l'héritage égalitaire comme dispositif social

Abstract

starting from the french law of bequest enacted by the code civil and from its interpretation by tocqueville, the paper studies this law as a social device designed to solve two different issues. the first one is concerned with legitimacy and is studied through the debates within the conseil d'état, whereas the second is concerned with the social mechanisms leading to action and it is studied through the debates among economists and lawyers during the 19th century. more generally, the paper suggests that similar social devices are useful to understanding transfers of resources related to death, such as life insurance and organ donorship.