Cass Sunstein: The 2018 Holberg Lecture: "Freedom"

Holberg Prize Talks

If people have freedom of choice, do their lives go better? Under what conditions? By what criteria? Consider three distinct problems: (1) In countless situations, human beings face a serious problem of “navigability”; they do not know how to get to their preferred destination, whether the issue involves health, education, employment, or well-being in general. This problem is especially challenging for people who live under conditions of severe deprivation, but it can be significant for all of us. (2) Many of us face problems of self-control, and our decisions today endanger our own future. What we want, right now, hurts us, next year. (3) In some cases, we would actually be happy or well-off with two or more different outcomes, whether the issue involves our jobs, our diets, our city, or even our friends and partners, and the real question, on which good answers are increasingly available, is what most promotes our welfare. The evaluative problem, in such cases, is especially challenging if a decision would alter people’s identify, values, or character. Private and public institutions -- including small companies, large companies, governments – can help people to have better lives, given (1), (2), and (3). About Cass Sunstein Professor Cass Sunstein is currently Robert Walmsley University Professor at Harvard University. He is widely regarded as the leading scholar of administrative law in the U.S. and his scholarship spans several major areas, notably behavioral economics and public policy, constitutional law and democratic theory, legal theory and jurisprudence, and the regulation of risk. From 2009 to 2012, he was Administrator of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, where he helped oversee a wide range of reforms involving safety, air quality, civil rights, open government, climate change, economic opportunity, health, and reduction of poverty. He is the founder and Director of the Program on Behavioral Economics and Public Policy at Harvard Law School. The Holberg Lecture by 2018 Holberg Laureate, Professor Cass Sunstein was recorded at a live event in the University Aula in Bergen, Norway, on June 5, 2018.