ABSTRACT
Chapter 7 discusses how nudging and manipulation affect voluntary consent. Beginning with J. C. Montoy’s use of nudging in HIV prevention, the chapter critically discusses three widely supported conditions in the ethical evaluation of nudging and manipulation: easy resistibility, transparency, and rationality. After presenting two examples designed to put pressure on these three conditions, the chapter shows that, suitably modified, the three conditions can remain significant in the assessment of voluntary consent as well. However, the required modifications are substantial and result in a rather complicated view. To propose a tidier solution, the chapter states that nudging undermines voluntary consent if and only if it cannot be ‘interpersonally justified’ to the patient, and in this way it supports the author’s proposal of ICCJ. The chapter uses the three modified conditions not only to motivate the idea of interpersonal justification but also to support ICCJ’s specific principles. The resulting view is claimed to be especially attractive because it builds on already existing insights from the debate on nudging in public policy, updates those insights with an eye to medical consent, and finally unites them in an elegant and simple framework.
