That is one of the funniest statements I have read in years.

I think rather than proving economic man was perfectly rational, they start with it as an assumption, based on the ramblings of Ayn Rand, and from there, built a perfectly logical and fundamentally flawed model.

They would not be the first.

I think this is misleading. The premise of the argument (and the nudge approach to default-setting policy) is that there are some people for whom their choice-when-the-default-is-X is different than their choice-when-the-default-is-Y (because they just accept the default in both cases). But it seems to me that you are then saying that *because* the current institutionalized default is X, their choice-when-the-default-is-X is somehow their “true” choice that it would be wrong to nudge them away from. That makes no sense. If those people’s choices are influenced by context then the choice they make in either context is just as true as the other.

You are getting those outcomes (in the default-Y scenario) precisely because those people, in that scenario, do choose them. There isn’t some Platonic essence of choice in a vacuum (and if there were, there would be no reason to believe that choice-when-the-default-is-X is it, just because you happen to be writing from a society in which the default is in fact X). Choice is a context-dependent act.

Or to put it another way, if they *want* to go with the flow more than they want any specific outcome – which is what their behavior in both scenarios, taken together, indicates – then you aren’t coercing them by changing the flow.

Maybe it’s easier to understand if you imagine two countries in the same world with opposite default policies, and two flow-goers who immigrate in opposite directions. In a sense, both of them are now choosing things that they would not have chosen if they had remained in their original homelands, but I don’t think it follows that either is being coerced.

Actually, it seems like the world is full of people who have the delusion that something like this will be the case.

So ironically, they do get the utility of vicarious vindication, however wrongheaded they are.

If one is an Organ Donor one can receive Organs.

Seems fair to me!

Herb

BTW, I’m listed as an organ donor on my drivers’ license–an option that PA gives every driver, every time they re-new their license. Unfortunately, it’s easily overlooked.

Well, if one is to be the, ahem, main course in one’s funeral banquet, it might be a good idea to fatten up a bit, to get some nice marbling. :)

“With organ donation, though, (a) falls away completely; while many people (including me) don’t care what happens to their organs, some people care a lot; if you make them donors by default, not all of them will make the effort to opt out, and now you’ve tricked them into something that is bad for them.”

Well, quite obviously, when you are dead you garner no utility from any external stimuli. It makes no sense at all to speak something being “bad” for somebody who has left this existence.

Prior to one’s death, of course, it is perfectly reasonable to speak of something as generating positive or negative utility. But here, again, there is a problem. Utility, being a mathematical analog to some physical/mental condition, does not exist independently of personal experience. To experience disutility from being an unwilling organ donor, one has to be aware of that status prior to death. No awareness, no utility consideration. As a thought experiment, posit the existence of a vastly cool alien race, which is tragically exterminated by a gigantic comet before they could make contact and enrich your life with all sorts of nice technology and alien jokes. Is your utility affected by this happenstance? No. What if, in the future, your grave becomes the place to be for the smartest people in the world, all debating the human condition in honor of your existence. Cool? Yes. Does this have any effect on your lifetime utility? None whatsoever. You cannot experience (utility) what you do not experience (stimuli). If you have no knowledge of your donor status, then you cannot be affected by it either way.

Now, if you do happen to find out you were registered against your will, then it becomes an economic choice that can register some utility effects. In the case of mandatory enrollment, that is essentially the cost of opting out. This could be made very small. This must be balanced against the welfare gain had by those who wished to enroll, and now find out that they have been saved the trouble.

Finally, one must consider the immense utility generated by receiving a heart, and thus a 20 year extension on life. That is actual utility experienced by a living person, not disutility ‘experienced’ by a person who, then, is not.

Now, you can argue about the moral correctness of forcing people into outcomes “that people would not have chosen,” but that sort of thing is the basis for policy-making specifically and society more generally. And you can argue about respecting personal intent, but that is a socio-normative consideration, not an economic one.

Just food for thought.

But the same cannot be said of one’s corpse. I cannot think of anything one would do differently during one’s lifetime based on expectations about disposition of one’s remains.