Question

Passage A
Traditional economic theory assumes that humans are perfectly rational actors, but behavioral economics has demonstrated that cognitive biases frequently lead individuals to make decisions contrary to their own long-term interests. In response, public policy has increasingly embraced "choice architecture"—structuring the context in which decisions are made to gently steer citizens toward beneficial outcomes, such as automatically enrolling employees in retirement plans. Critics who decry this approach as paternalistic overlook a crucial distinction: unlike traditional regulations that rely on outright bans or heavy taxation, choice architecture preserves freedom of choice. Because individuals remain entirely free to opt out, this regulatory approach respects individual autonomy while practically improving societal welfare.

Passage B
Advocates of behavioral public policy argue that steering citizens' decisions through psychological framing is preferable to traditional legal mandates because it theoretically leaves options open. However, this defense fundamentally misunderstands the nature of autonomy. To respect individuals as autonomous agents is to engage their capacity for conscious, rational deliberation. Choice architecture, by definition, bypasses this capacity, deliberately exploiting cognitive blind spots and subconscious biases to achieve government-selected ends. While traditional regulatory mandates are undeniably coercive, they are at least transparent; they present clear rules to which citizens can consciously respond. By contrast, psychological manipulation by the state, even when well-intentioned, inherently degrades the citizen from a reasoning agent to a subject to be managed.

Based on the passages, the authors would be most likely to disagree over whether: