The “Problem” Is Different and So Is the “Solution”

Rizzo and Whitman have mounted a comprehensive attack on a key theoretical underpinning of “nudging”: that we are or ought to be rational choice agents. However, I doubt their argument will persuade politicians to stop “nudging.” For the politician who cares little about whether their interventions might be paternalist, some-thing more is needed. This is the “problem” that needs addressing. On this, R&W largely buttress their anti-“nudging” position by presenting a slippery slope argument for being predisposed against any advance in Leviathan – “nudging” included. I suggest this argument does not work – at least if, as appears to be the case, J. S. Mill is its authority. I offer instead a “solution” that turns on an argument that politics is about the selection of rules and not outcomes for specific individuals. “Nudging” does precisely the latter. Indeed “nudging” cannot be about a change in the rules because, as the proponents of “nudging” have made clear, “nudging” should not affect the decisions of rational choice agents. Therefore, if politics is about rule selection, “nudging” does not belong in politics.