Stony Brook University

equality: quod tibi non vis fieri, aut quod tibi vis fieri, neque aliis facito
aut negato.[ 70 ] This is the rule of reason and our Master. Put yourself in
the place of [others], and you will be in the true point of view for judging
what is just or not. (RM 56, slight emendation) 71
Here we find that the “common notions” of equality and equity are implied in the first
two precepts of right, strict right and distributive justice. Furthermore, we find a unique
version of the Golden Rule, which we should take a moment to look at more closely. This
version can be more clearly understood in this equivalent form:
(1) What you do not will to have done to you, do not do to others.
(2) What you will to have done to you, do not deny to others.
These are, respectively, the negative and positive versions of the rule (although not
exactly): 72 (1) Do not do to others (harm no one); and (2) do to others (give to each his
due). Understood this way, the Rule expresses both the equality of strict right and the
equity or charity of distributive justice. In other words, it prescribes that we perform both
the negative and positive good—as shown by the causes of complaint. But a further
criterion is employed, the notion of “the place of others,” so that the “rule of reason” may
be used “more equitably.” As he had said in the Nouveax essais (although only in
reference to a positive form of the Rule) the proper perspective from which to judge the
justness of an action is the place of others. 73 Indeed, from the place of all others, as will
be discussed in the following section. Finally, since this rule is “the rule of reason and of
our Master,” the rational criterion for just actions is found to be consistent with the
natural law based on Scripture. This Rule resolves the difficulty, expressed at the
beginning of Part II, beginning with “questions of right,” of establishing a notion of
justice “common to both God and humans.”
I conclude, then, that this version of the Golden Rule is the best expression of the
“formal reason” of justice that Leibniz had alluded to but did not explain in Part I of the
Meditation. A formal reason of justice is required to avoid the sort of arbitrary judgments
and results that (he believes) are endemic to voluntarism. Arbitrariness of judgment can
be avoided, then, when we measure our reasons for action against the reciprocity of
reasons, the Golden Rule. We can also say at this point that the “nominal” definition he
offered at the beginning of Part II is virtually complete: “justice is a constant will to act in
70
“What you do not wish to have done to you, or what you do wish to have done to you, do not do to
others, or do not deny to others.”
71
M 57: “On pourra donc peut- être dire que ne faire point de mal à autrui, neminem laedere, est le
précepte du droit qui s’appelle jus strictum, mais que l’equité demande qu’on fasse aussi du bien, lorsque
cela convient, et que c’est en cela que consiste le précepte qui ordonne d’accorder à chacun ce qui lui
appartient, suum cuique tribuere. Mais cette convenance ou ce qui appartient, se connaît par la règle de
l’équité ou de l’egalité: quod tibi non vis fieri, aut quod tibi vis fieri, neque aliis facito aut negato. C’est la
régle de la raison et de notre Seigneur. Mettez-vous à place d’autrui, et vous serez dans le vrai point de vue
pour juger ce qui est juste or non.”
72
In the following section I will discuss these details.
73
He says that the Golden Rule must be “elucidated,” since, “one will say that the rule applies only to a just
will. But then the rule, far from serving as a measure, will have need of one. The true meaning of the rule is
that the place of others is the true point of view for judging more equitably, when one is called upon to do
so” (NE 1.2.4.92).
224