Stony Brook University

“Universal justice” refers, not only to that which applies everywhere, 11 but to justice as
encompassing the whole of virtue. 12 This virtue is also consistent with the divine natural
law, which, as we saw, is likely the double commandment of love. This virtue is the
“constant will” (to borrow from the Roman definition of justice) to do what is just. To
acquire this virtue requires knowledge and practice, and those who have the virtue are
obliged to teach it. To do effectively what is honorable, one must have the inner
disposition for honor. Otherwise, one’s actions are accidentally good. In a way, Leibniz’s
position is somewhat surprising, since on one hand, regarding the end of natural right, he
insists that it include natural theology, while regarding the object of natural right, he has
little use for moral theology. But he thinks that Pufendorf’s premises are inadequate
because they exclude the philosophic teachings of virtue.
Furthermore, these matters ought to be handled within the science of right itself,
since it naturally handles the internal sources of action:
But since no one can deny that right and obligation, sins in relation to
God, and right actions are also naturally constituted in the interior; where,
I ask, shall these certainly natural sources of right and justice be handled,
unless in the science of natural right? 13
Two points are quite significant here. Leibniz thinks that Pufendorf does not recognize
that natural right is a subjective attribute of rational minds. Although, Leibniz does not
speak directly of right and obligation as the moral qualities of a person acting, he
nevertheless still thinks in terms of subjective right. The role of the moral qualities as the
sources of moral action has largely been supplanted by virtue. Secondly, as the following
passage makes clearer, moral theology is informed by the science of right; indeed, both
moral theology and the science of right form one body of knowledge, namely, universal
jurisprudence.
praecipiendi ratio est, nam ut pulchre monitum Aristoteli, plus possunt mores quàm leges. Et quanquam
fieri possit, ut aliquis spe metuque pravas cogitationes comprimat, ne noceant . . . tamen non efficiet, ut
profint. Itaque qui non rectè animatus erit, saepe peccabit faltem officii omissione.” The English
translations are again from Riley (RP = Riley Pufendorf) although I have emended some passages, some by
direction of Professor Baum.
11 Aristotle, Rhetoric 1373b2: “Particular law (nomos idion) is that which each community lays down and
applies to its own members: this is partly written and partly unwritten. Universal law (koinon) is the law of
nature (physis). For there really is, as every one to some extent divines, a natural justice (dikaion) and
injustice that is binding on all men, even those who have no association or convent with each other. It is
this that Sophocles’ Antigone clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just act in
spite of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature (physis).”
12 AE Book V. 1129b30: “In justice is every virtue (arete) comprehended. And it is complete virtue in its
fullest sense, because it is the actual exercise of complete virtue. It is complete because he who possesses it
can exercise his virtue not only in himself but towards his neighbor also.”
13 D 278: “Sed quum in internis quoque jus & obligationem, peccataque in Deum, & rectas actiones natura
constitui, nemo negare possit; ubi quaeso tractabuntur haec naturalis utique juris justitiaeque capita; nisi in
scientia juris naturalis?” Note that Riley’s translation obscures Leibniz’s enormously important allusion to
the moral qualities of right and oblilgation: “But since nobody can deny that law, duty, sin in relation to
God, and good actions are also naturally located in the interior, where—I ask them—shall we consider
these topics, which certainly pertain to law and to natural justice, if not in the science of natural law?” (RM
69).
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