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love are both morally acceptable and physically possible. Thus (C) the pleasure
conditions fulfills both, since it holds in both A and B. In sum, love makes it possible to
act justly.
Leibniz then immediately turns to the question of justice. And now we can readily
see how Leibniz’s arguments solve the problem in those terms:
Since justice, therefore, demands that we seek the good of others in itself,
and since to seek the good of others in itself is to love them, it follows that
[the nature of justice is love]. (LL 137) 106
Leibniz has thus solved the Carneadean problem of justice. Justice is compatible with
one’s own and another’s good, since both goods involve love. And since to love another
provides the required motive, it is possible to act justly. As long as we modify the claim
about pleasure, by saying that pleasure is the result or accompaniment of an action, then
Leibniz’s argument is fairly coherent.
1. Justice is the compatibility of one’s own good with another’s (problem to be
solved).
2. Love is the per se good for oneself (pleasure).
3. Love is the per se good for another (pleasure).
4. No action can be taken except for the pleasure found in it.
5. Since acts of love result in mutual pleasure, acts of love are motivationally
possible.
6. Since the compatibility of goods is possible only through love, therefore, the
nature of justice is love.
This argument involving the definitions of pleasure and love refutes Carneades
skepticism about justice. Since the nature of justice is love, and love means to find
pleasure in the happiness of another, both self and other are accommodated in justice. In
other words, there is justice (as everyone agrees) and it is not folly.
It is important to notice that the argument is made to fulfill the demand that is set
out in the beginning, as if to say: ‘intuitively, the condition that justice must fulfill is the
compatibility of goods. Now let us find a way to fulfill the condition.’ It is the condition
of justice, defined as the compatibility between one’s own good and another’s that
generates the solution, namely, the motive of love. Love is not, however, the condition to
be fulfilled from the beginning. Rather, we are obligated to be just—and this is possible
only through love. Additionally, if his arguments appear to make him a hedonist, that is
because on a certain level he is. But we should not oversimplify the matter. Leibniz does
not think that pleasure alone is sufficient for the highest goods (virtue and happiness). 107
Moreover, he recognizes that some pleasures are not good to have, such as when they can
lead to harm, or in case we find pleasure in evil actions. Simply put Leibniz just thinks
that pleasure solves the motivational problem. Pleasure is the good that we find in doing
just acts, and love fulfills the condition, by being defined as seeking the pleasure of
106 A.6.1.465: “Cum ergo bonum alienum justitia exigat per se expeti, cum per se expeti bonum alienum, sit
alios amari, seqvitur de natura justitiae esse amorem.”
107 I will discuss these “highest goods” in Chapter Six.
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