Manipulation and Practical Agency

Philosophers typically argue that manipulation is wrong because it impairs our practical reasoning. Recently, Sophie Gibert has challenged this view, proposing instead a reductive account of the wrong of manipulation. Gibert’s account is reductive in that it dispenses with the idea that there is a distinctive non-moral feature of manipulation upon which its wrongness supervenes. Rather, the wrong of manipulation is nothing over and above the wrong of infringing other rights. In this paper, I raise a number of objections against Gibert’s reductive account, arguing that it is both overinclusive and underinclusive. I then propose a novel formulation of the traditional view. I argue that, in addition to avoiding the sort of problems raised by Gibert, my reformulation of the view enables us to give a more nuanced treatment of central cases of manipulation, including some that are relevant to law and policymaking, such as the morality of nudging. My reformulation comes at a price. The view I offer rests on a fairly demanding picture of the kind of practical reasoning required to exercise our practical agency well. But since this picture is independently plausible, this is a price we should be happy to pay.