Cass Sunstein Quotes

Because those who hold conspiracy theories typically suffer from a crippled epistemology, in accordance with which it is rational to hold such theories, the best response consists in cognitive infiltration of extremist groups. Various policy dilemmas, such as the question whether it is better for government to rebut conspiracy theories or to ignore them, are explored in this light.

Most problems are best solved privately, not through government. There's a problem of discourtesy in the world, which is best handled through social norms, which are indispensable. But you wouldn't want the government to be mandating courtesy.

Democrats want to use government power to make people's lives go better; Republicans respond that people know more than politicians do. We think that both might be able to agree that nudging can maintain free markets, and liberty, while also inclining people in good directions.

My role in the government was not to think about narratives and consistency with narratives, but think of the human consequences of rules.

Catholicism is a wide tent in terms of political and legal positions. We could have nine Catholics on the Supreme Court and a great deal of diversity toward the law.

There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day.

I started to read as obsessively about Star Wars as I once did about Kant - and still do about behavioral economics and behavioral psychology.

I love The Matrix, especially the first one.

The opening scene in A New Hope, when you see the huge ship, it goes on, and on, and on, and on, and on ... that is like a joke of awesomeness.

My own view is that institutions are a glory, and for all their imperfections, something really to be proud of. It is true that things can be a lot better than they are. It's okay to emphasize that.

A program that saves young people produces more welfare than one that saves old people.

Groups become more extreme and entrenched in their beliefs and polarized from others when members only exchange information that reinforces their views and filter out all else or never learn of alternatives. Thus they narrow their options, and magnify each other's prejudices and misconceptions. This trend leads to blind spots in decision making and to extreme behavior, even terrorism.

Probably, if we looked at Da Vinci or Michelangelo with care, we'd see a historical particularity that the work is not treated as having. It's certainly true of Shakespeare.

It's deeply human to do both the worst things and the best things because of your fear of loss.

I got into the genesis of Star Wars, and the tale seemed to me endlessly fascinating.

The U.S. is blessed with tremendously creative and imaginative law students at places like Chicago, Harvard, Columbia and Yale.

Those who believe in climate change, as I do, I think it's also fair to say that they are more receptive to confirming evidence than disconfirming evidence. They happen to be right, but their motivations are in play also.

Those subject to capital punishment are real human beings, with their own backgrounds and narratives. By contrast, those whose lives are or might be saved by virtue of capital punishment are mere 'statistical people.' They are both nameless and faceless, and their deaths are far less likely to be considered in moral deliberations.

The fear of loss is an engine of horrors, but also a source of the greatest forms of heroism. There's not a lot of art that puts that in bold letters. It's psychologically very interesting and acute, I think. That's not the central reading, I think, of the New Testament.

This part of the 21st century is preoccupied with risk, and there's a lot that law can do to make lives longer and healthier.

We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn't a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It's time now.

As a matter of history, the Fourteenth Amendment was not understood to ban segregation on the basis of race.

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.

If I may discuss the idea of explosion. The number of regulations issued in the last two years is approximately the same as the number issued in the last two years of the Bush administration.

I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views.

There's a big difference between the role of an academic and the role of someone in government. That's a cliche, but in academic life if you say things that are common sense and people nod their heads, it's not very useful. You're not adding anything.

I am proud to say that the Federalist Society was founded in part at the University of Chicago, and one of its best characteristics has been an attack on liberal shibboleths by looking at real consequences and specific problems and by asking what law actually does.

I am a huge Red Sox fan.

Game Of Thrones is arguably the hottest thing on television.

I dealt with people with diverse political views. If you find people who are your political opponents, and talk to them for an hour, chances are you're going to like them, and they're not full of hate.

If there's a regulation that's saving 10,000 lives and costing one job, it's worth it.

And so it's no surprise that people who object to the death penalty on pure moral grounds also think it has no deterrent effect, and people who like the death penalty on grounds of retribution tend to think it has deterrent effects. They like that, and they believe that. I think with climate change we're seeing very much the same thing where those who deny climate change, they don't like that, and they don't believe it.

Liberals are sometimes defined as people who can't take their own side in an argument.

Some of the Hulk movies have been merely okay. I think the thing to do ... there has to be some stab that makes it something we haven't seen before.

There is no proportional representation requirement in the Equal Protection Clause.

The 'cash for clunkers' program was a big success in part because it gave people the sense that the economy was moving.

Almost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms.

Today, we are announcing that agencies are releasing their final regulatory reform plans, including hundreds of initiatives that will reduce costs, simplify the system, and eliminate redundancy and inconsistency.

We often see a temper of the times connection, and it's just like a fairy tale. It's not true.

I strongly believe that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to possess and use guns for purposes of both hunting and self-defense.

I think it's a very firm part of human nature that if you surround yourself with like-minded people, you'll end up thinking more extreme versions of what you thought before.