Stony Brook University

examine the notion of “moral quality” more closely.
While the passage from Grotius above indicates Leibniz’s likely source for the
notion of moral quality as a subjective power, his direct source for it was his mathematics
professor at Jena, Erhard Weigel. Leibniz himself explains the following: Weigel had
distinguished three highest genera of entities: natural, moral, and notional. Under moral
entity (entia morali) is a subgroup of moral qualities (qualitates morales), of which rights
(jura) are one kind. 50 Pufendorf (whom Leibniz cites here, and who was also a student of
Weigel) refers to this subgroup as “moral operative qualities” and identified them
specifically as power, right, and obligation. 51 This means then, that the moral qualities are
distinct from physical qualities, since they are in a genus distinct from natural (and
notional) entities. 52 As a result, they denote the capacity of the agent to deliberate and act
according to a just order, as well as the capacity for making moral claims against others. 53
This capacity to act as well as to impose restrictions on acting characterizes the moral
quality as “two-fold,” that is, as consisting of right and obligation—a power and a
restriction upon power.
Now let us consider the passage again. To recall the last line of §14a, above:
“moral power is called Right and moral necessity is called Obligation.” These terms,
right and obligation designate the two-fold (duplex) real quality of an action. Leibniz
does not, however, explain the nature of this two-fold quality. In a much later text (1696)
Leibniz asserts: “Right and obligation are not to be treated separately. They constitute
one relation composed from both.” 54 Yet he does not explain the nature of this relation.
As we have learned, right is the power to do what is just, and what is just is what serves
public utility, while obligation is called moral necessity. But two quite critical questions
remain (for Leibniz and for this dissertation): (1) What exactly is the relation between
right and obligation? (2) What exactly grounds the necessity of obligation? In what
follows I will suggest a preliminary answer to these questions.
Regarding (1), there appears to be an analytic relation between the terms jus and
50 As Leibniz explains in an earlier work, Specimen Quaestionum Philosophicarum (1664): “Jura ista
H.Grot. J.B. et P. 1.1.4. appellat Qualitates morales tanquam si naturalibus contradistingueret. Et Cl mus
Weigelius, Prof. Mathematum Jenensis, Praeceptor, Fautorque meus colendus tria summa genera Entium
constituit: Naturale, Morale, et Notionale . . . . Jura igitur ad qualitates morales reducit, et uti actioni
naturali seu motui Spatium substratum sit, spatium quoddam morale esse Statum, in quo quasi motus
moralis exerceatur” (A.6.1.94).
51 Pufendorf in On the Law of Nature and of Nations says that entia moralia are modes (thus qualities) of
intelligent substances, “superadded” to them by God. They do not physically direct actions but only “make
clear to men along what lines they should govern their liberty of action” (cited in Schneewind 2003, p.
171). Pufendorf describes moral qualities as “moral operative qualities” and as either active or passive. “Of
the former the most noble species are power, right, and obligation. Power is that by which a man is able to
do something legally and with a moral effect. This effect is that an obligation is laid upon another to
perform some task . . . or not to hinder another” (Schneewind 173). See Pufendorf’s de Jure Naturae et
Gentium, 1.1.l, 1-21, or Leibniz’s citation: Elementa Jurisprudentiae, Bk. 1, def. 1.
52 As Werner Schneiders claims, for Leibniz the concept ‘morality’ (moralitas) “designates the legal-moral
judgeable quality of an action, in contrast to its mere physical quality; not some contrast between morality
and legality (“Dieser Begriff [moralitas] bezeichnet die rechtlich-moralisch beurteilbare Qualität einer
Handlung im Gegensatz zu ihrer bloß physischen Qualität; nicht etwas eine Moralität im Gegensatz zur
Legalität” (Schneiders 609).
53 See also Grua, Jurisprudence Universelle et Théodiée selon Leibniz (p. 227) and Schiedermair pp. 79-80.
54 TI 802: “Jus et obligatio non sunt separanda in tractando. Constituunt unam relationem ex utroque
compositam” (Notae in Tabulam Jurisprudentiae, 1696?).
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