Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I On Justice and Natural Law
- 1 Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice (c. 1702–3)
- 2 Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf (1706)
- Part II On Social Life, Enlightenment and the Rule of Princes
- Part III On State-Sovereignty and Hobbesian Ideas
- Part IV On the Defense of Hapsburg Europe against France
- Part V On International Relations and International Law
- Part VI Political Letters
- Part VII Sovereignty and Divinity: Unpublished Manuscripts, 1695–1714
- Critical Bibliography
- Index
1 - Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice (c. 1702–3)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface to the Second Edition
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- Part I On Justice and Natural Law
- 1 Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice (c. 1702–3)
- 2 Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf (1706)
- Part II On Social Life, Enlightenment and the Rule of Princes
- Part III On State-Sovereignty and Hobbesian Ideas
- Part IV On the Defense of Hapsburg Europe against France
- Part V On International Relations and International Law
- Part VI Political Letters
- Part VII Sovereignty and Divinity: Unpublished Manuscripts, 1695–1714
- Critical Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The Meditation, together with the Opinion on the Principles of Pufendorf, is the most important large-scale writing about justice which Leibniz produced. Though it is unfinished, and though the argument somehow never becomes quite as strong as it threatens to do from time to time, it still contains a good statement of his conviction that principles of right must be of the same kind as the ‘eternal truths’ of mathematics and logic, that there is a continuum between abstaining from evil and doing good, that divine justice must be of the same kind as human justice (differing only in the degree of its perfection), that communal property is desirable but unattainable etc. There are, in addition, passages commenting on Aristotle, Filmer, Hobbes, and others, which are of some interest; and the rejection of arguments in defense of slavery was liberal for its day. The Meditation must have been written, to judge from internal evidence, in c. 1703. (The original text is to be found in Mollat's Rechtsphilosophisches aus Leibnizens ungedruckten Schriften; this version omits the word ‘I’ [je] which comes at the end of the ms. in the Hanover library, and which would have led into a longer conclusion which, for some reason, Leibniz did not write.)
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Leibniz: Political Writings , pp. 45 - 64Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1988
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