Cass R. Sunstein

Bio: Cass R. Sunstein is an academic researcher from Harvard University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Supreme court & Constitution. The author has an hindex of 117, co-authored 787 publications receiving 57639 citations. Previous affiliations of Cass R. Sunstein include Brigham Young University & Indiana University.

Of Snakes and Butterflies: A Reply

Abstract: This brief essay, a reply to a forthcoming essay by Radicals in Robes by Saikrishna Prakash in the Columbia Law Review, makes two points. The first is that the abstract idea of interpretation cannot support originalism or indeed any judgment about the competing (reasonable) approaches to the Constitution. Any such judgment must be defended on pragmatic grounds, which means that it must be attentive to consequences. The second point is that the consequentialist judgments that support minimalism also suggest that there are times and places in which minimalism is rightly abandoned. For example, broad rulings may well be justified when predictability calls for it; and the Supreme Court was right to refuse minimalism in the late 1930s. While minimalism is generally the proper approach to “frontiers” issue in constitutional law, its own pragmatic foundations suggest that constitutional law should not be insistently or dogmatically minimalist.idea of interpretation cannot support originalism or indeed any judgment about the competing (reasonable) approaches to the Constitution. Any such judgment must be defended on pragmatic grounds, which means that it must be attentive to consequences. The second point is that the consequentialist judgments that support minimalism also suggest that there are times and places in which minimalism is rightly abandoned. For example, broad rulings may well be justified when predictability calls for it; and the Supreme Court was right to refuse minimalism in the late 1930s. While minimalism is generally the proper approach to “frontiers” issue in constitutional law, its own pragmatic foundations suggest that constitutional law should not be insistently or dogmatically minimalist.

Chevron As Law

Abstract: Chevron v. NRDC, the foundation for much of contemporary administrative law, is now under siege. The central objection, connected with longstanding challenges to the legitimacy of the modern regulatory state, is that the decision amounts to an unwarranted transfer of interpretive authority from courts to the executive branch. Some people think that the transfer is a recipe for a form of authoritarianism – and inconsistent with the proposition that it is the province of the judiciary to say what the law is. To assess such objections, the starting point is simple: Whether courts should defer to agency interpretations of law depends largely on legislative instructions. Under the Constitution, Congress has broad power to require courts to defer to agency interpretations (in the face of ambiguity), or to forbid them from doing so. If congressional instructions are the touchstone, and if the Administrative Procedure Act is the guiding text, there is a plausible argument that Chevron was wrong when decided; but the issue is intriguingly cloudy if the APA’s text is taken in its context. In these circumstances, Chevron should not be overruled. Doing so would introduce a great deal of confusion and increase the role of political judgments within the courts of appeals. Nonetheless, Chevron’s critics have legitimate concerns. Those concerns should be taken into account (1) by insisting on a fully independent judicial role in deciding whether a statute is ambiguous at Step One; (2) by invalidating arbitrary or unreasonable agency interpretations at Step Two; and (3) by deploying canons of construction, including those that are designed to serve nondelegation functions and thus to cabin executive authority.

Inequality and the Value of a Statistical Life

Abstract: Abstract A uniform value of a statistical life (VSL) is part of established practice within the federal government. Some people have applauded a uniform VSL on the ground that it respects the equality of persons; takes harm to poor people as seriously as it does harm to wealthy people; avoids expressive harms; and builds appropriate wealth redistribution into regulatory policy. Other people have strenuously objected to a uniform VSL, emphasizing that to reduce mortality risks, poor people are willing to pay less than rich people are, and urging that poor people should not have to pay more than they are willing to pay. Whether a uniform VSL is in the interest of poor people depends on whether we are dealing with subsidies or regulations. In the case of subsidies, a uniform VSL is highly likely to benefit poor people. If we are dealing with regulations, we cannot know whether a uniform VSL helps or harms poor people without knowing the incidence of costs (and benefits).

Pattern Recognition and Machine Learning

Abstract: Probability Distributions.- Linear Models for Regression.- Linear Models for Classification.- Neural Networks.- Kernel Methods.- Sparse Kernel Machines.- Graphical Models.- Mixture Models and EM.- Approximate Inference.- Sampling Methods.- Continuous Latent Variables.- Sequential Data.- Combining Models.

The behaviour change wheel: a new method for characterising and designing behaviour change interventions.

Abstract: Improving the design and implementation of evidence-based practice depends on successful behaviour change interventions. This requires an appropriate method for characterising interventions and linking them to an analysis of the targeted behaviour. There exists a plethora of frameworks of behaviour change interventions, but it is not clear how well they serve this purpose. This paper evaluates these frameworks, and develops and evaluates a new framework aimed at overcoming their limitations. A systematic search of electronic databases and consultation with behaviour change experts were used to identify frameworks of behaviour change interventions. These were evaluated according to three criteria: comprehensiveness, coherence, and a clear link to an overarching model of behaviour. A new framework was developed to meet these criteria. The reliability with which it could be applied was examined in two domains of behaviour change: tobacco control and obesity. Nineteen frameworks were identified covering nine intervention functions and seven policy categories that could enable those interventions. None of the frameworks reviewed covered the full range of intervention functions or policies, and only a minority met the criteria of coherence or linkage to a model of behaviour. At the centre of a proposed new framework is a 'behaviour system' involving three essential conditions: capability, opportunity, and motivation (what we term the 'COM-B system'). This forms the hub of a 'behaviour change wheel' (BCW) around which are positioned the nine intervention functions aimed at addressing deficits in one or more of these conditions; around this are placed seven categories of policy that could enable those interventions to occur. The BCW was used reliably to characterise interventions within the English Department of Health's 2010 tobacco control strategy and the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence's guidance on reducing obesity. Interventions and policies to change behaviour can be usefully characterised by means of a BCW comprising: a 'behaviour system' at the hub, encircled by intervention functions and then by policy categories. Research is needed to establish how far the BCW can lead to more efficient design of effective interventions.

International Norm Dynamics and Political Change

Abstract: Norms have never been absent from the study of international politics, but the sweeping “ideational turn” in the 1980s and 1990s brought them back as a central theoretical concern in the field. Much theorizing about norms has focused on how they create social structure, standards of appropriateness, and stability in international politics. Recent empirical research on norms, in contrast, has examined their role in creating political change, but change processes have been less well-theorized. We induce from this research a variety of theoretical arguments and testable hypotheses about the role of norms in political change. We argue that norms evolve in a three-stage “life cycle” of emergence, “norm cascades,” and internalization, and that each stage is governed by different motives, mechanisms, and behavioral logics. We also highlight the rational and strategic nature of many social construction processes and argue that theoretical progress will only be made by placing attention on the connections between norms and rationality rather than by opposing the two.

Risk as Feelings

Abstract: Virtually all current theories of choice under risk or uncertainty are cognitive and consequentialist. They assume that people assess the desirability and likelihood of possible outcomes of choice alternatives and integrate this information through some type of expectation-based calculus to arrive at decision. The authors propose an alternative theoretical perspective, the risk-as-feelings hypothesis, that highlights the role of affect experienced at the moment of decision making. Drawing on research from clinical, physiological, and other subfield of psychology, they show that emotional reactions to risky situations often drive behavior. The risk-as-feelings hypothesis is shown to explain a wide range of phenomena that have resisted interpretation in cognitive-consequentialist terms.

A perspective on judgment and choice: Mapping bounded rationality.

Abstract: Early studies of intuitive judgment and decision making conducted with the late Amos Tversky are reviewed in the context of two related concepts: an analysis of accessibility, the ease with which thoughts come to mind; a distinction between effortless intuition and deliberate reasoning. Intuitive thoughts, like percepts, are highly accessible. Determinants and consequences of accessibility help explain the central results of prospect theory, framing effects, the heuristic process of attribute substitution, and the characteristic biases that result from the substitution of nonextensional for extensional attributes. Variations in the accessibility of rules explain the occasional corrections of intuitive judgments. The study of biases is compatible with a view of intuitive thinking and decision making as generally skilled and successful.