Cambridge Legal Theory Discussion Group (CLTDG): 'Nudges, Agency and Legality'

This session will be chaired by Javier Gallego Saade (Oxford), who will be presenting his paper "Nudges, Agency and Legality" for discussion with a response to be given by Duncan Wallace (Cambridge). You can find below the abstract of the paper, the link to the Zoom meeting and the link to the paper.

The Zoom link: https://bit.ly/cltdglent3

The Paper: https://bit.ly/gallegodraft

Abstract: How should legal philosophers react to a legal system employing ‘nudging’ as an instrument for influencing human behavior and action? ‘Nudging’, as I will understand it here, involves an act of law by which the lawmaker issues a directive to someone, with the mandate to alter a physical space where an act of choice by a different agent is to take place. Some have argued that nudges are “extra-legal” or “non-legal” because they aim at influencing human behavior in manipulative ways. In this paper I resist this claim. I believe that we gain nothing from arguing that nudging is ‘extra-legal’, even if we understand the argument as a normative claim about the properly legal way of influencing human action. Instead, I suggest that the rule of law holds the key to assess the impact of nudging in a legal system. The rule of law conveys a legal system’s commitment to the respect of subjects’ practical agency. Thus, although nudging is not “extra-legal” as some suggest, its widespread use by a legal system puts the commitment to the respect of practical agency, and thus the legal quality of a system of ruling, at risk.

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