There is something rather interesting about the urinals in Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport, something which has helped to reduce spillage in the men’s bathrooms by 80% and resulted in a saving of 8% in the total budget for cleaning the toilets. Look into any of the urinals and you will be greeted by an etched image of a fly. This remarkably simple and inexpensive porcelain creature has had a significant impact on cleanliness in the toilets, simply by giving its users something to aim for. Whilst this may not be the most sophisticated or earth-shattering idea, it perfectly represents the aims of libertarian paternalism, which looks to shift the way our choices are presented to us whilst still maintaining our freedom to choose.

The sheer concept of libertarian paternalism may seem a contradiction in terms, as surely libertarians cannot possibly embrace paternalism, yet the ideology has gained significant traction and support in recent years, with Cameron setting up the Behavioural Insights Team, or Nudge Unit, under the Coalition as the world’s first government institution dedicated to the application of behavioural sciences in public policy. There is certainly nothing contradictory about the notion of public or private institutions affecting behaviour whilst still respecting freedom of choice, and since its foundation in 2010 the BIT has since expanded its operations to the United States and Australia.

The Nudge Unit’s concerns and projects are far more wide-ranging than simply flies in urinals however, with significant strides being made in health, taxation and environmental policy, to name but a few. The department has helped to sign up an extra 100,000 organ donors a year, persuaded 20% more people to consider switching energy provider, and doubled the number of army applicants. One project nudged forward the payment of £30 million a year in income tax by simply introducing new reminder letters that informed recipients that most of their neighbours had already paid.

This is not to say that the practice of nudging is met without scepticism, given that it works by influencing the public without their knowledge, and since the Nudge Unit has been part-privatised it is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act. However, such concerns are largely unfounded, and represent a clear misunderstanding of the practice, focusing too exclusively on the notion of ‘paternalism’ and ignoring the libertarian nature of the Department. Whilst the practices are paternalist in that they try to influence choices in a way that will make choosers better off, as judged by the behavioural economists, they are libertarian in that they neither force nor prohibit any actions. Libertarian paternalism is a relatively weak and non-instrusive type of paternalism, because choices are not blocked or fenced off, and at worst the approach imposes trivial costs on those who seek to depart from the preferred option of the choice architect. Behavioural economics works by adjusting the choice architecture of the world around us, but given that no combination of choices is objectively neutral, there is no harm in presenting choices to promote our more productive tendencies.

The origins of the term ‘libertarian paternalism’ comes from Thaler and Sunstein, who in outlining their ‘nudging’ approach aimed to ensure that “people should be free to opt out of specific arrangements if they choose to do so.” Equipped with an understanding of our bounded rationality and bounded self-control, Thaler and Sunstein suggest that libertarian paternalists attempt to steer people’s choices in welfare-promoting directions without eliminating freedom of choice. For example, setting the default to promote beneficial behaviour is a clear soft paternalist policy, and countries that have an ‘opt-out’ system for voluntary organ donation experience dramatically higher levels of organ donation consent than countries with an opt-in system. Austria, with an opt-out system, has a consent rate of 99.98% among its citizens, whilst Germany, despite being culturally and economically similar, but with an opt-in system, has a consent rate of only 12%.

To put the fruit at eye-level and junk foods out of reach is not to prevent us from making the choice we wish to, but it is to ultimately accept the emotional and irrational behaviours which are intrinsic to human nature and have been ignored by classical economics for far too long. Whilst none would be so bold as to suggest that Homo Economicus provides a flawless account of human nature, we accept that the assumptions made are sufficiently accurate as to justify such simplifications, particularly if the only another option is to throw our arms up in the air and forget any form of economic modelling because it will never reflect human nature.

But irrationality is not the end of the story when it comes to behavioural economics, and the reason that libertarian paternalism has the potential to be so effective is because we are irrational in ultimately predictable ways. We may act against our own best interests, but it is a flaw to which we are all subject, and it is in accepting and exploiting these irrational behavioural patterns that we can all make better choices, whilst still maintaining that ultimate freedom that we must all be granted: to think and choose for ourselves.

There’s a tempting tendency amongst commentators to frame the issue about trigger warnings (TWs) as concerning exposure and the purpose of universities as “places where there can be open debate which is challenged and [in which] people can get involved.” (Theresa May, September 2016), but this framing possesses multiple serious problems. .

A clarification is needed beforehand. Defendants of TWs only need to show that under some circumstances, TWs are appropriate; they need not defend all forms of existing application; nor endorse excessive application, for instance labeling every component of academic content potentially “triggering” – indeed the vastly lowered credibility of warnings in such a situation would be obviously counterproductive. TWs should be, and are currently applied as, precursory notices for individuals who find particular content deeply psychologically traumatising (triggering) to enable them to opt out of these uncomfortable moments.

The first direct response to the Alternative View Exposure Argument is to point out that the subset of cases where exposure is “stifled” due to TWs is highly limited. Note, TWs rarely cause students who disagree about the topic being raised to leave the discussion – individuals who refuse to engage with opposite views would refuse to engage anyway; individuals who prefer to engage with different views would have no issue continuing to engage with flagged topics of controversy. More importantly, TWs are applied in cases where injurious emotional harm is likely to be caused – 99% (figuratively) of academic discussions (including ones where uncomfortable cognitive dissonance takes place) in the Status Quo are unaffected by TWs.

To that effect, let’s engage with the remaining 1% of absent exposure. This 1% requires weighing against the alternative exposure that TWs encourage.

Firstly, beneficiaries of TWs are more likely to be willing to engage in discussion for three reasons:
i) Psychological State – distressed individuals shocked by the resurgence of painful personal memories are unlikely to be able to participate in discussions; effective exposure is optimised when students are not literally too shocked to speak or listen.
ii) General Willingness –without TWs risk-averse students are more likely to opt out of most (if not all) campus discussions altogether, leaving far less exposure on the aggregate; TWs – and the sense of control and autonomy they institutionalise – encourage students to expose themselves to the “controversial views” that advocates against TWs celebrate so enthusiastically.
iii) Affective Heuristic – individuals imagine and perceive arguments through the dominant psychological schema (the “affect”) impacting them at the time of reception; the  experience of reliving traumatic memories in an episode of triggering makes individuals far less receptive to the “new opinions and challenging concepts” that TW-critics mention; TWs ensure that their beneficiaries can engage in discussions in comparatively more composed  mental states.

Secondly, the existence of TWs encourages their beneficiaries to speak up more frequently:

1. i) Internal Buy-In –without any TWs, students who have particularly traumatising triggers would be hesitant to discuss topics that could be potentially sensitive and possibly triggering (given their inability to opt-out); TWs allow students to speak in a controlled and safe fashion on sensitive topics such as sexual assault, racial discrimination, and war;
2. ii) External Buy-In – for students who are deeply affected by particular triggers, the existence of TWs may determine their choice of a particular (or any) university in the first place. Students who drop out or decline to attend universities due to deficient welfare systems are more likely to be marginalised and excluded from ideas if TWs are absent.

The above mechanisms bring about exposure to alternative views that is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to that (realistically small amount) which trigger warnings are alleged to “stifle”.  Beyond this, TWs facilitate a virtuous cycle of inclusion within campus discussion, which extends beyond the individuals directly affected, and draws in a greater plurality of voices to campus debates.

The strongest case against trigger warnings, in my opinion, is the soft paternalistic argument that individuals have second-order preferences to become “healed” through the “shock doctrine” of exposure to triggering material, and that their first-order preferences of opting out of discussions would elude their “genuine interests”. Two responses:

First, there seems to be more than one way to treat and “heal” an individual through exposure. Exposure does not have to be painful, deeply traumatising, and fundamentally unfriendly. It equally does not require unnecessary and simplistic characterisations of the lived experiences of those who face being triggered.

Second, the non-moral premise is worth challenging here: there are several reasons why the absence of TWs makes therapy significantly more difficult. TWs allow individuals to opt in and out of discussions, gradually increasing the levels of psychological tolerance; the absence of TWs means that shocks come through in an emotionally overwhelming manner unconducive towards therapy. A vaccine injects a controlled, weakened dosage of a microbe; it does not inject an overwhelming dosage of the most lethal strain.  Discussions without TWs may also include ones that are deeply antagonistic and unhelpful towards participants’ welfare (e.g. victim-blaming narratives in discussions concerning sexual assault); TWs allow beneficiaries to opt out of discussions that would potentially jeopardise recovery. Finally, without TWs, victims of past abuses are locked in a power asymmetry that deprives them of the ability to opt out of abusive discussions and dialogue; TWs allow victims to control their therapeutic progress and determine when and how they could best confront the demons from their past.

Simplistic and grossly mischaracterised discussions about trigger warnings are unhelpful and counterproductive. There may be strong reasons against trigger warnings, but holding that exposure is the silver bullet argument is fundamentally misguided.