Stony Brook University

of an obligaton stems from divine retribution. However, this does not seem to be a
ground of necessity, as much as a useful incentive. Furthermore, as we will see in later
texts, Leibniz ultimately rejects this as improper. But neither is obligation grounded in a
notion of the highest good (such as love or public utility). To be sure, right is the power
of doing what is in the public interest. However, as I have shown, the logic of Leibniz’s
science of right reveals that this obligation derives from subjective right. It cannot be that
the subjective right of persons (or even of God) is given so that they may fulfill the
objective requirements of public utility. That is because ‘public utility’ has no meaning
without the moral capacity that each rational substance naturally has. Public utility is the
fullest expression or realization of the capacity that every moral subject already
possesses. The moral capacity of a subject is what makes the harmonization of ends both
a possibility and a necessity.
In this sense, therefore, the necessity of the obligation to be just consists in the
subjective right of persons. 157 This can be understood in two ways, as we saw. First,
obligation is analytically entailed by right, meaning that the moral power of a rational
substance entails both what is owed to another and what another may demand of us.
Secondly, right and obligation denote the deontic properties of a rational substance,
which together denote the moral capability of a rational substance. 158 In other words,
moral necessity (obligation) is grounded in the freedom of the agent to be constrained by
the requirements of just actions. Right can then be understood to be a self-limiting
capacity that an agent must freely employ, and by means of which she may harmonize
her ends with the ends of all other rational agents.
We may now see how the precepts of right “derive” from these definitions. The
first precept, harm no one (the degree of “strict right”) follows from the definition of
right. To harm another means to violate another’s freedom. It also invites the right of war
against oneself. Thus, the precepts requires us not to violate the right of another. The
second precept, give each his due (the degree of equity, or right in a wider sense) is a
logical extension of the first precept, in two ways. (1) To give each his due (or one’s
own) means to secure the freedom of each person by means of the civil contract and state
power. This means substituting, although not giving up entirely, the right of war for the
right of compensation through a judicial body. In this way each person’s right can be
managed with stability and fairness. (2) Equity means right “in the wide sense.” This
means we can hold someone morally accountable, not merely for her compliance or
incompliance with the law, but for her intention in committing the act. Also, in strict
right, we are required only to refrain from harming another. But equity means helping
and promoting the good of another. 159 The third precept, live honorably (the degree of
piety) may be summarized as the perfection and completion of the rights in the first and
157 Again, I make this claim against the prevailing view that Leibniz’s theory of right is supplemental and
derivative of a theory of the good, or of his broader metaphysical framework, as we will see further in
chapters Three and Six.
158 The suggestion that right and obligation denote the most basic deontic properties of the moral agent is
made by Jeffrey Edwards. The meaning of this will become clearer in Chapter Two, where right and
obligation form the moral quality of the vir bonus. From this Leibniz derives a whole deontic logic, where
potentia and obligatio form the basis of the deontic categories of the permitted, forbidden (impossible) and
owed. These “modes of right” correspond analogously to the alethic modes of possibility and necessity, as
we will see.
159 Although Leibniz has not explored this last point here, he does so in later texts, as we will see.
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