Nudges are policy instruments criticized for the potential threat they pose to the nudgee’s agency. Such concerns have led to a growing movement within behavioral public policy advocating for alternative tools designed to be pro-agency. This article focuses on one of these instruments, self-nudges, and argues that, although they represent a step in the right direction (being motivated by a legitimate and much-needed rationale) a more thorough analysis is still needed to identify specific conditions under which they may fail to live up to their pro-agency promise. This article identifies four such conditions: i) social exclusion, ii) misimplementation, iii) the slippery-slope dynamic associated with self-control, and iv) misgeneralization.
