On Freedom
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3.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein, a brisk, provocative book that shows what freedom really means—and requires—today
In this pathbreaking book, New York Times bestselling author Cass Sunstein asks us to rethink freedom. He shows that freedom of choice isn’t nearly enough. To be free, we must also be able to navigate life. People often need something like a GPS device to help them get where they want to go—whether the issue involves health, money, jobs, children, or relationships.
In both rich and poor countries, citizens often have no idea how to get to their desired destination. That is why they are unfree. People also face serious problems of self-control, as many of them make decisions today that can make their lives worse tomorrow. And in some cases, we would be just as happy with other choices, whether a different partner, career, or place to live—which raises the difficult question of which outcome best promotes our well-being.
Accessible and lively, and drawing on perspectives from the humanities, religion, and the arts, as well as social science and the law, On Freedom explores a crucial dimension of the human condition that philosophers and economists have long missed—and shows what it would take to make freedom real.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Law professor and behavioral scientist Sunstein (Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness) offers a short treatise on the appropriate ethics for trying to influence behavior. He starts from two premises: that it is proper for institutions, health plans, government agencies, corporations, and so on to seek to influence individuals' behavior to "nudge" individuals in a particular direction and that they should only do so in a way that preserves people's freedom of choice. Some of the simpler nudges Sunstein covers are warnings about smoking, driving while texting, and eating unhealthily, but he also tackles complex situations that raise conundrums, such as those in which the free will of an individual has already been compromised by, for example, an addiction, willpower deficits, or other real-world obstacles. Sunstein considers a host of intriguing questions, perhaps most pointedly who should decide what behaviors are good for a person that person or the "nudger." This slip of a book can be quickly read, but puts forth important concepts. Its ideas will stay with readers a long time.
