Stony Brook University

above passage indicates, these ideas, these truths, determine the will, and thus constitute
the superiority of God.
Leibniz’s criticisms of Pufendorf are of considerable consequence for a general
theory of obligation, or for what Leibniz calls “moral necessity.” If establishing an
obligation depends on the superior’s threat of force (vis), then the moral agent acts
neither “spontaneously” (that is, from his or her own will), nor from the “respect” for just
causes. For Leibniz an obligation is established by just causes alone, that is, by the
precepts of right reason. When we apprehend them correctly, through the light of reason,
the will follows. Implied here is that only on this basis can one act spontaneously (noncoercively)
out of respect for just causes. This is the sense in which the efficient cause of
natural right is the nature of things and the precepts of right reason which “emanate from
the divine understanding.” 40 We follow the precepts in the degree to which we clearly
understand them, recognize their justness, have respect for them as just causes, and,
against other influences, both internal and external, are able to make them the efficient
causes of our own actions. In sum, this means to possess the virtue of justice, and
constitutes the self-limiting power of the moral agent. I will return to this point at the end
of this chapter.
Near the end of the Monita, Leibniz summarizes his three points this way: “The
end of natural right is the good of those who observe it; its object, all that which concerns
others and is in our power; finally, its efficient cause in us is the light of eternal reason,
kindled in our minds by the divinity” (RP 75). 41 With this summary of the Monita in
mind, we can now turn to the Meditation, which begins with a fierce attack on
voluntarism.
Section 3: The Science of Right in Méditation sur la Notion Commune de la Justice
Leibniz begins the Meditation with a passage recalling Plato’s Euthyphro, a
dialogue which centers, quite appropriately for Leibniz, on the question of piety or
holiness (hosian). 42 The Euthyphro has been very influential on the voluntarist debate.
Socrates at one point poses the hard question: “is that which is holy loved by the gods
because it is holy, or is it holy because it is loved by the gods?” (PF 35). 43 Socrates
affirms the former proposition by arguing that if holiness depends on what the gods
happen to love, then contradictory notions of holiness may arise. Therefore, the essence
(eidos) of the holy must exist independently of its being loved by the gods. Leibniz’s
argument against voluntarism is placed in very similar terms and comes to essentially the
same conclusion; but he poses the question in terms of the good and the just, and whether
God’s will determines these meanings, or whether God wills the good and the just, whose
meanings are ideal and are not determined by God’s will.
40 D 4.279, as cited above.
41 D 4.282: “Et ut dicta paucis recolligamus, in universum dicendum est: finem juris naturalis esse bonum
servantium;
objectum, quidquid aliorum interest, & in nostra est potestate; caussam denique efficientem in nobis esse
rationis aeternae lumen divinitus in mentibus accensum.”
42 Patrick Riley remarks, “Leibniz’s essay might with equal justice be called, “Meditation on the Common
Notion(s) of Platonism” (Riley, 2003, p. 69).
43 Euthyphro 10: “ara to osion, oti osion estin, fileitai upo twn qewn, h oti fileitai, osion estin;”
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