12h45 - 15h  
D.041 Bâtiment Dupriez  

Mardi intime de la Chaire Hoover par Anne-Lise Sibony
In the past ten years, the EU has commissioned many behavioural studies to inform policy. In this talk, Anne-Lise Sibony will shed light on this under-researched aspect of EU policymaking. Taking examples in the area of consumer protection, where the behavioural turned is marked, she will clarify what concerns it raises and argue that ‘nudging’ is not one of them. She will offer an overview of behavioural studies EU institutions have commissioned to inform policy and describe this corpus in terms of accessibility, topics, and methods mix and outline four research perspectives: 1) identifying gaps in the recourse to disciplines like sociology and anthropology; 2) checking the institutional practice against the standard of ‘best available evidence’; 3) tracing the use of specific studies, and 4) asking not only what law can learn from behavioural science but, conversely, what behavioural science can learn from EU policy-driven empirical research. 

François Jaquet (Strasbourg): 'Nothing's Good For Plants'

Just as we commonly say such things as “Pleasure is good for humans” or “Pain is bad for mice,” we commonly say such things as “Water is good for plants” or “Pollution is bad for ecosystems.” Claims of the former kind are fairly uncontested—it is clear enough that some things are good or bad for sentient beings. Disagreement persists with respect to claims of the latter kind, however. Some philosophers maintain that these mean the same as claims about sentient beings and that they are sometimes true. Others agree that they are sometimes true but deny that they mean the same as claims about sentient beings. My contention will be that they mean the same but are always false.