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its efficient cause in the divine ideas and in the moral capacity of the subject.
To set the term piety in place, let us begin with his statement from the Meditation
on piety as the third precept of right, in relation to the first and second precepts of right.
One can also say that as soon as [justice] is founded on God or on the
imitation of God, it becomes universal justice, and contains all the virtues.
. . . And universal justice is stamped with the supreme precept: honeste
(hoc est probe, pie) vivere,[ 92 ] just as suum cuique tribuere was in
conformity to particular justice . . . and as neminem laedere stood for
commutative justice. (RM 60). 93
Here we see again how the three precepts of right (no harm, charity, and piety) relate to
three Aristotelian kinds of justice, respectively: commutative, distributive, and universal.
Regarding universal justice, for Aristotle this means the whole of virtue; 94 while for
Leibniz it means that, but also the justice of God, whose justice we are to imitate.
But to understand what piety and imitation mean for Leibniz we must turn to his
remarks on “true piety” in the Monita. These are made in the context of his criticism of
Pufendorf on the efficient cause of natural right. In this context we recall Leibniz having
established that the efficient cause originates in “the precepts of right reason, emanating
from the divine understanding,” (RP 70); and that the “norm of conduct” depends on
“eternal truths, objects of the divine intellect;” and that “justice follows certain laws of
equality and proportion” (RP 71). For these reasons, “no one will maintain that justice
and goodness originate in the divine will, without at the same time maintaining that truth
originates in it as well” (RP 71). 95 These are crucial points, because they establish
foremost that God, “on account of his justice, accomplishes all things in a way which
satisfies every wise person, and, the most wise one, himself.” 96 Thus, as the passage
below shows, “true piety” consists in the recognition that God is to be loved for his
goodness rather than feared for his power. Therefore, the proper motive for justice is a
“right propensity of the soul” in imitation of God.
This has also not a little relevance for true piety: it is not enough, indeed,
that we be subject to God just as we would obey a tyrant; nor must he be
only feared because of his greatness, but also loved because of his
goodness: which right reason teaches, no less than the Scriptures. To this
lead the best principles of universal jurisprudence, which collaborate also
with sound theology and [incite] true virtue. Thus he who acts well, not
92 “Live honorably, that is, properly, piously.”
93 M 64: “On peut dire qu’aussitôt qu’elle est fondée sur Dieu ou sur l’imitation de Dieu, elle devient
justice universelle et contient toutes les vertus. . . . Et la justice universelle est marquée par le précepte
suprême “honeste, h.e. probe, pie vivere,” comme “suum cuique tribuere” était conforme à la justice
particulère . . . et comme “neminem laedere” était pour la justice commutative . . .”
94 Recall AE Book V. 1129b30: “In justice is every virtue 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.”
95 Recall that these quotations have been cited in section 2 above.
96 D 4.280: “Sed ob justitiam ita agit, ut omni satisfaciat sapienti, &, quod summum est, sibi.”
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