Stony Brook University

is necessary is to possess the virtue of honor.
Whether Leibniz’s argument for disinterested love and honor is cogent is a matter that
must be postponed until Chapter Six. For now we must determine the consequence of
Leibniz’s attribution of motives to the three degrees. What do we make of the fact that
“De Justitia et Jure” ends with two different versions of the three degrees? Let us briefly
consider the main differences. Keep in mind that the starting point was the claim that
right is the faculty of right reason, whose object is the perfection of society. The first
version of the three degrees fleshed this out by showing that the principle of right could
govern several kinds of justice: commutative, distributive and universal. Thus we can
think of the principle of right as the prescriptive ground for these kinds of justice,
ultimately prescribing the moderation of justice as the love of the wise person. On the
account of motives, despite its difficulties, we can also think of it as deriving from the
principle of right, but as describing the sort of motives that are most effective for carrying
out what is normatively required. Thus considered, the account of motives has a
descriptive character, while the other account has a prescriptive character. But the
account of motives has the same relationship to the principles of right, as did the motive
of love in the Elementa—that is, as incentives to fulfill what is normatively prescribed by
right.
This account of motives however is the account that prevails in interpretations of
Leibniz’s practical philosophy—interpretations that are based on no other account than
on the marginal version of “De Justitia et Jure.” In view of this, I would like to show how
the prevailing account came about and what is additionally wrong with it. What follows
is a bit of publishing history of “De Justitia et Jure” and then some brief examples of the
commentary.
“De Justitia et Jure” had not been published as a whole until 1999 in the Akademie
edition. Prior to that, only parts of it had been published, first by Dutens (1768). 54 This
version did not include the marginal part. The marginal part, without the main body text,
was then published in Mollat’s Rechtsphilosophishes aus Leibnizens Ungedruckten
Schriften (1885). 55 Grua then published Dutens’ version in 1948. 56 This means that only
quite recently (1999) had the text appeared with both versions of the three degrees along
with the main body, and it means that the marginal version had been widely available for
many years, apart from the context in which it was written.
In the meantime, John Hostler’s Leibniz’s Moral Philosophy (1971)—which has been
quite influential upon Anglo-American commentators, being the only book in English
written on the topic—featured a brief (nine page) chapter on Leibniz’s “natural justice.”
Hostler’s chapter is based almost entirely on the marginal piece from Mollat. He claims
that Leibniz’s “scheme of natural justice” consists of a “division of justice into three
degrees.” He then presents a diagram that shows how the three “grades of justice” begin
with egoistic prudence and evolve toward active benevolence (H 56-60). While in the end
Hostler’s views are very perceptive, some of his specific views are not. His interpretation
obscures the fact that these are degrees of right, not of justice. So, he does not see that the
three degrees of right are grounded in the moral qualities. Furthermore, without the
context (i.e., the whole of “De Justitia et Jure”), one would not know that another version
54 Dutens, Jurisprudentiam III, under the title “Tit. I De Justitia et Jure.”
55 On p. 95, under the title “De Justitiae Principiis.” Also in Mollat’s 1893 edition, p. 88.
56 Texts Inédits p. 614.
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