Stony Brook University

found to be implicit in right as a moral power and obligation the moral necessity of a
rational substance. From this starting point are derived the means for achieving moral
perfection: the precepts of right, the Golden Rule, the place of others, and justice as
charity of the wise. The arguments in the Meditation for the formal reason of justice (the
Golden Rule) and the arguments in the Monita for the efficient cause of natural right
(precepts of right reason), have shown that the science of right forms the basis of the end
of Leibniz’s practical philosophy, the perfection of the will.
Section 7: Chapter conclusion: Truth, definition, obligation
In conclusion, it may be said that the Monita and Meditation deal centrally with
the issue of power, and what sort of power may correctly be called a moral power. In the
Monita, this moral power derives in part from the “efficient causes” of right and
obligation, namely, the ideas and precepts of right in God’s understanding. The other part
of this moral power consists in the virtue, in the internal power of the agent to act
according to these ideas and precepts, according to this just order. To act “spontaneously”
is to act from the respect for the rules of justice itself. Similarly, in the Meditation we
found that the “formal reason” of justice is the Golden Rule, and that this rule is virtually
identical with the double-commandment of love. We might say that justice is the virtue of
acting according to both formal and informal reason. Thus, in these late texts, Leibniz has
worked out the full implications of right as a moral power. As we can recall from the
Nova Methodus, right (moral power) and obligation (moral necessity) are the moral
qualities of a rational substance. They denote the properties of us that enable us to be
moral agents. By virtue of this freedom and power, we have obligations. The source of
obligation is thus internal, not external, as it is for the voluntarist.
We have also seen that many of Leibniz’s arguments are based on definitions. An
extremely important endeavor for Leibniz has always been to base science—whether it be
the science of right, jurisprudence, morals, or happiness—on true definitions. Indeed, a
science just is a set of demonstrative truths. True definitions tell us what the real ideas of
things are, as they exist in God’s mind (as far as we can understand them). In light of this
endeavor, a few remarks on the definitions established in the Monita and Meditation are
in order. As we have learned from his method: if one can show that a definition has real
possibility, that is, that it contains no contradiction among its concepts, and if one can
show that other definitions (e.g., the voluntarist’s) do not contain real possibility, then
one can correctly say that one has a true definition. Accordingly, there is a sense in
which, whether intended or not, Leibniz has applied this method fairly strictly in the
Monita and Meditation. His derivation of justice as charity of the wise begins with the
nominal definition of justice as “the constant will to act in such a way that no one have a
reason to complain of us.” After establishing the means for determining these reasons
(essentially the Golden Rule, which is itself clarified by “the place of others”), we arrive
at justice as charity of the wise, having found no contradiction among these definitions.
At the same time, we were shown that the voluntarist’s means for determining right and
justice are inherently contradictory and therefore must be rejected. This method parallels
somewhat the epagogic method of the Elementa, in which “true” definitions (i.e. the just
evil consequences which it might have with reference to them. Consequently, the final will or the decree of
God, resulting from all the considerations he can have, would be to give it to them.”
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