Stony Brook University

need of help, and another who easily could help you refused to do so, you would judge
that he is “a bad man and even an enemy” (RM 54). This tells us that, “one will grant that
it is necessary to prevent an evil to others, if one can do so commodiously.” 62 Thus, the
second cause of complaint: to refuse to prevent an evil to another.
Now for the third step, for what still needs to be shown is that, “justice orders us
to do positive good for others,” not merely to prevent evils (RM 55). 63 To bring us to this
level Leibniz for the first time in the Meditation invokes the Golden Rule. “And I return
again to the proof, that is to say to the rule, quod tibi non vis fieri.” 64 Note that this is the
negative version of the rule. To illustrate how it works we are again offered a scenario.
But I wish again to propose an intermediate case. A great good is coming
to you; an impediment appears; I can remove that impediment without
pain: would you not believe yourself to have a right to ask it of me, and to
remind me that I would ask it of you, if I were in a similar position? (RM
55) 65
This scenario shows that it is objectionable to indirectly prevent the good for another. If I
were to refuse to remove an impediment to your good (in other words, if I were to allow a
good to escape you) you would rightly complain. And everyone would recognize the
justness of this complaint, because everyone would recognize that one’s own reasoning
could be reciprocally applied—as the Golden Rule makes clear. Thus the third cause of
complaint: to refuse to remove an impediment to a positive good for another.
From here it is a small step to the fourth and final cause of complaint: “If you
grant me this point how will you refuse the only remaining request, that is, to secure a
great good for me, when you can do it without inconveniencing yourself in any way?”
(55). That is, if I am committed to right action in the third step, i.e., not to prevent a good
from coming to you, then to be consistent I must be committed to actively secure a good
for you—if doing so does no harm to me. Failing to actively secure a positive good for
another is much like failing to remove an impediment to her good. In either case, you
could have done the good for another, but refused; the result is either a harm or lack of
good for another. Thus the fourth cause of complaint: to refuse to promote another’s
good. And now it is clear that these “causes of complaint” imply the obligation not only
to refrain from harm, but to do the positive good.
This gradation makes it clear that the same reasons for complaint subsist
always; whether one does evil or refuses to do good is a matter of degree,
but that does not change the species and the nature of the thing. (RM 55) 66
62 M 55: “On m’accordera donc qu’il faut empêcher le mal d’autrui, si l’on le peut commodément.”
63 It should be clear that ‘positive good’ is meant to distinguish from negative good. Not being harmed is a
negative good. Receiving a freely given gift, for example, is a positive good.
64 M 55: “Et je reviens encore à l’épreuve, c’est-à-dire à la régle: Quod tibi non vis fieri (what you would
not have done to you).” Although he says, “I return again,” this is his first mention of the rule.
65 M 56: “Mais je veux encore proposer le cas un peu mitoyen. Un grand bien va vous arriver. Il vient un
empêchement, je puis lever cet empêchement sans peine. Ne croiriez-vous pas être en droit de me le
demander et de me faire souvenir que je le demanderais à vous, si j’étais en pareil cas?”
66 M 57: “Cette gradation fait voir que les mêmes raisons de plainte subsiste toujours. Soit qu’on fasse mal
ou qu’on refuse le bien, il y a du plus et du moins, mais cela ne change point l’espèce et la nature de la
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