Reason: Jacob Sullum: 'A Paternalist Worries About Paternalism

Source:Reason Magazine- Cass Sunstein might be New York City Nanny Michael Bloomberg's best friend in the whole world right now.

"Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who advocates "libertarian paternalism" in his book Nudge (co-authored by University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler), worries about the consequences of inviting the government to protect us from ourselves in a recent New York Review of Books essay. Sunstein agrees with Bowdoin philosopher Sarah Conly, author of Against Autonomy: Justifying Coercive Paternalism, that people are prone to cognitive biases that lead to decisions they regret:

For example, many of us show "present bias": we tend to focus on today and neglect tomorrow. For some people, the future is a foreign country, populated by strangers. Many of us procrastinate and fail to take steps that would impose small short-term costs but produce large long-term gains. People may, for example, delay enrolling in a retirement plan, starting to diet or exercise, ceasing to smoke, going to the doctor, or using some valuable, cost-saving technology. Present bias can ensure serious long-term harm, including not merely economic losses but illness and premature death as well.

But while Sunstein wants to help people achieve their own goals through relatively mild interventions, such as displaying fruit more conspicuously in cafeterias and making 401(k) participation automatic unless employees opt out, Conly believes sterner measures, including outright prohibition, are sometimes justified. She sees New York City's ban on trans fats in restaurant dishes as a model of effective paternalism, and she favors government-mandated limits on food portions. At the same time, she is "ambivalent" about preventing people from using food stamps to buy soda: "She is not convinced that the health benefits would be significant, and she emphasizes that people really do enjoy drinking soda." Her "most controversial claim," Sunstein says, is that the benefits of banning cigarettes would outweigh the costs. Sunstein is appropriately skeptical:

You can read the rest of Jacob Sullum's column at Reason Magazine