A growing body of normative work, going under the name of “behavioral welfare economics,” explores how deference to people’s choices might be reconciled with behavioral findings about human error. The best approach adopts a working presumption in favor of respect for those choices, so long as they are adequately informed and sufficiently free from behavioral biases. For purposes of law and policy, it is most helpful for behavioral economists to emphasize that people may choose the wrong means to promote their own ends; in principle, that possibility may legitimate nudges, incentives, or mandates. But for both empirical and philosophical reasons, behavioral economists interested in law and policy, or in welfare itself, are not in a position to make strong normative claims about whether people choose the right ends. Behavioral welfare economics should be committed to the working presumption, with humility and aware that it is taking a stance on some fundamental philosophical issues.
