Stony Brook University

Beginning with jus strictum or what he often calls “pure” and “strict right,”
Leibniz shows how the precept “harm no one” follows from the definition of right as a
moral quality:
Strict or pure right descends from the definition of terms, and when rightly
considered, is nothing other than the Right of war and peace. 98
Just as everyone has the right to one’s own body, everyone has the obligation not to
impede another’s right to his or her own body. To say that this means nothing other than
the right to war and peace means this: when you violate another’s right, you invoke her
right of war, or what may be called right to self-defense. The right of peace is simply the
condition in which the right to one’s body is not violated. “For between persons the right
of peace rules so long as one does not instigate a war, or a harm.” 99 The right of peace is
logically prior to the right of war. Therefore, the precept of strict right, harm no one,
“follows” from the definition of terms; namely, from the definitions of right and
obligation as the moral qualities of persons. 100
It is worth remarking again on how Leibniz compares to Hobbes on this point. On
one hand, for Hobbes, the Right of Nature is the right of self-preservation. This is similar
to Leibniz’s strict right. However, for Hobbes the right of nature leads to “a condition of
Warre of every one against every one,” in which “every man has a Right to every thing;
even to one anothers body” (H 1.14). But for Leibniz, no one has a right to another’s
body. One may have the physical capacity, but not the moral right. Furthermore, the state
of nature is not a perpetual state of war among self-interested agents; but is rather
(normally) a state of peaceful coexistence among naturally social beings. We move into
civil society and into the state of justice, not as a prudential matter of self-preservation,
but rather as a natural extension of our natural right of peace. 101 As Leibniz said just
98
A.6.1.343.§73: “Jus strictum seu merum ex terminorum definitione descendit, et est si recte expendas,
nihil aliud quam Jus belli et pacis.” A late revision note to this line is added: “Merum simpliciter in
conservatione pacis consistit, ut ne quid fiat qvo cuiqvam belli ratio praebeatur.”
99
A.6.1.343.§73: “Nam inter personam et personam tamdiu est Jus pacis, quamdiu alter non incepit bellum,
seu laesit.”
100
Although, it ought to be pointed out as a matter of logic that this “following” cannot be a strictly logical
following. Precepts, which are imperatives, and thus not true or false, cannot be logically derived from
definitions, since the latter are propositions true or false. However, though this is just speculation, perhaps
Leibniz does not conceive of the precepts as deriving from propositions. He may conceive of the moral
qualities as containing a command-like character, e.g., do the good; refrain from wrong.
101
On this point Grotius can be distinguished from Hobbes, as well. Citing this sentence from Creech,
“Nature [alone] cannot distinguish iniquity from the just (nec natura potest iusto secernere iniquum),”
Grotius responds that this may be true for animals, but not men: “Now amongst the Things peculiar to Man,
is his Desire of Society, that is, a certain Inclination to live with those of his own Kind, not in any Manner
whatever, but peaceably, and in a Community regulated according to the best of his Understanding; which
disposition the Stoicks termed Oikeiwsin”(GR 81); (Inter haec autem quae homini sunt propria, est
appetitus societatis, id est communitatis, non qualiscunque, sed tranquillae & pro sui intellectus modo
ordinatae, cum his qui sui sunt generis quam oikeiosin Stoici appellabant” (GJ Prolog. 6). According to
Barbeyrac’s footnote to Grotius’ passage, referring to others who have noted the natural sociability, “They
all seem to have copied Aristotle in this Particular, who says, Idoi d an tis, kai en tais planais ws
OIKEION apas antrwpo kai filon. Ethic. Nicom. Lib. VIII. Cap. I.” What Aristotle actually says there
(1155a21) is slightly different: “Idoi d an tis, kai en tais planais ws oikeion apas anqrwpos anqrwpw
kai filon” (“We may see even in our travels how disposed to friendship every man is to every other”).
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