Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles?

Sugden, Robert ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3401-3139 (2017) Do people really want to be nudged towards healthy lifestyles? International Review of Economics, 64 (2). 113–123. ISSN 1865-1704

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Abstract

This paper assesses Thaler and Sunstein’s claim that policies that nudge individuals towards healthy lifestyles promote the welfare of those individuals, as judged by themselves. I argue that Thaler and Sunstein switch between two different interpretations of that clause. One interpretation gives the clause a wide range of applicability, but drains it of its content as a repudiation of paternalism. The other interpretation makes it more meaningful to say that people want to make the choices they are being nudged towards, but applies to a much narrower range of cases than Thaler and Sunstein have in mind.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	nudges,health,paternalism,self-control
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Social Sciences > School of Economics
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Economic Theory Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Behavioural and Experimental Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Groups > Behavioural Economics
Depositing User:	Pure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Sep 2016 00:51
Last Modified:	18 Jun 2026 17:15
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/60247
DOI:	10.1007/s12232-016-0264-1

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