Nudges are an increasingly popular tool that policy makers and businesses are using to steer our choices and behaviour. For example, someone might be nudged by open workspaces to increase their productivity at work, and stores might nudge people toward consuming items whose high profit margin is linked to unethical production. So-called choice architects target cognitive and behavioural biases, such as status quo bias, that are difficult to control and the workings of which we are typically unaware. For this and other reasons, many have argued that nudges are problematic and shouldn?t be implemented.

The motivation behind this workshop is to set aside the question of whether nudges are morally permissible and focus instead on the question of whether nudged agents are morally responsible for their nudged actions and their consequences. For example, if someone is nudged to do all manner of virtuous things, such as donate organs or offset carbon emissions, is she praiseworthy? If a more sinister choice architect nudges someone to do something wrong or bad, is she blameworthy? Should decisions about which student or job candidate is more deserving of a position take into account the degree to which her accomplishments are the effects of nudges?

The answers to these questions are not obvious. This workshop will bring together philosophers who think about the ways in which manipulation, situationism, and implicit biases affect moral responsibility attributions. These literatures have developed independently of the nudging discussion, but they are clearly relevant to it. By exploring their intersections, we can hopefully make some headway on the under-explored question of whether nudged agents are morally responsible.

Invited speakers:
Derk Pereboom, Cornell University
Carolina Sartorio, University of Arizona
Maureen Sie, University of Tilburg

Call for abstracts:
Please send an anonymised 300-word abstract to p.robichaud@vu.nl by January 15th, 2018. You will be notified of a decision by February 1st.

Contributions that speak to the following questions are especially welcome:
(1) In what way are nudges manipulative?
(2) How do nudges compare to situational factors that affect our actions when it comes to moral responsibility?
(3) How do implicit biases compare to the cognitive and behavioural biases targeted by choice architects?
(4) Do nudged agents meet plausible control conditions on responsibility?
(5) Are nudged agents morally responsible according to ‘real-self’ theories?
(6) How might choice architects design nudges in a way that diffuses their threat to moral responsibility?
(7) Are we praiseworthy for actions that result from ‘self-nudges’?
(8) How does the issue of moral responsibility for nudged actions relate to the moral permissibility of nudges?
(9) Are there particular contexts in which any threat to moral responsibility for nudged actions would be particularly problematic (ex: medical decision-making, voting).
(10) How should concerns about moral responsibility impact policy-making regarding nudges?

Contributions that focus mainly on manipulation, implicit bias, and situationism are definitely welcome, as long as some connection with nudging cases is made.

This workshop is organised as part of the NWO-funded Veni project ?Nudging responsibly: The Impact of Choice Architecture on Responsibility Attributions?. See: http://philiprobichaud.weebly.com