The Science of Right in Leibniz's Moral and Political Philosophy

Description

Studies of Gottfried Leibniz's moral and political philosophy typically focus on metaphysical perfection, happiness, or love. In this new reading of Leibniz, Christopher Johns shows that it is based on a 'science of right'. Based on the deontic concepts of jus (right) and obligation, this science of right is established in Leibniz's early writings on jurisprudence and depended on throughout several of his major late writings. Johns shows that the moral rightness of an action is grounded in the rights and obligations derived from the agent's capacity for freedom. This new interpretation of Leibniz's moral philosophy compares Leibniz's positions with Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, and Kant. Providing a comprehensive examination of Leibniz's most important writings on natural right, John's argues that Leibniz, properly understood, provides a compelling account of the grounds of morality and of political institutions-an account relevant to present philosophical debates.

Christopher Johns is Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.

The book has three great merits: it deals with a part of the work of Leibniz yet undervalued by commentators (in particular the law and morality); it offers the reader translations of texts ... which are certainly already known but insufficiently explored ... and it offers a novel interpretation of the practical philosophy of Leibniz. * Archives de Philosophie (Bloomsbury translation) * This is a superb and lasting contribution to Leibniz scholarship. No other pioneering work of its kind exhaustively investigates how Leibniz's science of right (ius) lays a deontological foundation for his moral philosophy. No other comparable work shows how the basic principles of this science relate to--and shape--Leibniz's general metaphysics. Johns provides a major reassessment, not only of Leibniz's juridical theory of right, but its place in early modern ethics and political philosophy. This book should be immensely useful to anyone with serious interests in the history of modern moral philosophy, especially from Grotius to Kant and Hegel. -- Jeffrey Edwards, Associate Professor of Philosophy, Stony Brook University, USA Christopher Jones has produced a comprehensive and insightful account of Leibniz's theory of right on the basis of a careful reading of the published sources. All students of Leibniz's moral, legal, and political philosophy will draw much profit from this informative work. -- Nicholas Rescher, Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh, USA