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The ethics of using unconscious nudges to alter people's behavior

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Review "Last Word: Nudging People Toward Better Decisions."

Discuss the ethics of using unconscious nudges to alter people's behavior. Within your answer, consider the argument made by economists Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, who favor the use of nudges. Could nudges be avoided? Do all policies contain some unconscious nudges and incentives? Do all nudges influence people? If so, how and why? Please support your response with references and example. Thank you.

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This solution examines the ethics of using unconscious nudges to alter people's behavior.

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Nudging People towards Better Decisions:

Nudging is the act of pushing someone gently so as to capture an individual's attention or to provide a signal. Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein suggested several ways in which the government could nudge individuals and ensure that they carried out actions which were beneficial for both of them. By doing this, they ensured that libertarian paternalism was promoted (Hausman & Welch, 2010).

Thaler and Sunstein provided the nudges definition through the use of examples whereby they still maintained that libertarian paternalism does not often threaten liberty because individuals are not hindered from making a choice of what they prefer. They only take the liberty to ensure that there are no hindrances towards the making of possible choices or making the cost of making the choices higher, unpleasant or inconvenient (Hausman & Welch, 2010).

The government has the responsibility of changing the resident's of a country's behavior in cases where there are is a health or a safety risk but how they go about carrying out this act is what is considered to be an issue as some would favor the intervention of the nudge which alters an environmental context chosen by an individual and changes the individual's behavior which others favor the intervention which is derived from the 'nanny state' (how to change People's behavior-nudge, nudge or the nanny state, 2011).

Hausman and Welch (2010) further provides the definition of nudge according to Thaler and Sunstein saying that a "nudge is any aspect of an architectural choice which alters the ...

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