Giving Eternal Life. Notes on a Recent Book by Marco Dotti

Dotti proposes life annuities as an epistemological laboratory for\r\nthe development of the doctrine of chance and at the same time as a\r\ntesting ground for (more or less) new forecasting and estimation systems.\r\nDue to their complex heterogeneity, life annuities reveal how\r\nvarious types of practices, such as pro anima bequests, are accumulated\r\nwithin the instrument. The author looks at this multiplicity by\r\nasking “What decision does the stipulation of a life annuity respond\r\nto”, thus confronting the social and economic context of the subscriber,\r\nand identifying possible factors that influenced his choice.