IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v35y2023i2p191-230.html

Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Kuyer
  • Bert Gordijn

Abstract

In this article, we systematically review the literature on the ethics of nudging. Since the publication of the book Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in 2008, a rich literature has been developed on the question whether it is ethical to nudge people. This is an important area for research as nudges are commonly used by governments and private corporations to alter the behaviour of citizens and consumers. In order to gain a complete overview of this literature, we conduct a systematic search of academic sources. We investigate which ethical issues with nudging are discussed. We find four major ethical issues, namely worries regarding 1) autonomy, 2) welfare, 3) long-term adverse effects, and 4) democracy and deliberation. We discuss each ethical issue by highlighting how it is defined, what the critique constitutes, what its sub-issues are, and which defences of nudging have been argued for. In this way, the systematic literature review provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on the ethics of nudging to date. The results of our systematic review contribute to a better understanding of the ethical issues with nudging, as well as of the current state of the literature on these topics.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Kuyer & Bert Gordijn, 2023. "Nudge in perspective: A systematic literature review on the ethical issues with nudging," Rationality and Society, , vol. 35(2), pages 191-230, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:35:y:2023:i:2:p:191-230
    DOI: 10.1177/10434631231155005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10434631231155005
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/10434631231155005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nathalie Alexandre-Bourhis & Aude Mechin-Delabarre, 2025. "Sensemaking and Nudge Management: A Combined Approach to Analyzing the Resilience of Local Authorities in the Face of Crisis [Création de sens et nudge management, une approche combinée pour analyser la résilience des collectivités territoriales f," Post-Print hal-05326216, HAL.
    2. Nathanaël Colin-Jaeger & Malte Dold, 2025. "Individual autonomy and public deliberation in behavioral public policy," Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 12(1), pages 1-10, December.
    3. Iwata, Yukinori, 2025. "Active choosing or default rules? A revealed preference approach," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 119(C).
    4. Abigail Devereaux, 2025. "Hot nudges on hazy landscapes," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 24(2), pages 795-826, December.
    5. Bahman Ahadinezhad & Aisa Maleki & Amirali Akhondi & Mohammadjavad Kazemi & Sama Yousefy & Fatemeh Rezaei & Omid Khosravizadeh, 2024. "Are behavioral economics interventions effective in increasing colorectal cancer screening uptake: A systematic review of evidence and meta-analysis?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 19(2), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Alessia Dorigoni & Nicolao Bonini, 2025. "The gentle push based on a “nudging approach”: from personal well-being to collective sustainability," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 24(2), pages 691-712, December.
    7. Stefano Calboli & Bart Engelen, 2025. "AI-enhanced nudging in public policy: why to worry and how to respond," Mind & Society: Cognitive Studies in Economics and Social Sciences, Springer;Fondazione Rosselli, vol. 24(2), pages 529-547, December.
    8. Kuyer, Paul & Shukla, Sukanya & O'Brolcháin, Fiachra & Doncel, Víctor Rodríguez & Gordijn, Bert, 2025. "The ethics of digital nudging for sustainable energy consumption – A closer look at the EU Green Deal," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:35:y:2023:i:2:p:191-230. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.