Life, death and commodification: Fear of death in the work of Adam Smith

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyse Adam Smith’s view of death in The Theory of Moral Sentiments for commercial society to determine whether the current commodification of goods (e.g. pharmaceuticals) and services (e.g. cryogenics) to assist people to deal with the fear of death was what Smith envisioned for meaningful existence and to find out what he proposed as a means to manage the fear of death in existence. The investigation revealed that Smith’s book contains many references to death as a source of anxiety that negatively influences the lives of people, their happiness and meaning in life, and ignites fear and anxiety. The cultural measure of Smith’s time to manage the fear of death are magnanimity (e.g. war and suffering), the comfort of wealth, posthumous happiness (e.g. duty and sacrifice) and philosophy (e.g. Stoicism). The problem for Smith is that wealth and commodities, as is the case with the other means to deal with the fear of death, do not result in being-for-itself without the assistance of the impartial spectator which is a cognitive mechanism for self-awareness and socially located meaning-creation in the world with others.