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Compatibilities on the Idea of Law in Hobbes and Leibniz1

Although Leibniz is famous as perhaps the last genuine polymath whose influence

has extended from mathematics and logic to physics and metaphysics, his contributions to

political philosophy and legal theory have remained relatively neglected outside of the

German tradition.2 Similarly, while much contemporary work has shown that Leibniz’

influence on Kant was not limited to the so-called “pre-critical” period of the latter’s

development, the idea that critical philosophy—and the various responses to it—represented

a fundamental epistemic break with previous philosophy has had the effect of perpetuating

the caricature of Leibniz as a paradoxical and perhaps inconsistent figure—anachronistically

having more in common with Aristotle and the scholastics while simultaneously embracing

modern rationalism—whose philosophy consequently belongs to the dogmatic past. Leibniz

is seen (just as he was by his contemporaries) as an essentially retrospective thinker and, in

the case of his political philosophy, perhaps no other major early modern writer besides

Descartes has been so summarily neglected. I shall argue, however, that appearances are

misleading. As Deleuze suggested in his lecture course on Leibniz,3 the difficulty of

interpreting Leibniz is that he presents his concepts using different vocabulary and grammar,

as well as emphasizing different aspects of his philosophy, depending on his audience (and,

of course, at different stages of his own development). Leibniz often adopts Aristotelian and

medieval language, for example, to avoid the controversy that plagued his predecessors (such

as Hobbes and Spinoza, both of whom he explicitly disavowed yet with whom he shares

                                                                                                               1  This title is adapted from Fuller (1990). 2  Aside from Brown (1995), the two major exceptions are Riley (1996) and Berkowitz (2010). And Riley’s edition of Leibniz’ political writings (1988) notwithstanding, Leibniz anthologies either exclude his political philosophy entirely (Ariew and Garber) or include only the “Elements” (e.g., in Wiener and Loemker). 3  At Vincennes on 15 April 1980 (at present only available at http://www.webdeleuze.com).

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some important compatibilities4). I shall argue below that for both Leibniz and Hobbes the

understanding of natural law provides the transition from moral psychology to politics.

There are differences, of course, between Hobbes and Leibniz and my argument is

not intended to demonstrate continuity (historical or otherwise). Rather, after providing the

general characteristics of Leibniz’ conception of natural law, I will argue that Leibniz’

criticism of Hobbes consists in, at best, an oversimplification of Hobbes’ political

philosophy and that, under at least some interpretations, Hobbes’ conception of natural law

is compatible with Leibniz’, despite and independently of other disagreements between

them.

Since being awarded a doctorate in Laws in 1666, from his service to the Elector of

Mainz until his death in 1716 (after having served the Electorate of Hanover for forty years),

Leibniz maintained a steady engagement with legal and political philosophy. From about

1670 through the early 1700s, Leibniz expresses a consistent conception of justice and law.

Justice, Leibniz says, is the “the charity of the wise man, that is, charity which follows the

dictates of wisdom. … Charity is a universal benevolence, and benevolence the habit of

loving or of willing the good … Wisdom is nothing but the science of happiness itself”.5 In a

                                                                                                               4  In using the term “compatibilities”, my argument is not intended to be historical in the sense of showing that Leibniz appropriated or adapted Hobbesian concepts in his ideas of natural law. The literature on Hobbes’ and Leibniz’ political philosophies is slim. My argument opposes Johns (2009) both in our readings of both Hobbes and Leibniz and against his thesis that they are incompatible (noting in notes throughout where appropriate my points of disagreement). On the other hand, my argument hopefully supplements Goldenbaum (2002): whereas she emphasizes affectivity, I emphasize Leibniz’ rationalism. As I indicate below, however, affectivity and rationality operate in a sort of “dual aspect”. 5  Preface to the Codes Iuris Gentium in Leibniz (1988), 171; an abbreviated version of this text is also found in Strickland, ed (2006). These are also the same definitions Leibniz will give to Electress Sophie four years later (see Strickland, op. cit, 163). The consistency of Leibniz’ conception of justice, however, can be seen by comparison to the definition he gives in the “Elements of Natural Law” from 1670-1, which is virtually identical (cf. note 23). Johns relies on a sentence from the early “New Methods of Teaching and Learning Jurisprudence” (1667) where Leibniz says that justice is public utility (Johns (2009), 557). This conception of justice, however,

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contemporaneous text, Leibniz explains that justice as charity means a “habit of loving

conformed to wisdom” while love is simply “to find pleasure in the perfection of another”.6

Happiness is a “lasting state of pleasure … [And] pleasure is a knowledge or feeling of

perfection, not only in ourselves, but also in others, for in this way some further perfection is

aroused in us” (ibid). Happiness, in short, entails willing the good not only for oneself but

also for others and thus entails sociality in two ways. First, as an affection, my own

happiness is enhanced by taking pleasure in the happiness of others.

Leibniz distinguishes, however, between sensory and intellectual pleasures

(corresponding to their respective modes of knowledge). The former are simply the

“confused perceptions of some perfection” whereas the knowledge of reason is more

perfect—and thus produces a higher sort of pleasure—because such knowledge “teaches us

universal and eternal truths, which are manifested in the perfect Being” (ibid). As the highest

form of knowledge, knowledge of God therefore constitutes the highest form of pleasure.

One cannot love God, however, without knowing his perfections and their manifestations in

the harmony of the world and the eternal truths of mathematics, physics, morality, and

justice. Thus,

one must hold as certain that the more a mind desires to know order, reason, the

beauty of things which God has produced, and the more he is moved to imitate this

order in the things which God has left to his direction, the happier he will be. It is

most true, as a result, that one cannot know God without loving one’s brother, that

one cannot have wisdom without having charity … and that one even advances

one’s own good in working for that of others … (ibid).

                                                                                                               is relevant for Leibniz in this text only in the context of establishing a system of rational jurisprudence and finds no equivalent outside of this context. 6  “Felicity” in Leibniz (1988), 83, original text in Leibniz (1948), 579 and translated as “On Happiness” in Strickland, ed (2006). Leibniz gives a similar definition of love at the beginning of §4 of the Discourse.

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Although love consists in taking pleasure in the happiness of others, more fundamentally,

charity follows from understanding the community of human fellowship as God’s creation

(just as science is the rational understanding of nature as God’s creation). Rather than

founding the capacity for justice on the obedience of divine command or on the

benevolence of God’s will, Leibniz argues that the causal order is actually the reverse, i.e.,

that it is through the pursuit of justice that we obtain knowledge of God: “this has also not a

little relevance for the practice of true piety: it is not enough, indeed, that we be subject to

God just as we would obey a tyrant; nor must he be only feared because of his greatness, but

also loved because of his goodness, which right reason teaches, no less than Scriptures”.7

Leibniz not only maintains the continuity of natural and revealed theology but the necessity

of both. By praising the Greeks as the “founders” of rational theology, for example,

although they were denied revelation, “a sacred philosophy, in which the nature of divine

and spiritual matters is … demonstrated with outstanding arguments, is owed to the

Greeks”8 if for no other reason than their understanding of incorporeal substances. Natural

and revealed theology, Leibniz says, contain the same content but known and expressed

differently. Similarly, we love our neighbor not only because it was commanded by God that

we do so but also because such love is entailed by our knowledge of ourselves and the world

as God’s creation. Without this latter qualification, Leibniz warns, charity or generosity

might be taken as vanity or vainglory where we seek the pleasure of being esteemed as

generous and not the pleasure of actually willing the good for others.9 Thus justice is the

“soul of generosity” (ibid): justice simply is the habit of willing and working for the good of

                                                                                                               7  “Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf” in Leibniz (1988), 72. On Leibniz’ proposal that rational theology as jurisprudence, see Adams (1994), 195-8. 8  “An Unpublished Lecture by Leibniz on the Greeks as Founders of Rational Theology” in Leibniz (1988), 240. 9  See “On Generosity” in Strickland, ed (2006).

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others because we understand it as good.10 Although we understand that the good of others

increases our own capacity for good, Leibniz argues that, at a higher level, we seek the

general good because we understand the greater perfection of a good common to all in

harmonious living in the same way we understand the perfection of nature in the harmony

of its parts.

It is this conception of justice that forms the basis of Leibniz’ conception of natural

right, for which he distinguishes three kinds: strict right, equity (which includes charity), and

piety.11 The first is the negative principle that no one should be harmed. Leibniz’ only other

definition of justice than that of the will to charity was provided in the early 1700s as “a

constant will to act so that nobody has reason to complain about us”,12 i.e., in the sense of

what Grotius had said of “perfect right”.13

Not providing cause for such complaint is only, however, the first level of natural

right as commutative justice and does not constitute justice in the more positive sense of

Leibniz’ usual definition—the second level of justice—i.e., that of distributive justice: “it is

here that the political laws of a state belong, which assure the happiness of its subjects and

make it possible that those who had a merely moral claim acquire a legal claim”.14 The task of

justice in this respect, Leibniz says, is the provision and equitable distribution of public

goods for the sake of the general welfare whereas the first division of natural right merely

concerned the preservation of peace. The principle of equity, then, is an extension of virtue

                                                                                                               10  Here Leibniz agrees with Plato: to know the good is to do the good; a deficient will to do the good indicates deficient knowledge of the good. On this point, Johns is certainly correct to point out that for Leibniz moral action are predicated on our ability “to act in view of value-laden ends, independently of natural desires and causes [and] this capacity must involve, in part, cognition, that is, the ability to recognize actions as objectively just” (Johns (2009), 559). Yet Johns’ proto-Kantian Leibniz ignores the affective-rational duality of Leibniz’ account of moral action. 11  See the Codex, op. cit. 12  See “Definitions” in Strickland, ed (2006), 164. This text is also in Weiner (1951). 13  See The Rights of War and Peace I.i.4, to which Leibniz alludes in the Codex. 14  Codex, op. cit, 172.

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(in the Aristotelian sense as the habit of wise action constitutive of happiness); specifically,

justice here becomes the effective extension of moral action: right, Leibniz says “is the power

of doing what is just”.15

Strict right and equity are the principles of justice that tend toward earthly happiness.

Piety is the principle for what Leibniz calls “universal justice” as the third kind of justice: we

must “assume the immortality of the soul, and God as the ruler of the universe. In this way

we can think of all men as living in the most perfect state” where all rewards and

punishments are meted appropriately such that it is from piety that “the highest precept of

law receives its force, which commands us to live honorably”.16 This command, however, as

noted above, is not an external compulsion but, rather, simply the result of a rational

understanding of the happy life as one where our own happiness is not only enhanced by but

depends on the general happiness of others. While Leibniz describes piety as the

acknowledgement of our universal membership of the kingdom of God (the “most perfect

state”) ruled by divine providence, such faith does not imply a quietist acceptance of the

existing state of affairs.17 Rather, ours is the “best of all possible worlds” precisely because

we possess the capacity to do and to seek the good. It is our tendency toward the general

good and our capacity to understand the community of good that demonstrates the

providence of God. It is for this reason that our recognition of the divine law is an internal

compulsion. When, for example, Leibniz says that I am bound not to abuse my body as a

                                                                                                               15  “Elements of Natural Law” in Leibniz (1970), 137. 16  Ibid, 174. In this case, one cannot but hear Kant’s parallel argument that the idea of God is a necessary moral principle that guarantees the congruence of good action with well-being: e.g., that if moral action results in present moral suffering, that suffering promises future redemption. Of course, for Leibniz this idea is real and not merely regulative (see below). 17  In the Discourse §4, Leibniz explicitly says against this objection that when he says we must remain content with the world, he specifically means acceptance of what has happened in the past and that “as to the future, we must not be quietists and stand ridiculously with arms folding, awaiting what God will do …” (Leibniz (1989), 38).

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duty of eternal law, despite the fact that such a prohibition is outside the power of human

law, it is because we understand that “we owe ourselves and everything we have to God”

(ibid), which is equivalent to our understanding of what is actually good for us (i.e., that my

happiness depends on my continued good health) beyond the imperfect, confused, and often

erroneous perceptions of the good derived from sensory pleasure.

After making similar points in an earlier text, Leibniz concludes that the principles of

charity, justice, and piety are “merely the same thing, whereas self-interest and self-love,

when it is badly regulated, are principles of cowardice. For generosity … brings us close to

the author of our kind of being … insofar as we are capable of imitating him. … We must

follow his intention, which orders us to procure the common good …”18 and that it is not

even possible to be happy at the expense of that common good “for the laws of the universe

are inviolable, and we can rest assured that there is no crime that will not receive its

punishment in proportion to the evils that it has caused …” (ibid). In the Theodicy, Leibniz

refers to this principle as “avenging justice” or the “fitness of things”19 whereby the

punishment for vice (eating too much for dinner, for example) results in suffering

(indigestion) and the reward for virtue (moderation) results in pleasure (good health). It is

simply in the extension of this principle that we find “one advances one’s own good in

working for that of others; for it is an eternal law of reason and of the harmony of things

that the works of each [person] will follow it”.20

                                                                                                               18  “On Generosity” in Strickland, ed (2006), 159-60. 19  See §§73-4 in the “Essays on the Justice of God and the Freedom of Man in the Origin of Evil” in Leibniz (1985), 161-2. 20  “Felicity” in Leibniz (1988), 84; translator’s interpolation.

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Leibniz is aware, of course, of the Thrasymachian challenge and, in the preface to the

Codex, says that the “assertion which is attributed to Carneades, that justice is supreme folly,

because it commands us to consider the interests of others while we neglect our own, is born

of ignorance of the [true] definition of justice”.21 Similarly, he accuses Hobbes of having

simply succumbed to the Thrasymachian challenge by predicating the existence of the state

on self-interested motivation (we submit to the sovereign because it is simply in the interests

of self-preservation and the fear of violent death at the hands of others that we should do

so). And while Leibniz claims explicitly that “I know that these thoughts of mine on the

nature of the state cannot be reconciled with the opinions of the sharp-witted Englishman

Thomas Hobbes”,22in what follows I suggest that Leibniz’ estimation of the compatibility of

their views depends on a limited (although common) conception of Hobbes’ doctrine of

natural law.

Hobbes was a major interlocutor for Leibniz—not only in political philosophy but

also in physics and mathematics23—if only as an opponent. Leibniz consistently positions his

political philosophy against Hobbes (including his polemic against Pufendorf as a sort of

“lesser Hobbes”24). Prima facie the differences between them seem obvious: against Hobbes’

                                                                                                               21  Codex, op. cit, 171. 22  “Caesarinus Fürsternerius” in Leibinz (1988), 118. 23  Against Hofmann and Couturat, for example, who minimize Hobbes’ influence on Leibniz’ mathematics and logic, see Goldenbaum (2008) where she reports that Leibniz had read De Cive as early as 1663, seven years before his famous letter to Hobbes. While the majority of the letter asks certain questions of Hobbes’ physics, it is here that Leibniz refers to his work in rational jurisprudence with Herman Andrew Lasser from which we now have the “Elements of Natural Law”. Already in that text, despite some passing influences of Hobbes’ political philosophy, Leibniz articulates many elements of his mature thoughts of justice as described above. 24  Despite his disagreement with Hobbes, in Pufendorf Leibniz nevertheless finds lacking the “profound genius of Hobbes” (Leibniz (1988), 65) and that readers should be warned “about the principles which are most subject to distortion” under Pufendorf’s treatment (ibid). For the claim that these principles are “weaker” versions of Hobbes’, see, for example, The Whole Duty of Mankind I.iii, which is essentially a summary and endorsement of the characterization of the state of nature in Leviathan I.xiii. Yet both there and in Book II.iii of the Two Books of the Elements of Universal Jurisprudence Pufendorf emphasizes the “inclination … implanted in him by nature, namely, that he enjoys living in the society of his kind” (Pufendorf (2009), 316), which is both wholly

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persistent materialism, Leibniz’ metaphysical grammar is generally idealist; against Hobbes’

“pessimistic” characterization of the human condition as the random motion and collision of

forces and drives, Leibniz argues for the rational moral unity of the world; instead of self-

interest and self-preservation and the merely negative end of preserving the conditions for

peace, Leibniz proposes charity as the fundamental social virtue and the foundation of

natural right; against the will of the sovereign, Leibniz insists that in jurisprudence, aside

from the multiplicity of positive laws, the jurist’s task might resemble the mathematician’s

who is able to discover certain “fundamental Maxims which constitute the very law itself”25

(and that these are simply the natural laws that grounds positive law).

Hobbes does indeed assert that “it is not Wisdom, but Authority that makes a Law”26

and that there simply is neither justice nor law prior to the institution of the sovereign will.

Yet, of course, at this point Hobbes’ definition can be treated as merely nominal: justice

simply means keeping our covenants, which is unenforceable prior to the institution of the

sovereign. If there is a disagreement between Hobbes’ and Leibniz’ conception of justice we

must look to their respective accounts of how we come to understand and seek justice in

civil society.

In a sentence, Leibniz asserts that “Hobbes’ fallacy lies in this, that he thinks things

which can entail inconvenience should not be borne at all—which is foreign to the nature of

human affairs”.27 On the one hand, it is not entirely clear what Leibniz has in mind in this

passage. While he continues to say that he acknowledges the “inconveniences” that arise

when there is dissension among divisions of the supreme power (against Hobbes’ insistence

                                                                                                               foreign to Hobbes and allows Pufendorf to speak of natural law in the state of nature in a way incompatible with Hobbes’ treatment of natural law, as we shall see below. 25  Leibniz (1981), 425. 26  Hobbes (1971), 55. 27  “Caesarinus Fürstenerius” in Leibniz (1988), 119.

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that the sovereign power be unified), Leibniz says that “experience has shown that men

usually hold to some middle road” (ibid) instead of holding stubbornly to their own

opinions. Yet the source of conflict is surely not simply the assumption that people are

generally stubborn or, for that matter, even as “self-interested” as Hobbes is usually taken to

mean.

Leviathan28 I.xiii describes our natural condition from the perspective of the work

Hobbes has done in the first twelve chapters in rejecting the teleological character of nature

(i.e., the rejection of a finis ultimus) and the notion of a summum bonum (L I.xi.1). Instead

we find only a summum malum (i.e., the fear of violent death) and felicity, i.e., the “continual

progress of the desire, from one object to another” (ibid), as conscious endeavor (conatus).

Since individuals are ontologically primary for Hobbes, our natural condition is to be subject

to the vicissitudes of desires without end or pre-determined unity: this is simply the

condition to which Hobbes gives the name “war”, which denotes not simply actual conflict

but “in a tract of time, wherein the will to contend by battle is sufficiently known” (L I.xiii.8;

emphasis added). The state of nature is one of war simply because it is one in which

individuals have not yet united into larger (stable29) bodies.

It is at this point that Hobbes observes that “it may seem strange to some man, that

he has not well weighed these things; that nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt

to invade, and destroy one another” (L I.xiii.10). Of course, on further reflection Hobbes

argues that, actually, “reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace” and that these are

nothing other than the laws of nature (L I.xiii.14). Yet Hobbes says in more than one place

that “these dictates of reason [which compel us to seek peace], men used to call by the name                                                                                                                28  Hereafter simply “L”. 29  This qualification is important since Hobbes acknowledges the possibility of small confederations of “weaker” individuals who might together overcome “stronger” individuals. The problem is not simply a lack of association between individuals but, rather, that of a coherent association.

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of laws; but improperly: for they are but conclusions, or theorems concerning what conduceth

to the conservation and defence of themselves; whereas law, properly is the word of him,

that by right hath command over others” (L I.xv.41, emphasis added; cf. II.xxvi.8, 22). What

Hobbes calls “natural law” is simply the rational understanding of the endeavoring agent to

discover the most effective means to persist in the exercise of her power of acting.

Under ideal conditions, all individuals would be (internally) compelled by their

understanding of natural law to seek peace. Without the sovereign authority, however,

because we are often prone to error in our reasoning and have the tendency to think

ourselves correct—“every one is governed by his own reason” (L I.xiv.4)—we face the

problem that the laws of nature “oblige in foro interno; that is to say, they bind to a desire they

should take place: but in foro externo; that is, to the putting them into act, not always” (L

I.xv.36). Civil law, therefore, is simply the command of the sovereign that binds us to those

actions necessary for the end of preserving peace, i.e., as the effective extension of the

natural law. What Hobbes says of crime in civil society pertains as well to deviation from the

natural law: “the source of every crime, is some defect of the understanding; or some error

in reasoning; or some sudden force of the passions” (L II.xxvii.3).

Since felicity is nothing other than the continued exercise of our power to act and, in

his discussion of power, Hobbes observed that “the greatest of human powers, is that which

is compounded of the powers of most men, united by consent …” (L I.x.3), the rational

individual is the one who understands that, despite the absence of a Leibnizian universal

harmony among created substances, there is greater happiness with greater unity. It is not

simply fear, in short, that compels us to seek peace in the commonwealth. Similarly, in two

distinct places in the Leviathan, Hobbes notes that, besides understanding, there is another

noble reason that might compel one into the social contract: we might be inclined to keep

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our contracts for fear of the consequences of breaking our promises or for “a glory, or pride

in appearing not to need to break it” (L I.xiv.31); similarly, Hobbes says “that which gives to

human actions the relish of justice, is a certain nobleness or gallantness of courage, (rarely found,)

by which a man scorns to be beholding for the contentment of his life, to fraud, or breach of

promise” (L I.xv.10).30 The problem, however, is that such noble characters are “too rarely

found to be presumed on, especially in the pursuers of wealth, command, or sensual

pleasure; which are the greatest of mankind” (L I.xiv.31). Recalling Leibniz’ distinction

between the lower (sensuous) and higher (intellectual) forms of understanding, Hobbes

acknowledges that there are noble and rational motivations31 that bind us to the natural law

(in foro interno) but regrets that too often our preoccupation with the lower goods or our

simple capacity or propensity to err necessitates the transition from natural law to civil law

(that binds in foro externo)32 through otherwise less than noble or rational means.

In any event, however, the transition to the state of nature to civil society does not

denote a limitation of our capacity to act and is only a limitation of our “personal” liberty to

use our power for the preservation of our own nature (i.e., the right of nature); natural law

compels us to understand that life in the commonwealth combines our exercise of natural

right with that of others for the mutual benefit of all (and the second part of the Leviathan is

dedicated to describing the necessary conditions for doing so).

                                                                                                               30  Cf. Leibniz’ comment that there are those few who “cannot have any other motive [for justice] than that of his inclination, acquired by birth or by exercise and regulated by reason, which makes him find so much pleasure in the exercise of justice and so much ugliness in unjust actions, that other pleasures and displeasures are obliged to give way” (“Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice” in Leibniz (1988), 58). Such justice is noble but too uncommon to found political justice. 31  As Hobbes says explicitly, the motivations that lead us from the state of nature into civil society are consist “partly in the passions, partly in [our] reason. The passions that incline men to peace, are fear of death; desire of such things as are necessary to commodious living; and a hope by their industry to obtain them. And reason suggesteth convenient articles of peace, upon which men may be drawn into agreement” (L I.xiii.14). 32  I owe this insight to Oakeshott (1991), 342-3. While Oakeshott concludes, however, that Hobbes’ observations here indicate the lack of the proper passion (i.e., noble pride) instead of the right “reasons” for forming the commonwealth, I do not see that this distinction is ultimately relevant: both this pride and correct reason are the kinds of power that enhance our capacity for action.

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In the institution of the commonwealth, Hobbes mitigates the absolute individualism

of the state of nature with the unity of the commonwealth as a larger (artificial) body whose

soul—that regulates and moves the individual parts—is the sovereign. Leibniz voices the

usual charge that Hobbes’ sovereign is impossible unless “those who must have supreme

powers are gifted with angelic virtues”.33 While this objection has been (and continues to be)

endlessly debated, our present purposes concern the putative foundations for law and the

investment in sovereign authority. In one manner of speaking, the law simply is the will of

the sovereign (as promulgated, enforceable, etc) and justice simply is the enforcement of

contracts. In his discussion of the “laws of nature”, however, Hobbes is concerned to show

that the dictate to seek peace and self-preservation—and, consequently, whatever means are

necessary to do so, including submission to the absolute sovereign—is the rational extension

of our capacity to increase our power of doing and acting: the laws of nature are

“naturalistic” in the broad sense that they are not ideas written into our natures (as they seem

to be for Pufendorf) but, rather, simply “describe the structure of thinking about conduct

common to all mankind … [and that] there are no other maxims to which appeal can be made

no matter what specific behavior we display”.34 Hence Hobbes insists that we cannot appeal

to divine right as the foundation of law “because it is of the essence of law, that he who is

obliged, be assured of the authority of him that declareth it, which we cannot naturally take

notice to be from God, how can a man without supernatural revelation be assured of the revelation

received by the declarer? and how can he be bound to obey them?” (L II.xxvi.39). Not only the laws

                                                                                                               33  “Caesarinus Fürstenerius” in Leibniz (1988), 120. 34  Fuller (1990), 112-3; emphasis added.

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themselves but the principles of their foundation must be known or available for common

knowledge by all rational agents.35

While law in the strictest sense pertains to positive law, such law and its authority is

the effective fulfillment of natural law. When discussing the difference between natural and

positive law, Hobbes says that natural law may also simply be called moral law “consisting in

the moral virtues, as justice, equity, and all habits of the mind that conduce to peace” (L

II.xxvi.36). We are inconsistent and often too few in the satisfaction of the moral virtues,

however, which necessitates the political task over and above the moral life: in short, the

political task is to translate the pursuit of the moral virtues into social life.

If law, then, properly speaking belongs to the application of the natural law to

political life, we might ask what such a task might mean for Leibniz. While Leibniz asserts

that justice is the foundation of natural right, rarely does he offer a picture of the moral life

in the state. Rarely does Leibniz speak of justice in a political context: justice, he says, is

“social duty [Tugend], or a duty which preserves society. A society [Gemeinschaft] is a union of

different men for a common purpose. … The most perfect society is that whose purpose is

the general and supreme happiness [Glückseligkeit]. Natural law is that which preserves or

promotes natural societies”.36 Of course, for Hobbes civil society is an “artificial” creation: it

is only “natural” in the sense that it is the product of our aggregated endeavors and exists

                                                                                                               35  Cf. Strauss’ observation that “Hobbes’s politics is … indissolubly connected with his critique of religion: religion is the enemy of this politics” (Strauss (2011), 26) both for the reasons I have been suggesting but also because religion teaches that there is an evil greater than violent death. I find the latter reason less compelling since Strauss claims that the fear of violent death is the foundation for all Hobbes’ politics—which thus necessitates the critique of religion—since fear is one aspect of Hobbes’ politics but not a sufficient one (see below). 36  “On Natural Law” in Leibniz (1988), 77; translator’s interpolations. This text is also collected in Leibniz (1970). This text, incidentally, is much earlier (1670) than most of Leibniz’ discussions of justice (1693-1701). Cf. a slightly later text (“Portrait of the Price” in 1679) where Leibniz says that justice establishes the political order, and allows the union of men in monarchies and republics to subsist. It is the social tie which can only be established by these three political virtues: friendship, justice, and valor” (Leibniz (1988), 98). It is significant that here Leibniz is speaking of the virtues necessary for the prince (what Hobbes would have called the sovereign).

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neither by divine institution nor as a product of our merely living activity (since other living

things are sociable but not political). Nature always operates (for Leibniz as well37) within a

double capacity or a “dual aspect”: on the one hand, Hobbes’ metaphysics denies that there

is anything beyond our physical movements and rest and that our actions are simply more

complicated versions of the endeavors of all moving bodies to persist in their power of

acting. Civil society, as the aggregation of individuals, therefore results in the augmentation

of our power and Hobbes insists that in such aggregation we can think of the state as the

“real unity” of a single person (L II.xvii.13; cf. I.xvi.13, II.xviii.18).

On the other hand, Hobbes emphasizes the fact that properly political society results

from the rational understanding of our actions such that the “natural law” dictates that we

seek peace. We follow the natural law only insofar as we understand these principles: to be

“compelled” by the natural law in the proper sense means to understand it; it is for those

who seem not to understand it that Hobbes says we must resort to fear as a powerful

affective motivation for compliance with what natural law requires. Fear, however, is not

sufficient for political life (obversely, the rational understanding of natural law is necessary but

obviously insufficient for political life): “nor is it enough for the security, which men desire

should last all the time of their life, that they be governed …” (L II.xvii.5). Civil society

requires a positive commitment to a “common purpose”, i.e., the preservation of peace in

the commonwealth. Hobbes is aware, of course, of the compositional fallacy of attributing

the end of the whole to being the end of each of its parts (or vice versa): the latter remains

what it was in the state of nature and the purpose of the commonwealth is to provide not

only the negative “space” for us each to pursue our own ends but the commonwealth itself

                                                                                                               37  Spinoza may also be included here and I borrow the following discussion from Balibar’s analysis of the “dual genesis” of the state in Spinoza as both an affective and rational product in Balibar (1998).

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provides effective means to increase my capacities for doing and acting (my capacities are

greatly improved because of public highways, for example).38

So too Leibniz defines the state as “a fairly large gathering of men, begun in the hope

of mutual defense against a large [external] force, such as is usually feared, with the intention

of living together, including the foundation of some administration of common affairs”.39

The purpose of the state is to possess a monopoly on the use of force (it has the “highest

right” of forcing) and that this power “obtains as a matter of ordinary right, in matters of

greater moment, and those which concern the public welfare” (ibid, 117). Immediately

following this passage, Leibniz identifies two errors in thinking of the state: either to think

that the liberty of individuals is nullified by the state or that the state is merely an alliance or

federation. Neither error seems to apply to Hobbes: the latter is clearly false for Hobbes and,

in addition to what I have suggested above about the state as the effective extension of the

individual’s power, Hobbes’ transfer of right to the sovereign is not thereby an annulment of

it. For both Hobbes and Leibniz, the state exists to enforce the idea of justice and natural

right that are available to all rational agents under the appropriate conditions of moral

reflection.

In an ideal world, Leibniz says,

children and relatives would be the best of friends, and whole families would have

chosen an art of living, would have arranged everything that they have to this end,

                                                                                                               38  Here I part ways slightly from Oakeshott. Oakeshott tends to speak of the commonwealth as a “civil association”. The term itself implies that the commonwealth is an association of individuals (despite their disagreement, both Oakeshott and Strauss read Hobbes as the champion of the individual). Without denying that this is indeed the case, when Hobbes speaks of the commonwealth as a “real unity” under the single will of the sovereign, given Hobbes’ consistent criticism of the “multitude” or the mob in contrast to the unified collectivity of the commonwealth, it is entirely consistent with Hobbes’ metaphysics to consider the commonwealth as not simply an aggregation of individuals but itself a new effective body in the way that, for example, a corporation is not merely an aggregation of individuals but possesses unique capacities that in turn increase the capacities of each of its constituents. 39  “Caesarinus Fürstenerius” in Leibniz (1988), 114; translator’s interpolation.

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would abide in it and continue to perfect themselves in their art … and would marry

people of the same calling [Beruf] in order to be united … These clans would make

up guilds or castes out of which cities would arise; these would enter into provinces

and all countries, finally, would stand under the church of God.40

Leibniz is well-aware that such an ideal world is impossible if for no other reason than what

Hobbes has indicated, i.e., the conflict of ends engendered either by opposing desires or

competing desires for the same end. While Hobbes is undoubtedly more pessimistic

concerning the fortunes of our ability to join peacefully without the use of force

(remembering that Leviathan was published only three years after the peace of Westphalia),

Leibniz remains hopeful that our increasing knowledge of the world demonstrates that our

happiness consists in the mutual happiness of others, whether in the sense of a reciprocal

sharing of ends or in the harmonious union of various ends. Hobbes does not, of course,

deny these possibilities but takes more seriously the need to mitigate conflicts of ends.

While, moreover, Hobbes denies that the harmony of ends is (metaphysically) necessary,

Leibniz includes the state and the institutions of law as part of that harmony of ends: we do

not need law despite the harmony of ends but law itself contributes to this harmony (in equity

or distributive justice).

It is for this reason strange that Leibniz should say of Hobbes in the Theodicy that the

latter “applies the term natural state to that which has least art, perhaps not taking into

account that human nature in its perfection carries art with it”.41 This seems to be precisely

what Hobbes says that the natural law is: i.e., that the dictates of reason that teach us to seek

peace compel us to the creation of the “artificial person” of the commonwealth. It is only in

                                                                                                               40  “On Natural Law” in Leibniz (1988), 80. 41  “Freedom of Man” §220, op. cit, 265.

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the commonwealth where we have a sort of “harmony” of ends: the mutual co-existence and

coordination of ends instead of their discord outside civil society. The existence of the

sovereign is the precondition for harmony precisely in Leibniz’ usual sense of that word, i.e.,

as “unity in diversity” whereas in the state of nature there is only diversity (and thus for

Hobbes conflict instead of unity).42 Such harmony need not, however, entail that all

individuals have the same end and, in fact, Leibniz insists that harmony entails unity from

the most diversity (which is exactly why ours is the best possible world).43

At the end of the Monadology, Leibniz says that we are able to understand the world

because of the interrelationship of the mind with its objects (indeed ultimately with all

things) and that, in understanding the system of the universe, our minds are “capable of

entering into a kind of society with God, and allows him to be, in relation to them … what a

prince is to his subjects … The collection of all minds must make up the city of God …

[and] this truly universal monarchy, is a moral world within the natural world”.44 The task of

wisdom is to bring the moral will into congruence with the intellect, which is accomplished

through piety. It is here that the difference between Hobbes and Leibniz manifests itself

most clearly: Hobbes never accepts the conversion of moral into political necessity through

piety, particularly since the foundation of law cannot be sought higher than the authority of

the sovereign. Hobbes’ Reformed Christianity is one in which “the content of Christianity is,

in principle, radically depoliticized and laicized. … Having rejected God’s authority [through

                                                                                                               42  Riley points out that Leibniz has both political and philosophical reasons for more or less neglecting an extended treatment of sovereignty where the latter are derived from his opposition to Hobbes even as he agrees with both Hobbes and Grotius that as a rule we should not convince ourselves of a so-called “right of revolution” and that such revolution is only justified when the ruler cannot provide security since doing so is the first and primary function of the state (see Riley (1996), 226-30). 43  For an extended treatment of Leibniz’ conception of harmony, see Strickland (2006), 93-107. 44  Monadology §§84-6 in Leibniz (1989), 223-4.

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Adam’s and Eve’s sin] we were forced to create human authority”.45 Hobbes rejects the unity

of Leibniz’ moral world as either a metaphysical or a regulative principle.

Leibniz, however, rarely explicitly addresses the function of the state and in a late

letter characterizes the state as that which provides security for a large society.46 Because

Leibniz’ interests in justice are generally moral on the one hand (in his treatment of justice as

wise charity) or juridical on the other (in his project to construct a rational jurisprudence

according to the methods of a new legal science), unlike Hobbes, Leibniz never takes

sovereignty as a fundamental political problem. While it is true that for Leibniz justice and

law are required for something more than simply security,47 ultimately justice becomes not

only the fundamental principle from which (positive) law can be derived but also the

“force”48 of jurisprudence and that which “conserves [conservat]”49 society. For Leibniz, this

force always remains a moral force and rarely appears as a political force, viz., in sovereignty.

In his defense of the German princes’ sovereignty in the “Portrait of the Prince” (1679),

Leibniz identifies justice as that which “establishes the political order” within a particular

territory50 as not only among the chief social virtues but also those of the prince himself.51 It

is by being “above the laws” that “sovereigns are truly the images of divinity, since they, like

                                                                                                               45  Fuller (1992), 163, 174. Cf. Leibniz’ complaint that for Hobbes “there is no true religion, and that it is nothing but an invention of men” (“Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice” in Leibniz (1988), 47). 46  Letter to Falaideau in 1705, quoted in Riley (2002), 230; cf. some notes from around 1678 where Leibniz defines the civil society as that whose end is happiness through the preservation of security (collected by Grua in Leibniz (1948), 596). 47  See Riley (2002), ibid. Riley’s Hobbes is one for whom the law merely established the conditions necessary for the satisfaction of individual desires, while this is certainly true, it is also true that for Hobbes law is needed for “something more” than security and it does not follow that from the multiplicity of means and ends for felicity that there is no end for human action (it is simply the case that there is no single good for all action). 48  See Berkowitz (2010), 64-6. 49  Leibniz (1948), op. cit. 50  Here Leibniz’ effect on international law (for example, into de Vattel’s The Law of Nations) by combining the medieval authority of pope and emperor with the sovereignty of smaller states has been treated by Nijman (2004) and Basch (1927). 51  Leibniz (1988), 98ff.

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God, can exercise justice and clemency over … evil” (ibid, 99). Despite these brief allusions,

however, justice and law remain for Leibniz fundamentally moral forces that compel rational

individuals into positive social bonds. Hobbes’ moral psychology agrees up to this point in

understanding the natural law as the rational capacity for individuals to mitigate conflict for

the sake of stability. For both Leibniz and Hobbes, the task of politics is to transform justice

as a moral virtue into a legal claim in the transition from natural to positive law. While there

may be further compatibilities between them on the function of sovereign authority, in

positive law there is fundamentally no rapprochement between Hobbes’ and Leibniz’

jurisprudence. For Hobbes, civil law is simply the will of the sovereign made manifest

through signs and judges must simply interpret that will52 (based on the assumption that the

sovereign’s will expresses the principle of equity). For Leibniz, on the other hand, in

opposition to positivists such as Pufendorf, jurisprudence consists in the deduction of the

system of natural and divine law that is intelligible in the same way as the laws of

mathematics.53 Despite their juridical differences, however, for both the obligation of

citizens to civil law follows directly from the principles of natural law available to all under

rational reflection that direct us to seek happiness not against but with others in civil society.

References

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