Stony Brook University

serves own and other good. Leibniz never says that right itself is grounded in selfinterest.
As we move through the text, Leibniz marks the distinction between strict right and
equity (or benevolence) in several useful ways.
And as [the principle] of the lowest degree of right is to harm no one, so
[that of] the middle degree is to do good to everybody; but only so far as
befits each one or as much as he deserves; for it is impossible to favor
everyone. It is, then, here that distributive justice belongs, and the precept
of [right] 101 which commands us to give to each his due. (RC 172) 102
The second or middle degree commands what is most characteristic of the just condition:
public utility, the common good, universal benevolence, that each has what is “fitting.”
To be sure, strict right still holds, but it is insufficient to provide for the common good.
On this level need and merit are considered, and it is the role of the state to manage,
promote, and uphold just laws.
And it is here that the political laws of a state belong, which assure the
happiness of its subjects and make it possible that those who had a merely
moral claim acquire a legal claim; that is, that they become able to demand
what it is equitable for others to perform. (RC 172) 103
These passages introduce a complication with which Leibniz is always dealing, namely
the conflict between private right and the public good. The following nicely illustrates the
problem and Leibniz’s answer to it. “In the lowest degree of right, one does not take
account of differences among men, except those which arise from each particular case,
and all men are considered equal” (RC 172). 104 It is only in the second degree that certain
inequalities, i.e., considerations of need and merit are introduced. To illustrate this,
Leibniz recounts a story from Xenophon, in which a boy steals his friend’s ill-fitting coat
and gives him his own; this way, each boy actually gets a better fitting coat. The question
is whether stealing should be allowed to provide what is more “fitting.” Leibniz claims
that the correct judgment is not in favor of “whom the coat fit better, but only to whom it
belonged, and that the other manner of judging might more properly be used only when
he himself had coats to distribute” (RC 173). 105 That is, the strict right of possession takes
priority to considerations of overall utility. However, what he says next makes this
judgment uncertain: “Equity itself demands strict right, or the equality of men, in our
101 Riley has ‘law’.
102 A.4.5.62: “Et quemadmodum infimi gradus erat, neminem laedere, ita medii est, cunctis prodesse; sed
quantum cuique convenit aut quantum quisque meretur, quando omnibus aeque favere non licet. Itaque
hujus loci est distributiva justitia, et praeceptum juris, quod suum cuique tribui jubet.”
103 A.4.5.62: “Atque huc in Republica politicae leges referuntur, quae felicitatem subditorum procurant,
efficiuntque passim, ut qui aptitudinem tantum habebant, acquirant facultatem, id est, ut petere possint,
quod alios aequum est praestare.”
104 A.4.5.62: “Et cum in gradu juris infimo non attenderentur discrimina hominum, nisi quae ex ipso
negotio nascuntur, sed omnes homines censerentur aequales.”
105 A.4.5.62: “Sed a rectore admonitus est, non quaeri hoc loco cui toga conveniret, sed cujus esset; usurum
aliquando rectius hac judicandi forma, cum ipsemet togas distribuendas esset habiturus.”
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