Abstract

When reading François Ewald’s “The Values of Insurance,” it is hard not to be struck by its extraordinary confidence. It is a triumphalist account of insurance’s history, in which the present—the text was first published in 1998—appears as an apotheosis. “Today,” Ewald writes, “insurance stands as a pillar of our economic and social order.” Though Ewald’s tale emphasizes the intellectual and technical achievements that made insurance possible, notably the discovery of probability and the actuarial sciences, a deeper source of his optimism is the moral victory that insurance, in his eyes, has achieved. Once upon a time, insurance was viewed with suspicion: it encouraged reckless conduct and cushioned the consequences of immoral behavior. Since then, Ewald argues, insurance has successfully occupied a higher moral plane: it promotes a morality of personal responsibility that also fulfills important obligations to society. The piece ends with a frank declaration of insurance’s moral superiority: “Far from being a society without values, a society founded on insurance is a … terribly virtuous society.” Whoever truly understands insurance shall see that it is good.