Cass Sunstein

‘So if we are going to be kind,” wrote the South African author J. M. Coetzee, “let it be out of simple generosity, not because we feel guilty.” The notion that we should give our time and resources to others because we enjoy being benevolent is a compelling ethos. But research shows that it is not that simple: Oftentimes when we feel bad about ourselves, we are, in fact, more likely to do good things...Cass Sunstein and I found a similar result — that guilt is a powerful motivator — in a recent experimental study at Harvard Law School. We surveyed some 1,200 Americans and asked them whether they would be interested in enrolling in a green energy program if their state government offered them the opportunity to join one. The respondents who said that they would feel guilty if they did not enroll had a higher likelihood of being interested in signing up.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. There is unprecedented momentum for a real international agreement at the Paris climate talks in December: The U.S. is on track to make significant cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, China has announced a cap-and-trade program and many others have made commitments of their own. The biggest obstacle? Justice -- or at least two ideas about justice. The first involves redistribution.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Republican presidential candidate and former Florida governor Jeb Bush has just released a plan for regulatory reform. Though there are a few clunkers, many of his ideas are excellent...Here’s a good one: A formal process for “spring cleaning” of regulations on the books. Bush proposes that every eight years, OIRA should review the costs and benefits of major regulations. More ambitiously, he wants to create an independent commission, focused on the cumulative costs of rules and identifying those that need to be modified or repealed.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. This week, Pope Francis is expected to implore both the U.S. Congress and the UN General Assembly to take aggressive steps to curb greenhouse-gas emissions. His thinking on this issue is not simple alarm over climate change. It involves an extraordinary combination of passionate environmentalism, concern for the poor, skepticism about economics and apparent hostility to "profits." All this makes for an impressive but occasionally awkward argument.

Supreme Court commentators have found many different ways to analyze and describe the Court and the Justices, from labeling ideology and methodology to counting laugh lines at oral argument and evaluating opinion-writing reliance on the rhetoric in briefs. It is not easy to add interesting, new analysis to the mix. But Harvard Law School professor Cass Sunstein offers a fresh way of thinking about the Court in a new book, Constitutional Personae: Heroes, Soldiers, Minimalists and Mutes. As the title suggests, Sunstein divides Justices (and other federal judges) into four groups that transcend politics and ideology and that span Supreme Court history. The four personae that Sunstein describes are the hero, the soldier, the minimalist, and the mute.

The Nudge is back at the White House. President Obama signed an executive order Tuesday directing federal agencies to incorporate behavioral and social science into their policies, giving federal employees and citizens a "nudge" to make better decisions by simplifying forms, sending reminders, or re-framing their choices...The White House policy borrows from a line of recent behavioral science research popularized by such books as Nudge by Cass Sunstein and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Sunstein's argument — that people often make irrational choices because of unconscious biases that can be overcome by reframing the choices — was particularly influential early in Obama's presidency. Obama tapped Sunstein to oversee White House regulatory policy in Obama's first term, and was influential in shaping health care and other regulations.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Larry Lessig, the law professor now running for president, seems to be trying to produce a real-life Frank Capra movie. He hopes to tap into a deep strain in American culture -- the one that defined Capra's work...Capra's best movies focus on the power of goodness and purity. His central opposition is between greed and corruption on the one hand and simple human decency on the other.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Black Lives Matter, the activist movement that began in 2013, focuses on violence against African-Americans -- perpetrated not only by the police but also by private vigilantes. Its central goals are to prevent such violence and to hold people accountable when it occurs. Its supporters proclaim that this is something new, “not your grandmamma’s civil rights movement.” Maybe so. But it may well be your grandmamma’s grandmamma’s civil rights movement. Black Lives Matter taps into an often forgotten, but nevertheless defining, element of our constitutional heritage.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Tom Brady is, of course, the greatest quarterback who ever lived. Anyone who questions that, or accuses him of the slightest wrongdoing, is biased and untrustworthy. OK, I'm a New England Patriots fan, and inclined to celebrate Thursday's ruling by Judge Richard Berman, which vacated NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell's decision to suspend Brady for four games. But football aside, the decision offers a general lesson that even Brady-haters should celebrate. It involves the rule of law.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: Within the past year, a new catchphrase has come to dominate political discussion, certainly on the left: “The system is rigged.”  Senator…

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Of all the findings in behavioral science, the most significant may be "loss aversion," the idea that people dislike losses a lot more than they like equivalent gains. Loss aversion can create big trouble for businesses and investors. And it can badly confuse political debate -- as it seems to be doing in the current discussions of the nuclear deal with Iran.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. What would you think if a presidential candidate -- Republican or Democrat -- proposed a new federal program claiming to reduce poverty, boost employment, improve the health of infants and mothers, and increase the likelihood that people would graduate from college? You’d probably think the candidate was blowing a lot of smoke. Yet the earned income tax credit is doing every one of these things.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Thursday's Republican debate will pit System 1 candidates (above all Donald Trump) against System 2 candidates (above all Jeb Bush). Let me explain. Social scientists, most prominently Daniel Kahneman, have distinguished between "fast thinking," undertaken by what they call the mind's System 1, and "slow thinking," which characterizes System 2. System 1 is automatic, intuitive, focused on the present and often emotional. System 2 is deliberative, calculating, focused on the long term and emotion-free.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. When it comes to regulating greenhouse gases, some people think the more stringent the rules, the better. Others favor the more pragmatic approach championed by President Ronald Reagan: The benefits of any regulation must justify its costs. The Barack Obama administration's rules for existing power plants, announced Monday, pass Reagan's test with flying colors -- and offer some nice surprises along the way.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In 2010, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron began an experiment that he knew might not succeed. He created a new office, the Behavioural Insights Team, which would try to apply new understandings of human behavior to the work of agencies throughout government -- with the goal of saving 10 times as much money as the project cost. If BIT failed, it would be shut down within two years...Many people were skeptical about the idea. It seemed like a potential waste of taxpayers' money on a new research institute, and, to some, the very notion of using "behavioral insights" seemed vague and somewhat scary. Who wants government to be manipulating people's behavior? In five years, however, BIT has silenced the skeptics.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. In recent years, high-level Western officials have argued that terrorism is a product of poverty, a lack of education or mental illness. Other influential voices have urged that terrorist acts expose the truth about Islam, and still others that they are a natural, if excessive, response to legitimate grievances against the West. On Monday, U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron pointedly rejected every one of these theories -- and went on to provide what may well be the most clear-headed explanation ever offered by a head of state...In Cameron's view, the root cause of terrorism is instead an extremist ideology, fueled by a process of radicalization.

An article by Cass Sunstein. When Americans think about Confederacy, they often think about Margaret Mitchell’s 1936 classic, Gone With the Wind. Inspired by recent debates over the Confederate flag, I decided to give the book a try. I confess that I did not have high hopes. I expected to be appalled by its politics and racism, and to be bored by the melodrama. (Scarlett O’Hara, Rhett Butler, and Ashley Wilkes? Really?) About twenty pages, I thought, would be enough. I could not have been more wrong. The book is enthralling, and it casts a spell. Does it make a plausible argument for continuing to display the Confederate flag? Not even close. But it does raise a host of questions—about winners’ narratives, about honor and humiliation, about memory, about innocence and guilt, about men and women, about what’s taken for granted, about the particularity of human lives, and about parallel worlds.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. An executive order from President Barack Obama requires that the Environmental Protection Agency analyze the costs and benefits of its regulations. But how exactly can it measure the economic benefits of the coming restrictions on greenhouse gases? For both policy and law (including the inevitable court challenges), it's a crucial question. This month, the administration provided a big part of the answer with a new report from its Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Carbon, which is intended to capture in dollar terms the damage from 1 ton of carbon emissions.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein. Last week's Supreme Court decision striking down a federal regulation on mercury and other pollutants from coal-fired power plants is a temporary setback for those who seek to reduce air pollution. At the same time, however, it should be welcomed as a ringing endorsement of cost-benefit analysis by government agencies. It's a kind of rifle shot, with potentially major effects on a host of future regulations that have nothing to do with the environment.

An op-ed by Cass Sunstein: In his powerful dissenting opinion from Friday's same-sex marriage decision, Chief Justice John Roberts asks an excellent question: “Just who do we think we are?” That question deserves an answer. If we look at the arc of the court’s history, we might be able to offer one. Contrary to appearances, the court usually pays attention to an actual or emerging moral consensus, certainly with respect to fundamental rights. It follows public opinion; it does not lead it. When Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote that the Constitution protects “the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning,” he didn't mean the justices consult philosophical texts or make things up. He meant to refer instead to an emphatically social process, in which the justices learn from their fellow citizens.