The Ethics of Influence

Cass R. Sunstein is Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University, Massachusetts. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. He is the founder and director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School, and he is the author of many articles and books, including the best-selling Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness (with Richard H. Thaler, 2008), Simpler: The Future of Government (2013), Why Nudge? (2014), Conspiracy Theories and Other Dangerous Ideas (2014), Wiser: Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter (2014), Valuing Life: Humanizing the Regulatory State (2014), Choosing Not to Choose: Understanding the Value of Choice (2015) and Constitutional Personae: Heroes, Soldiers, Minimalists, and Mutes (2015).

• 1. The age of behavioral science; 2. Choice and its architecture; 3. 'As judged by themselves'; 4. Values; 5. Fifty shades of manipulation; 6. Do people like nudges? Empirical findings; 7. Green by default? Ethical challenges for environmental protection; 8. Mandates - a very brief recapitulation; Appendix A. American attitudes toward thirty-four nudges; Appendix B. Survey questions; Appendix C. Executive Order 13707: using behavioral science insights to better serve the American people; Acknowledgements.

'In this era of intransigence and intolerance, The Ethics of Influence is a vitally needed book. It embraces what all of us - left, right, and center - mutually want: a balance between the goals of welfare, autonomy, dignity, and self-government. What's more, it is a hoot to read. Roll over Mill and Marx; tell Hayek and Gramsci the news.' George A. Akerlof, Nobel Laureate in Economics, 2001