Stony Brook University

ewarded, then few will make them. So, while distributions of wealth are conditioned by
merit and advantage, the conditions themselves are subject to agreement. 91
A final remark on distributive justice pertains to whether strict right may be
violated for the sake of the general utility. Leibniz says it may not be, precisely for the
sake of the general utility. For example, he says it is not permitted to deprive the rich in
order to give to the poor; nor is it permitted to take a coat that belongs to one person in
order to give it to another who better fits it. Right of possession takes precedence over
distributive justice, since, if one cannot be secure in one’s rights, then “the disorder
which would be born of it would cause more general evil and inconvenience” (RM 64).
This seems to be a fairly consistent position for Leibniz, although he also grants
exceptions in extreme cases. In any case, we may now bring Leibniz’s account of the first
two degrees to a close, having set out the basic “common notions” involved in the idea of
justice, namely, equality and equity. What remains to be explained is the virtue of justice,
which falls under the third degree of right—piety.
Section 6: The third degree of right: Piety and the spiritual disposition
The third degree, honeste vivere, or live honorably, piously, is the most complex
of the degrees of right, since it appears to involve motives whose moral aims are mutually
inconsistent: the motives of hope and fear versus the aims of true piety; the motives of
pleasure and happiness, versus the motive of doing justice for its own sake. For the most
part, though, his arguments attempt to synthesize several of his long-standing positions
under the principle of perfection, specifically, moral perfection or virtue. The highest
good is the “spiritual disposition,” which is to have the virtue of justice for its own sake.
God is the most virtuous being, since he acts out of his own moral-rational nature. Our
duty then is to imitate this model of virtue. The third degree of right, then, piety, will be
rightly understood as the agent’s possession of the virtue resembling God’s. To make this
case we will examine passages relating to piety in both the Monita and the Meditation,
since pity involves both the “efficient cause” of natural right as well as the “spiritual
disposition.” Finally, we will reassess the implications of these points in relation to the
theme of right as a self-limiting moral power. It becomes clear that moral perfection has
the object of an original agreement in a suitably defined initial situation” (Rawls 684). “They are the
principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial
position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regulate
all further agreements” (Rawls 672). “All social values—liberty and opportunity, income and wealth, and
the bases of self-respect—are to be distributed equally unless an unequal distribution of any, or all, of these
values is to everyone’s advantage” (678). Notably, Rawls states that Leibniz’s theory of justice is based on
the idea that the distribution of goods is relative only to the moral worth of individuals, so that the morally
good deserve more than the morally bad (he gets this from a remark in “The Ultimate Origin of Things”);
but ‘justice as fairness’ has no place for that, since justice requires the “legitimate expectation” that
distribution will proceed by publicly recognized rules, not some impossibly vague criteria for moral worth
(p. 273). But arguably this characterization is much too simple to be accurate.
91 Such a meritocracy, however, remains open to the criticism that those who merit may leave a legacy of
advantage over those who do not, and those with natural disadvantages will be left to suffer; the advantaged
may then more easily gain political power and design laws for themselves to retain their advantages—thus,
gross inequalities may eventually result from a system that professes fairness for all, as often happens.
Perhaps Leibniz would say that such a system is justified, as long as it also provides mechanisms for
redistribution in case of ever-worsening conditions.
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