Stony Brook University

what causes us harm. In this way, God’s will and right coincide with human utility.
This coincidence between human utility and God’s right leads to the coincidence
between utility and honor, and thus to the precept of piety in its Roman formulation:
Hence the precept: to live honorably. Whenever strict right and equity lack
the physical bond, God helps to bring it about so that what is useful to the
public, that is, what is useful for humanity and the world, is also made
useful for the individual, and thus everything honorable is useful, and
everything dishonorable harmful. 136
Leibniz will often emphasize this saying of Cicero’s that utility (understood as one’s own
good) can never be in conflict with honor (understood as the good for another, or
understood as moral rectitude). 137 Thus, truth-telling is honorable since it promotes public
utility. At the same time, public utility must be consistent with individual good.
Therefore, the sum total of effects upon individuals and upon the whole of humanity must
be taken into account. But only God can perceive the sum total of effects. In this way,
honor becomes piety, or simply the respect for God as one who completes and perfects
the demands of strict right and equity. Also in this way, the third degree of natural right is
a universal right. God is the one who distributes jus in omnia, thus giving right to the
whole of humanity. 138 This implies that rights are to be maintained not merely within
individual states, but among a republic of states, over which God is universal monarch.
Thus, the third degree means perfection, since it means the universal actualization of
right. 139
(C) Another part of piety involves the motivation to act honorably or piously.
Now, Leibniz does not say this explicitly, but in general we can distinguish two kinds of
motives (1) motives of prudence, such as self-preservation, pleasure and pain, and fear of
punishment and hope of reward; (2) motives of virtue, which are said to be good in
themselves. Throughout his writings on the precept of piety, Leibniz offers both kinds of
motives as reasons to follow the precept of piety, although (1) is much more emphasized
than (2). The problem is, this emphasis obscures the fact that for Leibniz the motives of
virtue are the only properly moral motives. As will be seen in Chapter Six, Leibniz holds
that it is “supreme virtue” to be motivated by the virtue of justice, and not by hope of
136 A.6.1.344.§ 75: “Hinc illud praeceptum: Honeste vivere. Cumque jus strictum et aequitas careat vinculo
Physico; Deus accedens efficit, ut quicquid publice, id est, generi humano et mundo utile est, idem fiat
etiam utile singulis; atque ita omne honestum sit utile, et omne turpe damnosum.”
137 Cicero, De officiis Book 3 Chapter 2 par. 9: “numquam posset utilitas cum honestate pugnare.” The
moral compatibility of usefulness and honor is the central problem Leibniz sets out to solve in his Elementa
Juris Naturalis, as we will see in Chapter Two.
138 Following Leibniz’s adaptation of Aristotelian kinds of justice, the first degree of natural law is
commutative justice, the second degree is distributive justice, and the third degree is universal justice. This
schema is more explicitly adopted in later texts, as we will see.
139 This universality can also be expressed in Leibniz’s Augustinianism, a good example of which is found
in Monodology (1714) §§84-6: “C'est ce qui fait que les Esprits sont capables d'entrer dans une maniere de
Societé avec Dieu . . . . D'où il est aisé de conclure que l'assemblage de tous les Esprits doit composer la
Cité de Dieu, c'est à dire le plus parfait état qui soit possible sous le plus parfait des Monarques. Cette Cité
de Dieu, cette Monarchie veritablement Universelle est un Monde Moral dans le Mond Naturel, et ce qu'il y
a de plus elevé et de plus divin dans les ouvrages de Dieu et c'est en luy consiste veritablement la gloire de
Dieu” (G.6.621-2). See also Principes de la Nature et de la Grace fondés en raison, G.6.605.§15.
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