Stony Brook University

Thus in the Theodicy Leibniz uses moral necessity to describe the sense in
which the will is bound to choose that course of action which the practical
intellect judges here and now to be best. . . . It is this second sense that
Leibniz utilizes when he is trying to show how an agent inevitably chooses
the perceived best while still retaining robust freedom (Murray 2).
I do not see, however, why Murray should think that the “ethical” and “deontic” usage in
the jurisprudential writings is distinct from the “action-theoretic” usage in Theodicy,
since in both contexts the quality of action is necessarily value-laden. It is true that the
emphasis in the latter context is on retaining God’s freedom in relation to necessity; but
both contexts indicate that God is in some sense “bound” to a course of action that is best.
Even this much should indicate that moral necessity in this later sense is virtually
identical to the early sense, in which the vir bonus is bound (obligated) to love everyone.
As we have seen, moral necessity is nothing other than the moral quality of a rational
being, a quality that makes it bound to choose to do what is just and thus most perfectly
good.
I will return to these points. The object of Murray’s article, however, is not
Leibniz’s texts, but rather the development of the concept of moral necessity before
Leibniz’s time. To make a long and very interesting story short, the concept developed
out of St. Thomas Aquinas’ attempt to explain how free will is possible. That is, based on
certain presuppositions (e.g., that nothing is self-moving; and that an act of the will
involves a reduction of potency to act), how can the will be free in the relevantly moral
sense? Aquinas’ eventual solution was to say that there had to be an external principle
involved, and that was God. But this solution was not satisfying to those who wanted an
account of the will’s autonomy, and so two Spanish Jesuits, Montoya and Granado (c.
1629) worked out a doctrine called “moral necessity.” Basically, this doctrine held that
although the choice of the will was inevitably the last deliberation of the will,
theoretically the choice could have been rescinded at any time, even so it is not. The last
deliberation of the will is the result of two conatuses (or endeavors) for the two
transcendentals: the Good and the True. Thus the will is inclined to the Good, and the
intellect is inclined to the True, but these transcendentals only incline the will without
necessitating it. 7 And thus we have the basis for Leibniz’s frequent saying that the
reasons for God’s choice of the best possible world incline God, without logically
necessitating the choice. 8 Inclination without necessitation resolves the dilemma between
freedom of indifference and absolute necessitation. By virtue of moral necessity, there is
always a sufficient reason for God’s choice, a reason that could have been rescinded,
even though it is not.
7 Since each thing has a certain amount of good in it and each proposition has a certain amount of truth in
it, we are drawn to things in proportion to their goodness and truth. “Thus when the will is in the presence
of absolute goodness, that is, God, it is necessary that it love such goodness” (Murray 11). And when the
intellect is in the presence of first principles, it grasps them immediately. Of course, we often do not judge
correctly, first, since we do not have perfect knowledge, and second, since the will may be thwarted by
other inclinations.
8 See Theodicy §43.
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