Choice architecture autonomy. The choice architecture term was originally coined by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein in their 2008 book "Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness". Thaler and Sunstein have endorsed thoughtful design of choice architecture as a means to improve consumer decision-making by minimizing biases and errors that arise as the result of bounded rationality. This approach is an example of "libertarian paternalism", a philosophy endorsed by Thaler and Sunstein that aims to "nudge" individuals toward choices that are in their best interest without limiting choice. Libertarian paternalism may also be described as soft paternalism. Behavioral scientists have grouped
Cass Sunstein American legal scholar by a wide margin, followed by Erwin Chemerinsky and Richard A. Epstein. Sunstein was born on September 21, 1954 in Waban, Massachusetts to Marian (née Goodrich), a teacher, and Cass Richard Sunstein, a builder, both Jewish. He graduated in 1972 from Middlesex School and in 1975 with a B.A. from Harvard College, where he was a member of the varsity squash team and the "Harvard Lampoon". In 1978, Sunstein received a J.D. "magna cum laude" from Harvard Law School, where he was executive editor of the "Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review" and part of a winning