Stony Brook University

agrees with the distinction between right and fact that Leibniz had made at the beginning
of the Nova Methodus. Right is determined on the basis of a priori reasons, i.e., on
definitions and the precepts that follow from them, not on the contingencies of will,
history and circumstance. For this reason neither can right be determined by the will of a
human legislator. In sum, Leibniz holds that God is the superior in whom natural right is
grounded, and for whom the just is useful. However, he does not advocate the sort of
voluntarism that says natural right is grounded in the arbitrary will of a superior. In the
end, “the just” is grounded in God’s wisdom; and “the useful” is to humanity as much as
to God. But will and power must always conform to a priori normative reasons. These
normative reasons are grounded in the nature of rational substance (whether divine or
human) as stated in §§14-15. 132 God is simply the perfect executor of the moral
qualities. 133
(B) Aside from the voluntarism issue, there are other illuminating aspects of the
degree of piety. For example, the “coincidence” among private utility, public utility,
beauty and order, and honor, which together make the utility of humankind coincident
with God’s will.
Hence coincides the utility of humankind, indeed, the beauty and harmony
of the world, with the divine will. From this principle is it is never
permitted to abuse animals and creatures. This leads back to the
considerations of Sforza Pallavicino.[ 134 ] On this ground it is never
permitted to abuse oneself, because we ourselves belong to God, whose
omnipotence distributes Right into everything. 135
In sum, God’s decree is coincident with human utility. Since God has established the
nature of things by creating them, and since whatever God creates is good, we are
obligated not to destroy what is good by nature, i.e., ourselves and the rest of creation.
But this obligation seems also rooted in the notion that we belong to God, and thus it
would follow from the meaning of right established in §14a. From there, we can derive
strict right, which prohibits us from violating the possessions of another. Likewise, as
God’s possessions we are forbidden to violate ourselves and his creation, that is, to do
mathematics and geometry. The role of God’s power is only to make what is right an actuality or “fact.”
132 Thus, as Busche points out it is a misunderstanding to suppose that Leibniz ever maintained purely
voluntaristic grounds for natural right (fn 135 p. 430). He always maintains that God’s laws are based on
God’s wisdom. This point seems to have been missed by Riley (2004), who, in a polemical piece,
repeatedly insists that in the Nova Methodus Leibniz was a voluntarist: “What is even more perverse is to
suggest that the voluntaristic Nova Methodus counts as the relevant background to "the common notion of
justice" as conceived by the mature Leibniz” (p.203). On the contrary, the Nova Methodus is quite
consistent with the spirit of the later text in its insistence on the a priori, demonstrative grounds of morals
and justice. The difference is largely a matter of emphasis.
133 God’s only other limitation is the metaphysical requirement that a created world contain degrees of
perfection (thus imperfection).
134 As noted in §72 Pallavicino was the Italian cardinal who held that “the just” is whatever is beautiful and
ordered in the movements of nature.
135 A.6.1.344.§75: “Hinc coincidit utilitas generis humani, imo decor et harmonia mundi, cum voluntate
divina. Ex hoc principio jam ne bestiis quidem et creaturis abuti licet. Huc reducuntur meditationes Sforziae
Pallavicini. Ex hoc fundamento, ne se ipso quidem abuti licet, quia nos ipsimet sumus Dei, cui
omnipotentia tribuit jus in omnia.”
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