How to write your will in an age of risk: The institutionalization of individualism in estate planning in English Canada

Employing the concepts of risk and individualization of Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, this article analyses moral discourse in Canadian advice books on how to write a will and situates this advice within a history of inheritance in English Canada. The main finding is that estate planning experts downplay specific familial obligations and instead present estate planning as a procedural matter that entails risk calculations in areas such as familial relationships, care in old age and financial management. The moral issues in writing a will derive from this administrative emphasis. Our prime duty, apparently, is to avoid burdening others with decisions that were ours to make. Hence, the advice literature of estate planning affirms Beck and Beck-Gernsheim’s individualization thesis by asserting that in death, as in life, our social responsibility is to arrange and manage our personal affairs.