Changing behaviour through state intervention

doi:10.1136/bmj.a2543

Published 15 December 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2543
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2543

Editorials

Changing behaviour through state intervention

When does an acceptable nudge become an unacceptable shove?

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The question of when governments should intervene to changeour behaviour sits at the heart of political philosophy andbioethics.¹ In their recent book, Nudge: improving decisionsabout health, wealth, and happiness, Richard Thaler and CassSunstein argue that public and private organisations can andshould intervene more often than they currently do to alterpeople’s behaviour.² Their thesis is based on the observationthat people often behave in ways that are not in their bestlong term interests. The remedy, they argue, is to present optionsin such a way as to increase the likelihood that people willchoose what they would, on reflection, most prefer. This approachhas attracted much interest and support from politicians includingBarack Obama and David Cameron.

Thaler and Sunstein call their general approach "libertarianpaternalism"—paternalistic in that governments, for example,play an active role in framing options, but libertarian in thesense . . . [Full text of this article]

Theresa M Marteau, professor of health psychology¹, Adam Oliver, RCUK academic fellow in health economics and policy², Richard E Ashcroft, professor of bioethics³

¹ Department of Psychology, King’s College London, Guy’s Campus, London SE1 9RT, ² LSE Health, London School of Economics and Political Science, London WC2A 2AE, ³ School of Law, Queen Mary, University of London, London E1 4NS

theresa.marteau@kcl.ac.uk