Ethical Considerations when using Behavioural Insights to Reduce Peoples Meat Consumption

Leonhard Lades and Federica Nova
Additional contact information
Federica Nova: Environmental Policy, University College Dublin, Ireland and UCD Geary Institute for Public Policy

No 202209, Working Papers from Geary Institute, University College Dublin

Abstract: Behaviourally informed interventions such as nudges are increasingly used to encourage sustainable and often meat-free diets. These interventions are motivated by concerns about peoples health, animal welfare, and the environmental degradation linked to meat consumption. However, dietary choices are very personal and often of cultural importance, and behavioural interventions have been criticized, for example, for being paternalistic, manipulative, and not respecting people's autonomy. Applying the FORGOOD ethics framework, this paper organises diverse ethical arguments in favour and against using behavioural interventions to reduce meat consumption. We present a systematic high-level discussion on the ethics of influencing peoples diets and suggest that choice architects should reflect on ethical implications when designing, and before implementing, behavioural interventions to reduce meat consumption.

Keywords: Meat Consumption; Sustainable Diets; Nudge; Libertarian Paternalism; Ethics; FORGOOD (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F18 H23 P48 Q00 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 21 pages
Date: 2022-10-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr, nep-env and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ucd.ie/geary/static/publications/workingpapers/gearywp202209.pdf First version, 2022 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ucd:wpaper:202209

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Geary Institute, University College Dublin Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Geary Tech ().