I have joined the book review team of the LSE Politics blog.

Here is one of my efforts on Blind Spots, a book which looks in quite an interesting way about how supposedly ethical judgements are made (or not) and shows how different subtle biases can creep in.

However, it turns out that it is not as easy as the authors suggest to identify why one outcome is more ‘ethical’ than another:

The authors likewise draw on fashionable ‘nudge’ ideas to call for more regulations to lay down lower default energy settings for home electrical equipment, having previously (as noted above) pointed out that undue regulation backed by sanctions can lead to more of the unwanted behaviour. The authors do not explain how to value personal choice, even if it leads to outcomes which may seem superficially unethical or downright perverse.

One example of my own. In Country A where the speed limit is 20 miles per hour there are far fewer road deaths than Country B, where the limit is 70 miles per hour. But is Country A’s approach ipso facto more ‘ethical’?

It all turns on how people individually and collectively allocate risk – and who decides.

How many British towns would have speed cameras if local residents could vote on them? At what point do we end up with so many such regulations that life becomes miserable?

Here it is: