [19] He appears to claim that the very concepts of property and society are based on government and taxes:
In what sense is the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. … There is no liberty with dependency.[19]
[edit] Personal
In the 1980s and early 1990s, Sunstein was married to Lisa Ruddick, whom he met when she was an undergraduate at Harvard.[20] She is now a professor of English at the University of Chicago.[21] Their marriage ended not long after the birth of their daughter, Ellyn. He then began seeing Martha Nussbaum, philosopher, classicist, and professor of law at the University of Chicago.[22].
On July 4, 2008, Sunstein married Samantha Power, professor of public policy at Harvard, whom he met when they worked as advisors to Sunstein's friend, and former colleague at the U. of C. Law School, [23] President Barack Obama on his presidential campaign. The wedding took place in County Kerry in Power’s native Ireland.[24]
Sunstein had a pet Rhodesian Ridgeback, Perry. During the Clinton impeachment hearings, Sunstein grew tired of appearing on news programs, and agreed to appear on Greta Van Susteren's CNN program only if he could bring Perry on the show with him; she agreed.[25] Perry died in the fall of 2008. The University of Chicago Law School has created the Perry/Sunstein fund in Perry's memory, a scholarship fund for a student with an interest in animal welfare. Sunstein is named after the 19th century American politician Lewis Cass.
These are various limits on regulation as outlined in Supreme Court cases:
(1) Regulation must be for a “legitimate public purpose. “ It must have a legitimate substantial relationship to the protection of public peace, health, safety and morals from substantial noxious, dangerous or injurious use.
(2) Permits are essentially conditional permission to engage in an activity that could otherwise be absolutely prohibited as injurious. The permit conditions must have a relationship to avoiding, minimizing or mitigating the injury the activity would cause. (“essential nexus.”)
(3) The conditions imposed must be “roughly proportional” to the harm imposed.
(4) Regulation to promote the public interest rather than prevent injury to the general public is likely to create a compensable property takings protected by the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. One exception to this is a business that is a monopoly or constitutes a public franchise, such as a public carrier (railroad) or a utility. The state may regulate public franchises in all matters affecting their relationship with the public.
(5) Regulation must serve the interests of the general public and not some single or particular class of interests. They must not unfairly discriminate against a class of interests.
(6) Enforcement of regulations is governed by rules of “proximate cause.” There must be substantial foreseeability or predictability that specific actions would cause injury or harm within an uninterrupted period of time. The actions must be voluntary. There is also the quality of direct causation – that there is no intervening cause between the original act and resultant injury. The action must be the primary act from which the injury results and without which the injury would not have occurred.
(7) The injury caused must be substantial – significant or appreciable.
(8) The legislature cannot make a regulatory permit for private businesses that are not public franchises conditional upon relinquishment of a constitutionally protected right – such as due process, compensation for property takings, etc.
(9) Regulation must be reasonably necessary and not unduly oppressive upon individuals. It cannot pose an unwarranted interference with the constitutional rights of individuals to carry on a lawful business, to make contracts, or to use and enjoy property. It cannot interfere with the constitutional right of the citizen to pursue any trade, business, or vocation which in itself is recognized as innocent and useful to the community. The Legislature can not, under the guise of police regulations, enact laws not pertaining to the public welfare, public health, or public morals in which impose onerous and unnecessary burdens upon or arbitrarily interfere with business and property.
Sunstein favors a cost/benefit analysis of proposed regulations, although he does not go so far as advocating the “precautionary principle.” In doing so, he expands regulation beyond the traditional limits of regulation that protect individual rights as outlined above.
(http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv25n4/v25n4-9.pdf): “Well-organized private groups sometimes demand conclusive proof of harm as a precondition for regulation; the demand should be resisted because a probability is a crude and sometimes perverse method of promoting those
various goals, not least because it might be, and has been,
urged in situations in which the principle threatens to injure future generations and harm rather than help those who are most disadvantaged. A rational system of risk regulation certainly takes precautions. But it does not adopt the Precautionary Principle.”
Sunstein appears to be a proponent of this regulatory cost/benefit analysis on the issue of Global Warming and emission reductions. He seems to leave the objectives of a regulatory scheme to politics and shys away from buying into innate notions of social or distributive justice. Unfortunately, these is little understanding of the right of individuals from regulation. As long as there are more benefits than costs, regulation seems just another acceptable vehicle to accomplish goals of the administration and the legislature. http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv31n1/v31n1-3.pdf
