Stony Brook University

find the eternal rules of goodness and of justice among its objects, or again
to say that he has a will that has no regard for these rules. (§177, p. 238,
some emendation) 34
Again, God cannot act arbitrarily (without reason) while retaining the name of the vir
bonus or sapientis. It is constitutive of God’s goodness to “find” the rules of goodness
and justice in his essence and to follow them. God recognizes these rules (equality,
equity, proportion, reciprocity) as the rules by which justice is founded, maintained, and
upon which the best possible world is created. Absent this cognition, the rules of justice
would still be valid, even if no world were to exist. However, according to Leibniz these
rules themselves have no existence if there is no divine mind to preserve them. 35 It may
be thought that God is himself necessarily compelled by these rules. In a way, this is true.
However, Leibniz’s answer to this is that it is a “happy” necessity (i.e., a moral necessity)
that God is obligated by his essence.
And moral necessity contains an obligation imposed by reason which is
always followed by its effect in the wise. This kind of necessity is happy
and desirable, when one is prompted by good reasons to act as one does;
but necessity blind and absolute would subvert piety and morality.”
(Theodicy, Reflections on Hobbes, §3, p. 395) 36
Leibniz is most concerned to preserve the piety that God’s intelligence and intention
participate in the creation of the best possible world. Without cognition this cannot be a
moral world. Moral necessity is “happy” because it is the kind of necessity that stems
from the principles of wisdom and goodness. If this concedes to a type of determinism
that robs God of any “true choice,” such as the ability to do otherwise, Leibniz is not
really concerned. For him, determination by right reason is just what it means to be free.
“It is only a moral necessity; and it is always a happy necessity to be bound (obligé) to
act in accordance with the rules of perfect wisdom” (§344, p. 332). What matters is that
wisdom is the distinguishing feature of minds that gives the will a power separate from
the necessity of things.
But necessity of this kind [i.e., moral], which does not destroy the
possibility of the contrary, has the name by analogy only: it becomes
effective not through the mere essence of things, but through that which is
outside them and above them, that is, through the will of God. This
necessity is called moral, because for the wise what is necessary and what
is owing (dû) are equivalent things [my emphasis]; and when it is always
followed by its effect, as it indeed is in the perfectly wise, that is, in God,
34 G.6.220: Il n’est guere plus contraire à la raison et à la pieté, de dire que Dieu agit sans connoissance,
que de vouloir qu’il ait une connoissance qui ne trouve point les regles eternelles de la bonté et de la justice
parmy ces objets: ou enfin qu’il ait une volonté qui n’ait point d’egard à ces regles.”
35 See Theodicy §184: “For it is, in my judgment, the divine understanding which gives reality to the eternal
verities, albeit God’s will have no part therein.”
36 G.6.390: “La necessité morale porte une obligation de raison, qui a tousjours son effect dans le sage.
Cette espece de necessité est heureuse et souhaitable, lorsqu’on est porté par de bonnes raisons à agir
comme l’on fait; mais la necessité aveugle et absolue renverseroit la pieté et la morale.”
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