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idea that the just is whatever is in accord with right reason (recta ratio), since then “every
error, even if no harm results to the one who errs, would be a crime” (LL 135). In other
words, this definition is too broad, simply because it would include non-intentional acts.
At this point Leibniz makes a digression, although an important one, in order to
reject a definition of justice similar to the one he had first broached in De Arte
Combinatoria and reaffirmed in Draft 3 (see above), that justice is a mean in affections.
But this rejection has important implications for the definition of the just, as well. The
definition in question here is: “Whether justice is the virtue preserving the mean between
two affections of man toward man -- love and hate” (LL 134). 85 Leibniz attributes his
initial acceptance of this view to his boyhood failure to understand rather that “all the
other virtues governing our affections have themselves one governess—the justice of
things” (LL 135). 86 In other words, the aim of the virtues generally is to govern the
affections; but justice consists in a relation of things among persons (relations Aristotle
called “commutative” and “distributive,” for example). Accordingly,
The whole basis of virtue is found in the fact that the affections can do
nothing but obey and that there can thus be only one moral virtue, as it is
called: to be the master of one’s own spirits and blood. (LL 135) 87
Virtue quite naturally is the disposition of mastery over one’s passions. However, this
mastery must result in a mean or “just” distribution of things. So his meaning appears to
be this: justice is a mean of affections, such that the agent’s actions result in a just
proportion of things. In this sense, justice is the mean in things, not affections. This new
position will remain unchanged. 88 But Leibniz goes on to explain specifically why justice
cannot consist simply in a mean of affections. For one, as everyone would agree, it is not
unjust to love another too much. It is “inept,” perhaps, but not unjust. Secondly, the
affections of love and hate imply “helping” and “harming” another. But if the just is then
defined as the prudence in help and harm (to which this view leads), 89 then the definition
is inadequate. That is because it would entail that, when I do have the right to harm (i.e.,
hate) another, it would be unjust not to do so “most skillfully.” 90 Defining justice as a
mean of affections between love and hate fails to determine both what counts as a
moderate affection and what counts as moderate action.
The last consideration for the just is whether it can be defined in terms of
punishment. In rather striking language, Leibniz says no, but his reasons lead to the heart
85
A.6.1.462: “An justitia est virtus servans mediocritatem inter duos affectus hominis erga hominem,
amorem et odium.”
86
A.6.1.462: “Hac meditatione mirifice plaudebam ipse mihi puer, cum peripateticae scholae recens,
concoqvere non possem caeteras omnes virtutes affectuum, unam justitiam rerum moderatricem haberi.”
87
A.6.1.462: “Sed haec blanda magis qvam solida facile exui, cum apparuit totam virtutis rationem in eo
consistere, ut affectus nihil possint, nisi obedire atqve ita virtutem moralem, qvam vocant, non nisi unam
esse, esse ut sic dicam dominium spirituum et sangvinis sui . . .”
88
It should be remarked however that Leibniz does not fully explain here what it is that the affections are
supposed to obey, and by what means we are to master them. Part of his answer lies in love, as we will
soon see; however, the other part lies in reason, that is, at least in the Elementa, in the “logic of right” (juris
modalia) that is developed in Drafts 5 and 6.
89
Also, recall that this definition was attempted in Draft 2.
90
A.6.1.463: “Seqvetur enim ubi semel laedendi jus est injustum esse, qvi non qvam artificiosissime
laedat.”
66