http://dx.doi.org/10.17176/20181005-145503-0 https://verfassungsblog.de/why-lawyers-should-deal-with-nudges/ Why lawyers should deal with Nudges Petersen, Niels eng 2015-04-18 electronic resource text/html ddc:342 Verfassungsblog Verfassungsblog--2366-7044 CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 Emanuel Towfigh and Christian Traxler have asked why the nudging debate has arrived so late in the German legal discourse. They argue that this is due to a mixture of reasons related to legal culture and legal education. I agree with their analysis. So let me address one question that both authors do not touch. Why should lawyers deal with the question of nudging? Wouldn’t this rather be a task for psychologists or behavioral economists? Prima facie, there seems to be a lot in favor of leaving the discussion on nudges to social scientists. A nudge seeks to alter people’s behavior without restraining choices. In order to influence people’s behavior, however, you have to analyze behavioral patterns, which is impossible without empirical methods.