Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil - Michael Latzer

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Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical EvilAuthor(s): Michael LatzerSource: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 55, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 1-15Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2709950Accessed: 16-04-2016 23:48 UTC

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Leibniz's Conception of

Metaphysical Evil

Michael Latzer

The first part of Leibniz's Theodicy ranges over many different subjects

pertaining to the justification of God's goodness, wisdom, and power in the

face of the world's ills, many of which are taken up in greater detail later in

the work. It is perhaps this synoptic character of part one which accounts for

the relative brevity and obscurity of Leibniz's initial stab at the question

regardant la cause du mal. In section twenty Leibniz is concerned with

marking out a position which avoids at once ascribing the cause of evil to the

will of God and locating its source in some reality, such as matter, existing

independently of God. The solution he offers is one which in its essentials is

found in his writings both early and late: that the origin of evil must be sought

in the ideal nature of the creature, insofar as this ideal nature exists in the

divine understanding, since there is an original imperfection in the creature

before sin, because the creature is essentially limited. ' Original imperfec-

tion is due to the fact that God cannot create gods, and therefore any possible

creature will inevitably fall short of the fullness of perfection which God

possesses. In some ways imperfection helps to explain the occurrence of evil,

as Leibniz illustrates using the example of the evil of sin: because of original

limitation, the creature cannot know all, and can deceive itself and commit

other faults. 2

Leibniz then presents a kind of taxonomy of the species of evil: Evil can

be taken metaphysically, physically and morally. Metaphysical evil consists

I would like to thank an anonymous referee for some helpful bibliographical sugges-

tions. I am also deeply grateful to Elmar J. Kremer and Graeme Hunter for comments on

earlier drafts of this paper.

Leibniz, Essais de Theodicee (cited hereafter as Theodicy), in C. I. Gerhardt, Die

Philosophischen Schriften von G. W. Leibniz (Berlin, 1875-90; cited hereafter as GP), VI,

?20, 115; tr. E. M. Huggard as Theodicy (La Salle, Ill., 1985), 135. For an early reference

to this idea, see Von der Allmacht und Allwissenheit Gottes und der Freiheit des Menschen

(c. 1670-71), in Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Sdmtliche Schriften und Briefe (Darmstadt,

1923-), series 6, I, 537ff; for a late instance, see Monadology (1714), ?42 (GP, VI, 614).

2 Theodicy, ?20, GP, VI, 115; Huggard, 135.

Copyright 1994 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.




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of simple imperfection, physical evil of suffering and moral evil of sin. 3

This terse summary is all that Leibniz offers on the three-fold classifica-

tion of evils at this point in the work. Now it is interesting to notice that we

have in these two sections two allusions to imperfection in close proximity

with each other and not explicitly distinguished. In section twenty Leibniz

speaks of the original imperfection of the creature, which is identified with

the inescapable finitude of created being; and then in section twenty one he

defines metaphysical evil, not previously mentioned in the Theodicy, as

consisting of simple imperfection. It would be natural to assume that the

simple imperfection of section twenty one is identical with, or at least

includes, the original imperfection of section twenty. According to such

an interpretation, the original limitation of creatures would be construed as

metaphysical evil; and since Leibniz regards the other forms of evil as in

some sense stemming from original limitation, metaphysical evil would be

seen as the source or origin of physical and moral evil.

This is exactly how Leibniz is understood by Bertrand Russell and by a

host of later scholars. When Russell proceeds to an examination of Leibniz's

doctrine of good and evil, it is to sections twenty and twenty-one of the

Theodicy that he turns. He outlines the three-fold classification of evils of

section twenty-one, including the definition of metaphysical evil as simple

imperfection and then, as evidence for his claim that metaphysical evil is

the source of the whole, quotes the material from section twenty on the

original imperfection of creatures. Russell is here reading simple imperfec-

tion and original imperfection as referring to one and the same condition

and, accordingly, feels himself justified both in claiming that metaphysical

evil, or limitation [though Leibniz hesitates to declare this openly] is the

source of sin and pain, 4 and in basing a large part of his criticism of

Leibniz's theodicy and moral theory on this interpretation.

It is undeniable that the weight of authority lies with the interpretation

popularized by Russell. C. D. Broad, for instance, reproduces it faithfully. In

the context of his generally dismissive discussion of Leibniz's theology in

his posthumous Leibniz: An Introduction, Broad offers the following sum-

mary of Leibniz's doctrine of evil:

He distinguishes three kinds of evil, which he calls metaphysical,

moral, and physical. Moral evil is sin, and physical evil is pain.

Metaphysical evil is limitation. Every monad necessarily has it, for it

is identical with materia prima. God, having every positive charac-

teristic to the highest possible degree, has no metaphysical evil in

3 Theodicy, ?21, GP, VI, 115; Huggard, 136 (italics in original).

4 Bertrand Russell, A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz (London, 19372),

198.




Leibnizs Conception of Metaphysical Evil 3

him. Now Leibniz always maintained that metaphysical evil is purely

negative or primitive; it is simply the extent to which each monad

falls short of God.... [M]etaphysical evil is supposed to be fundamen-

tal, and physical and moral evil are supposed to be dependent on it.5

The prominence of Russell and of Broad in English-language Leibniz

scholarship indicates that this interpretation of Leibniz' s doctrine concerning

the nature and source of evil has become the conventional one. Other

adherents to this view could also be cited-quite a diverse list, in fact.6 To see

that this interpretation is not an innocent one, it is interesting to take note of

some of the consequences for the evaluation of Leibniz's doctrine which this

interpretation involves.

It is clear for instance that a number of the criticisms with which Russell

brings his book on Leibniz to its sardonic close are based upon the assump-

tion that, for Leibniz, metaphysical evil is synonymous with the original

limitation of creatures. Russell's most pointed comment is that Leibniz's

Ethics, like many other ethical systems, suffers from non-existence, in the

sense that something other than good is taken as fundamental, and the

deductions from this are taken as having ethical import. 7 As Russell reads

him, Leibniz is clear and consistent (and Spinozistic) in his theory of

metaphysical good and evil, inasmuch as these stand for original perfection

and imperfection. But since this theory has no obvious ethical meaning in

it, Russell can accuse Leibniz of dishonesty in pretending that the whole

machinery of Christian moralists 8 can be erected on such a foundation. If

metaphysical evil represents the finitude of created being and if moral and

physical evil are mere consequences of this finitude, as Russell reads

Leibniz, then it does seem strange to think that praise and blame, or reward

and punishment, could attach to what are simply modes of creaturely fini-

tude. An additional consequence of this fact which is also embarrassing to

Leibniz's Christian pretensions is that the notion of the Devil becomes a

senseless one, since, on the theory of metaphysical good and evil, the Devil

ought to be considered the lowest of bare monads rather than highly

intelligent.9

'C. D. Broad, Leibniz: An Introduction, ed. C. Lewy (Cambridge, 1975), 159 (italics

in original).

6 See, for example, W. H. Barber, Leibniz in France (Oxford, 1955), 114; Lois Frankel,

Being Able to Do Otherwise: Leibniz on Freedom and Contingency, Studia Leibnitiana,

16 (1984), 55; John Hick, Evil and the God of Love (London, 1966), 164; Erhard Holze,

Gott als Grund der Welt im Denken des Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Studia Leibnitiana

Sonderheft, 20 (1991), 172; Robert Theis, Le meilleur des mondes possibles, le mal

metaphysique et le mal moral chez Leibniz, Freiburger Zeitschrift far Philosophie und

Theologie, 34 (1987), 178; A. Tymieniecka, Leibniz' Cosmological Synthesis (Assen,

1964), 182.

7 Russell, 197.

8Russell, 199.

Russell, 200.




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Broad's no less dismissive verdict on Leibniz's ethics is also based on his

interpretation of Leibniz's doctrine of evil. One of Broad's observations is

that, since Leibniz always maintained that metaphysical evil is simply

the extent to which each monad falls short of God..., one consequence of this

should be that every finite mind is infinitely evil; but perhaps a good many

theologians would not object to this. 10 Although Broad is being facetious,

there are in fact indications that Leibniz thought it important to maintain that

finite minds and creatures in general are not infinitely evil and not even

predominantly evil. A major theme of the Theodicy, particularly of the

portions aimed against Bayle's critique of natural theology, is that of the

greater relative quantity of good over evil in the universe. So conspicuous is

this theme in fact, that fifty years later Hume could accuse Leibniz of deny-

ing the fact of human misery altogether. I I But if Broad is right then Leibniz is

faced with a problem. Attempting to refute Pierre Bayle's conviction that

human beings are preponderantly wicked and miserable, he would be forced

to admit that on his-Leibniz's-own principles, every possible created

being is not just preponderantly but infinitely evil, since it falls infinitely

short of God's perfection.

Of most interest is the effect which this understanding of metaphysical

evil has on the interpretation of Leibniz's solution to the problem of evil. In

spite of the great length of the Theodicy, just how Leibniz solves the

problem is not perfectly clear or straightforward. Careful interpretation is

required in order to answer this question or to sort out all the elements of the

answer, and any conclusion will depend not least upon the interpretation

given to the notion of metaphysical evil.

Leibniz regards the problems of theodicy as falling into two classes. The

first involves the compatibility of divine agency with human freedom; the

second concerns the conduct of God, inasmuch as this conduct appears

contrary to the goodness, the holiness and the justice of God, since God

cooperates in both physical and moral evil. 12 Now it is evident that Leibniz

considers the notion of the original limitation of creatures to be important to

the solution of the latter class of problems. As noted earlier, Leibniz locates

the source of evil in the ideal nature of the creature, a nature which is

necessarily imperfect even prior to any actual corruption or wrongdoing.

Now, supposing that Leibniz thinks that every possible creature contains

original imperfection, or metaphysical evil (to an infinite degree, Broad

would say), which we are to understand is the fountainhead of all other evils,

it would seem to follow that evil must be a prominent and ineradicable

feature of any possible world God might choose to create. And since the

'? Broad, 159.

David Hume, Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, ed. Richard Popkin (Indian-

apolis, 1980), part X, 59.






possibles exist in God's understanding independently of his will, God would

on this basis be exonerated from any blameworthy responsibility for evil.

Is this the essence of Leibniz's theodicy-the basic line of argument by

which he defends God in the face of the world's ills? If one were to accept the

conventional interpretation of the meaning of metaphysical evil, such an

inference would seem justified. It is fairly obvious that both Russell and

Broad understand Leibniz's theodicy in just this way. 3 So, too, does

H. W. B. Joseph, to cite another of the distinguished British commentators

on Leibniz of the first half of this century.14 But if this interpretation is

mistaken, if it can be shown instead that original limitation is a form of

imperfection which is not evil, then evidently a different assessment of

Leibniz's theodicy will be called for. In that case, original limitation will

represent at most a precondition for evil, a means of explaining how evils are

possible in a world actualized by a supremely good and wise and powerful

being who aims at the best possible production. It will no longer be obvious

that evil must afflict any possible world God might actualize, and conse-

quently a different answer will need to be given to the question of just how

Leibniz defends the cause of God.

In attempting to determine what Leibniz actually thought on the subjects

of metaphysical evil and the limitation of creatures, it is imperative to take

note of the tradition with which he explicitly identifies. This is, of course, the

Western Christian tradition of theodicy which stems from Augustine and

Thomas Aquinas. Leibniz clearly presupposes an intimate familiarity with

this tradition in the readers of his Theodicy, and it is hardly possible to gain

an accurate apprehension of his views without a knowledge of at least some

elements of the Augustinian-Thomistic theodicy.

Basic to this tradition is the analysis of evil as privatio boni, the privation

of a good which could and, in some sense, should be present. For Augustine

the formulation of this conception of evil represented a momentous break-

through, since it meant the downfall of the Manichaean doctrine of two

principles, good and evil, eternally at war. As he writes in the Confessions:

whatever things are, are good; and that evil whose origin I sought is not a

substance, for if it were a substance it would be good. 15 Evil is understood

by Augustine on analogy with shadows, with dissonances, and even, in a

memorable image, with a channel blocked by fallen leaves. 16 Wherever

31 This point is implicit in Russell, 199; it is explicit in Broad, 161.

14 H. W. B. Joseph, Lectures on the Philosophy ofLeibniz (Oxford, 1949), 180. On the

same page Joseph summarizes Leibniz's doctrine of evil in these words: for Leibniz evil

is, as St. Augustine said, a privation of being: it is ... the original limitation of the created

soul .

1' The Confessions of Saint Augustine, tr. F. J. Sheed (New York, 1943), 146 (PL,

XXXII, col. 743).

16 Augustine, cited in G. R. Evans, Augustine on Evil (Cambridge, 1982), 93.




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there is being, there is goodness; hence evil is simply a lack or deficiency of

being.

Does the fact that creatures do not possess perfections in the degree to

which God has them represent the kind of deficiency which is evil? Augus-

tine is emphatic that it does not: it is unreasonable to require that things

made out of nothing should be as perfectly good as he who was begotten of

God Himself. 7 It is contradictory to conceive of an infinitely perfect

creature, and since evil can only be where a deficiency is in principle

avoidable, the inescapable limitation of creatures is no evil. This point is

stated just as clearly by Aquinas; evil, he says, is not any kind of absence of

good but only of that which a thing by nature can have and is expected to

have. 18

If the limitations of creatures are not instances of evil per se they are,

however, not without significance for the explanation of evil. In the Augus-

tinian-Thomistic framework, evil is made possible in God's works by the fact

that creatures have limits, having been made from nothing. In the City of God

Augustine asks how Adam and Eve, created good and in possession of

enormous gifts and powers, could possibly have sinned; in answer he points

to their origin from nothingness, which can drag down any created nature,

however elevated: notice.. .that such weakening by reason of a defect is

possible only in a nature which has been created out of nothing. In a word, a

nature is a nature because it is something made by God, but a nature falls

away from that which is because the nature was made out of nothing. '9

These points are commonplaces of Christian theodicy, and there is

abundant textual evidence that Leibniz, regarding them as such, did not

question their truth. Specifically, he clearly does accept the privative analysis

of evil and along with it the understanding of the limitation of creatures as no

more than the precondition for the possibility of evil. In defending God

against the charge that he is the efficient and hence morally blameworthy

cause of evil, Leibniz points to the fact, which has already made so much

stir in the schools since St. Augustine declared it, that evil is a privation of

being, whereas the action of God tends to the positive. In other words the

Platonists, St. Augustine, and the schoolmen were right to say that God is the

cause of the material element of evil which lies in the positive, and not of the

1' Augustine, Against the Fundamental Letter of the Manichaeans, ch. 37, sec. 42 (PL,

XLII, col. 202).

18 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae Ia 48, 6 ad 1: non omnis defectus boni est

malum, sed defectus boni quod natum est et debet haberi. English translation in

Blackfriars edition of the Summa Theologiae (New York, 1967-80), VIII, 126.

9 City of God (de civitate dei) XIV, 13 (PL, XLI, col. 421; English trans. by G. Walsh

and G. Monahan, Saint Augustine, The City of God, The Fathers of the Church series, XIV

[New York, 1952], 468); cf. XV, 21 (PL, 41, col. 467): It is true indeed that the human

will resides in a nature that was created good because its Creator is good, but that nature is

mutable even though its Maker is immutable, for the simple reason that it was made out of

nothing.





formal element, which lies in privation. 20 Is it a privation of being, hence an

instance of evil, when a creature lacks some perfection which it might

conceivably have possessed? Leibniz answers this question directly:

one does not include among the disorders inequality of conditions,

and M. Jacquelot [a contemporary] is justified in asking those who

would have everything equally perfect, why rocks are not crowned

with leaves and flowers? why ants are not peacocks? And if there

must needs be equality everywhere, the poor man would serve notice

of appeal against the rich, the servant against the master. The pipes of

an organ must not be of equal size.2

If Leibniz rejects the limitation of creatures as privative and therefore

evil in character, he does accept it as a precondition of the possibility of evil.

He expresses this view unambiguously in a number of places, even in those

early sections of part one of the Theodicy to which Russell restricted his

attention. There Leibniz writes: God gives ever to the creature and produces

continually in it all that is positive, good and perfect ...; the imperfections, on

the other hand, and the defects in operations come from (viennent de) the

original limitation that the creature could not but receive from the first

beginning of its being.. . 22 The same doctrine is expressed in the Discourse

on Metaphysics, where Leibniz says that even before the Fall of the human

race, there was an original imperfection or limitation connatural to all

creatures, which makes them liable to sin or capable of error. It is to this

thesis, he says, that we must reduce the opinion of Saint Augustine and

other authors, the opinion that the root of evil is in nothingness, that is to say,

in the privation or limitation of creatures, which God graciously remedies by

the degree of perfection it pleases him to give. It is significant that Leibniz

says original limitation makes creatures liable to sin, rather than that it makes

them evil precisely as such. The Causa Dei, annexed to the Theodicy,

contains what is perhaps the clearest expression of Leibniz's real opinion:

in creatures and their good and evil actions there is no perfection nor any

purely positive quality which is not due to God. But in all actions of creatures

which imply imperfection, this imperfection consists in a privation and

originates in the original limitation of all creatures. 23

At the most fundamental metaphysical level, the original limitation of

the creature is analyzed by Leibniz in terms of confused perception on the

20 Theodicy, ??29, 30, GP, VI, 119; Huggard, 140.



23 Vindication of the Cause of God (Causa Dei Asserta), ??69-70, GP, VI, 449; P.

Schrecker and A. M. Schrecker, eds., Leibniz: Monadology and Other Philosophical

Writings (Indianapolis, 1965), 129: sed imperfectionem actus in privatione consistere, et

oriri ab originali limitatione creaturarum....




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part of created individual substances. In the Monadology he writes that

monads are limited and differentiated by the degrees of their distinct

perceptions and also that the representation of the universe by each monad

can only be distinct for a small portion of things.. .otherwise each monad

would be a divinity. 24 But (as was noted above with regard to the example

of moral evil) limitations in the distinctness of monadic perception serve as

the precondition for the occurrence of actual evils. Because the creature is

limited in essence, it follows that it cannot know all, and that it can deceive

itself and commit other errors. 25

What, then, is metaphysical evil? I have argued thus far that Leibniz's

explicit adherence to the Augustinian-Thomistic analysis of evil makes clear

that metaphysical evil cannot refer to or include the original limitation of the

creature, as Russell and others suggest. Leibniz is unfortunately not very

forthcoming, however, on what he thinks metaphysical evil is. In fact the

references in the Theodicy to this form of evil are widely dispersed and very

brief, and this lack is hardly remedied in his other writings. Nonetheless, my

claim is that Leibniz does have a clear and consistent notion of metaphysical

evil, one which can be discerned by collating and considering carefully the

references he does make to this form of evil, not neglecting the references

made to its counterpart, metaphysical good.

One of the more significant passages in the Theodicy relevant to this

topic is the following:

On consideration of the metaphysical good and evil which is in all

substances, whether endowed with or devoid of intelligence, and

which taken in such scope, would include physical good and moral

good, one must say that the universe, such as it is, is the best of all

systems.26

What this selection indicates immediately is that metaphysical good and

evil are posited by Leibniz as inclusive categories. Standing for perfection

and imperfection in general, they include not only the perfections and disor-

ders affecting rational and animate creatures exclusively, namely, moral evil

and physical evil, but also perfections and disorders of inanimate things as

well.

This interpretation is borne out by writings outside the Theodicy itself,

beginning with the Causa Dei:

24 Monadology, ?60, GP, VI, 617; G. W. Leibniz: Philosophical Essays, tr. Roger

Ariew and Daniel Garber (Indianapolis, 1989), 220-21.


26 Theodicy, ?263, GP, VI, 273; Huggard, 288. Several other fragmentary references to

metaphysical evil can be found in Theodicy, ? 118, GP, VI, 168-69; Huggard, 188; ?209,

GP, VI, 242; Huggard, 258; and ?246, GP, VI, 263; Huggard, 278.





Metaphysical good or evil, in general, consists in the perfection or

imperfection of all creatures, even those that are not endowed with

intelligence. The heavenly Father, according to Christ's own words,

takes care of the lilies of the field and of the sparrows; and, according

to Jonah, God watches over the animals.27

Virtually the same formulation occurs in notes Leibniz made on Pierre

Bayle: metaphysical good and evil is perfection or imperfection in general,

but is especially taken to be those goods and evils which happen to

nonintelligent creatures, or as if to the nonintelligent. 28 Perhaps most

informative are Leibniz's remarks in a letter of December 1714 to his

correspondent Bourguet, a reader of the Theodicy who had argued for dis-

pensing with the category of metaphysical evil:

As for metaphysical evil (you say) I do not consider it an evil. But

if you admit that there is metaphysical good, Sir, the privation of this

good will be metaphysical evil. When an intelligent being loses his

understanding [bon sens] without any pain and without sin-and

therefore without any physical or moral evil-do you not consider

this as an evil?29

On the basis of these somewhat condensed selections, Leibniz's doctrine

can be summarized as follows. Metaphysical good and evil consist in the

possession and the privation of perfections on the part of creatures. The

category of metaphysical evil includes moral and physical evils, which,

taken metaphysically, 30 are specific sorts of imperfection. Physical evil, or

suffering, consists in the consciousness of imperfection and is applicable

only to animate beings, those which are capable of sensation.3' Moral evil or

27 Causa Dei, ?30, GP, VI, 443; Schrecker, 120 (italics in original). The biblical

allusions are to Matthew 6:28-30, Matthew 10:29, and Jonah 4:11.

28 GP, III, 32: ... illis bonis malisque, quae creaturis non intelligentibus aut tanquam

non intelligentibus accidunt.

29 GP, III, 574; L. E. Loemker (ed. and tr.), Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Philosophical

Papers and Letters, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1956), 1077. The term which Loemker translates as

understanding, bon sens, makes a conspicuous appearance in Descartes's Discourse on

Method, where it can be taken to refer either to the natural faculty of distinguishing the true

from the false, or simply to wisdom; in fact, the latter may be thought of as the former

brought to the highest perfection of which it is capable; see Rene Descartes, Discours de la

Methode, texte et commentaire, ed. Etienne Gilson (Paris, 19623), 81ff.


3' This definition of pain is implicit in Leibniz's claim in DM, ?15 (GP, IV, 441; AG,

48), that every action of a substance which has perfection involves some pleasure, and

every passion some pain and vice versa, as well as from Leibniz's remarks to Wolff, in C.

I. Gerhardt, ed., Briefwechsel zwischen Leibniz und Christian Wolff (Hildesheim, 1963),

Letter 86, 172; AG, 233, that pleasure is the sensation of perfection and that we can

determine whether the unlimited is more perfect than the limited by noting whether its

observation stimulates pleasure or discomfort.




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sin, which Leibniz likely would have accepted as a word, deed, or thought

contrary to divine law, as the Augustinian-Thomistic formula has it,32 has

reference only to the lapses of rational agents, those creatures which are

subject to reward and punishment and who are thereby members of the City

of God. But evil is always metaphysical evil, even if this term is also used

by Leibniz more selectively to denote the privations afflicting inanimate

things as well as those privations which affect animate and rational beings

but which nevertheless fall outside the categories of physical and moral evil.

What are the sorts of disorder or of privation which qualify as metaphysi-

cal evil in this restrictive sense? Although Leibniz is once again not as

forthcoming as one might like, he seems to have two sorts of condition in

mind. First, judging from the quotations just above, and on a reference to

monstrosities as examples of metaphysical evils,33 a metaphysical evil

would seem to be present when an animate creature suffers a defect relative to

its species.34 The letter to Bourguet offers the example of an intelligent

creature losing its understanding. Since intelligence pertains to such a crea-

ture by virtue of the specific kind of thing it is, the loss of this faculty is the

loss of what could and should be present and hence is an authentic evil.35

Leibniz's views on monstrosities and other physical defects show the

influence of Malebranche, who in his own theodicy accounts for such phe-

nomena by reference to God's employment of general laws in the governance

of the world.36 Malebranche claims that God is not obliged to intervene to

prevent evils which result from the ordinary operation of physical laws, such

as birth defects, since it is more worthy of divine wisdom to act according to

general rules than particular volitions. Leibniz agrees:

It is well to bear in mind not only that it was better to admit these

defects and monstrosities than to violate general laws, as Father

32 ST la2ae 71, 6, Blackfriars, XXV, 21.


34 I mean species in what Leibniz calls the physical sense, in which a single species

can contain many individuals, as opposed to the mathematical sense in which each

individual thing is a species unto itself; see Leibniz, New Essays Concerning Human

Understanding, tr. P. Remnant and J. Bennett (Cambridge, 1981), 308 (III, 6, ?13; GP, V,

287).

35 Aquinas offers a not dissimilar example in the Summa Theologiae (la q. 48, art. 5, ad

1, Blackfriars, VIII, 126) when he contrasts blindness in an animal and in a stone. Lack of

sight in an animal is an evil, and since it cannot be said that sight pertains to the perfection

of a stone, lack of sight in that case must be denominated a negation rather than a privation,

on the principle, cited earlier, that evil is not just any kind of absence of good, but only of

that which a thing by nature can have and is expected to have.

36 Malebranche, Recherche de la v&rite, II, I, VII, ?3, Oeuvres completes I, 243; The

Search After Truth, tr. Thomas M. Lennon and Paul J. Olscamp (Columbus, 1980), 118,

cited in Catherine Wilson, Leibniz's Metaphysics: A Historical and Comparative Study

(Princeton, 1989), 282. See also Robert C. Sleigh, Jr., Leibniz & Arnauld: A Commentary

on their Correspondence (New Haven, 1990), 43-47.





Malebranche sometimes argues, but also that these very monstrosi-

ties are in the rules, and are in conformity with general acts of will,

though we be not capable of discerning this conformity.37

The allusion in this passage to the apparent dysteleology of physical

defects provides a clue to the second sort of condition which Leibniz thinks

exemplifies metaphysical evil. In sections 241 through 249 of the Theodicy,

which make up his only extended discussion of metaphysical evil, he in-

cludes among the apparent irregularities of the universe geological up-

heavals, sunspots, and comets. These examples represent irregularities rela-

tive to an ideal of order which might be called law-governedness.38 Leibniz

says about comets, for example, that we do not yet know the rules

governing these natural phenomena, nor what uses they supply. 39 Com-

pared to the law-governed predictability of the planetary orbits, their appar-

ently random circuits are deficient in perfection precisely to the extent that

they are lacking in order.

The link Leibniz makes between order and perfection is explained more

fully in his correspondence with Wolff, where he defines as more perfect that

in which more things worthy of observation [notatu digna] are found. 40

Are there, then, asks Wolff, more things worthy of observation in a healthy

body than in a sick one, since the former is judged more perfect? Leibniz

answers yes:

If everyone were sick, many remarkable observations would cease,

namely, those constituting the ordinary course of nature, which is

disturbed in disease; the more order there is, the more things worthy

of observation there are. Imperfections are exceptions which disturb

general rules, that is, general observations. If there were many rules,

there would be nothing worthy of observation, but only chaos.41

In a subsequent letter Leibniz adds the important point that the perfection

of a thing is correlated with its order whether it [i.e., the order] is observed

by us or not. 42 It is thus obvious that the category of metaphysical evil is

37 Theodicy, ?241, GP, VI, 261; Huggard, 276. See also Theodicy, ??204-8, GP, VI,

238-41; Huggard, 254-57.

38 This term is used by Kathleen Okruhlik, The Status of Scientific Laws in the

Leibnizian System, in Okruhlik, K., and Brown, J. R. (eds.), The Natural Philosophy of

Leibniz (Dordrecht, 1985), 188.

39 Theodicy, ?245, GP, VI, 263; Huggard, 278: nous ne savons pas les usages qu'elle

apportent, ni ce qu'il y a de regle.

40 Letter to Wolff, Winter 1714-15, Gerhardt, Letter 82, 161; Ariew and Garber, 230.

41 Si multae essent regulae, nihil esset observatione dignum, chaos merum. Letter to

Wolff, 2 April 1715, Gerhardt, 163 (Letter 84); Ariew and Garber, 231 (italics in original).

42 Letter to Wolff, 18 May 1715, Gerhardt, 171 (Letter 86); Ariew and Garber, 233.




12Mche Ltzer

bound to be a fairly imprecise one and, to some extent, a function of human

misperception, since it is not always apparent to finite intellects whether a

phenomenon is ordered or not. What is presently regarded as a specific

disorder might come to be seen as the mark of a hitherto unknown species,43

and an event which appears irregular might eventually be found to be

thoroughly law-governed, as Leibniz suggests about sunspots and the orbits

of comets.

Now, the conception of metaphysical evils as consisting of various kinds

of natural disorders seems to be in conflict with Leibniz's claim in the

Discourse on Metaphysics that God does nothing which is not orderly, and

it is not even possible to imagine events that are not regular. 45 The solution

to this problem lies in Leibniz's distinction between the universal order, and

the particular orders established among creatures. 46 The universal order

stands for the law of the best or the complete concept of the actual world,

which includes the complete concepts of all the creatures in this world.47

Since this order includes all of the infinity of events which make up the whole

world-sequence, there ultimately is nothing out of order or irregular. Leibniz

compares the law of the best to a mathematical function which is capable

of showing the rule governing an apparently irregular curve, such as the

silhouette of a face.48 Although created intellects cannot fathom in detail this

law, or this great mystery upon which the entire universe depends,

Leibniz will say in general that the best universe is the one which is at the

same time the simplest in hypotheses and the richest in phenomena, since,

he claims, this is the way of obtaining as much perfection as possible. 49

Although the most general of God's laws, the one that rules the whole

course of the universe, is without exception, the case is different for the

subordinate [subaltern] maxims which we call the nature of things. 50

These subordinate maxims are of two kinds. On the one hand, there are what

Leibniz calls architectonic principles, such as the law of continuity and

43 ... a great deal of care and experience is needed if one is to mark out genera and

species in a manner which comes fairly close to nature, New Essays, III, 6, 13, 309.

4 Theodicy, ?245, GP, VI, 263; AG, 278.

45 From the summary for Discourse on Metaphysics, ?6 (GP, IV, 431), GP, II, 12,

Ariew and Garber, 39; The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence, ed. and tr. H. T. Mason

(Manchester, 1967), 4.

46 Discourse on Metaphysics, ?6 (GP, IV, 431); Ariew and Garber, 41.

47 this universe has a certain principal or primary concept of which particular events

are merely consequences ... Leibniz to Ernst von Hessen-Rheinfels (GP, II, 41; Mason,

4 4 .

4X Discourse on Metaphysics, ?6, GP, IV, 431; Ariew and Garber, 39. Cf. P. Burgelin,

Commentaire du Discourse de Metaphysique de Leibniz (Paris, 1959), 127.

49 Monadology, ?58, GP, VI, 616; Ariew and Garber, 220.

5O Discourse on Metaphysics, ?7, GP, IV, 432; Ariew and Garber, 40.





the law of determination by maxima and minima.51 On the other hand, there

are the laws of nature, of which an example is that of the conservation of

force. 2 Leibniz claims that when God has reasons which outweigh those for

which he established these maxims to begin with, he is authorized to depart

from the maxims, and such departures are called miracles. 3 But while

miracles are departures from subsidiary laws, they are fundamentally never

out of order, since they remain governed by the law of the best.

It is interesting to observe that metaphysical evils are, in a sense, the

counterparts of miracles, since both are irregularities relative to the sub-

ordinate maxims which govern the natural order. They represent, however,

very different types of irregularity. First, miracles are events which ex-

ceed the natural powers of creatures; metaphysical evils are defects in the

operations of creatures.S4 Second, Leibniz says that God works miracles not

... in order to supply the wants of nature, but those of grace, 5 while

metaphysical evils serve both nature and grace. In illustration of this latter

point, Leibniz points out that the prehistoric upheavals of the earth, which he

clearly regards as metaphysical evils,56 have benefited the human race which

inherited the earth: we owe to them our riches and our comforts. 57 Yet

Leibniz also thinks that such disorders contribute to the total perfection of the

universe, reckoned in aesthetic terms: I shall be met with the objection

that a uniform system will be free from irregularities. I answer that it would

be an irregularity to be too uniform, that would offend against the rules of

harmony. 58

I have tried to show that the interpretation of Leibniz's doctrine of evil

advanced by Russell, Broad, and others is an inaccurate one. If I am correct,

it follows that the criticisms of Leibniz's ethics and theodicy which I outlined

in part one, and which presuppose this interpretation, are likewise un-

grounded. Evil is for Leibniz no mere deficiency without ethical sig-

nificance, but always a privation which follows from metaphysical im-

perfection, as when one is limited to the pleasures of the senses, or to other

5' Leibniz, Tentamen anagogicum: Essay anagogique dans la recherche des causes,

GP, VII, 278, cited in Robert McRae, Leibniz: Perception, Apperception, and Thought

(Toronto, 1976), 11 If; also the same author's Miracles and Laws, in Okruhlik and

Brown, 171.

52 Discourse on Metaphysics, ? 17, GP, IV, 442; Ariew and Garber, 49.

53 Discourse on Metaphysics, ?7, GP, IV, 432; Ariew and Garber, 40.

54 Thus Leibniz emphasizes that the miraculous does not merely stand for the extraor-

dinary or the unusual: the nature of a miracle does not at all consist in usualness or

unusualness, for then monsters would be miracles (fourth letter to Clarke, ?43, GP, VII,

377; Ariew and Garber, 331).

55 First paper on Clarke, GP, VII, 352; Ariew and Garber, 321.



sx Theodicy, ?211, GP, VI, 244; Huggard, 260.




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pleasures to the detriment of greater good ... it is in this privation of a further

aspiration that the defect consists. 9 Thus sinners, and principally the Devil,

are not the lowest of bare monads but intelligent creatures who have

preferred a lesser good to a greater, contrary to the divine command. The

differences in the degrees of perfection among created substances which

make for variety and differentiation are not themselves instances of evil,

although the fact that no creature is immutably perfect means that defect,

privation, and turning away from greater goods are always possible.

What implications for Leibniz's theodicy follow from my interpretation

of his doctrine of evil? The principal one has to do with how Leibniz is

thought to solve the problem of evil. If every creature were meta-

physically evil simply by virtue of not being a god, it would follow that there

would be no possible world without evil; and as I indicated earlier, Leibniz's

justification of God could plausibly be construed as follows. God chose to

communicate his goodness, wisdom, and power by the act of creation but has

been unable to prevent evil from infecting his work because every possible

creature in every possible world is evil to some degree, perhaps an infinite

degree. The presence of evil is not God's fault, since it in some cases consists

in, and in others is a consequence of, the inescapable finitude of created

being.

But does Leibniz say that every possible world contains evil? In fact he

does not. What he says is this: as this vast region of verities contains all

possibilities it is necessary that there be an infinitude of possible worlds, that

evil enter into several [plusieurs] of them, and that even the best of all

contain a measure of it. 60 We know a posteriori that the best possible world

does contain evil, since we are assured that God has created none but the best

among worlds, and quite obviously the actual world contains much evil. God

is exonerated from culpability, however, not because any world he might

have created would have been more or less evil but because, having brought

into existence the best of all possible worlds in spite of the evil which this

world does contain, he knows how to bring good out of evil.6

Thus to suppose that Leibniz thinks that every possible world contains

evil is not only to go against what he actually says; it is to misconstrue the

character of his theodicy. Leibniz forthrightly admits that it would have

been possible [for God] to make a world without evil or even not to create any

world. 62 Now supposing the alternatives to be creating nothing, and

creating a world which must inevitably contain evil, it would be easy and not


60 Theodicy, ?21, GP, VI, 115; Huggard, 136 (italics added).

61 Theodicy, appendix 1, objection 1, GP, VI, 376, Huggard, 378: I have followed

therein the opinion of St. Augustine, who said a hundred times that God permitted evil in

order to derive from it a good, that is to say, a greater good; and Thomas Aquinas says ...

that the permission of evil tends towards the good of the universe.

62 Theodicy, appendix 1, objection 1, GP, VI, 376; Huggard, 378.





very exciting to justify God's having created the world by arguing that even a

world with evil is better than nothing at all; but this sort of argument is absent

from the Theodicy. Instead, Leibniz's untiring effort there is to show that the

world's evil is justified by means of the specific constellation of goods which

is thereby brought about and which is not otherwise obtainable.

It is in this light that the unmistakeable Christocentrism of his theodicy

shows forth clearly. For the fundamental reason Leibniz gives for God's

permission of evil is that the world which witnesses evil's ultimate

vanquishing through the incarnation of Christ is superior to any world

containing no evil in the first place. The remark in the Theodicy that we

remember that we have gained Jesus Christ himself by reason of sin 63 is by

no means untypical, nor is Leibniz's invocation of this theme under the title

felix culpa: I have shown that among older writers the fall of Adam was

termed felix culpa, a fortunate sin, because it had been expiated with

immense benefit by the incarnation of the Son of God, who gave to the

universe something more noble than there would otherwise have been

amongst creatures. 64 With his invocation of this theme Leibniz again clearly

shows that his theodicy is fully at home in the Western Christian tradition of

theodicy-and can be properly understood only in the light of this tradition.

St. Anselm College.

63 Theodicy, ?1 1, GP, VI, 109, Huggard, 130.

6 Theodicy, appendix 1, objection 1, GP, VI, 377, Huggard, 378.

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Leibniz's Conception of Metaphysical Evil - Michael Latzer

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