Abstract

VIRE, MAXIMILIANO ESCOBAR. Giving Birth the Principie of the Best: Natural Law, Moral Necessity and Divine Justice in the Young Leibniz (1663-1671). Rev. latinoam. filos. [online]. 2020, vol.46, n.1, pp.47-67. ISSN 1852-7353.  http://dx.doi.org/10.36446/rlf2020198.

The young Leibniz faced the question of divine justice, firstly, from the standpoint of a natural law theory, based on Erhard Weigel’s doctrine of moral entities. Leibniz took from that doctrine the concept of moral necessity, which is used, in this period (1663-1671), to define the concept of obligation. However, this jurisprudential framework does not allow him to explain divine justice, because, for Leibniz, God is free from any moral-juridical obligation. Therefore, Leibniz seeks in the doctrine of universal harmony a reason to explain divine equity or piety. And it seems that this search takes him to introduce, by 1671, the principle of the best, as a principle that rules divine actions, based on an intellectualist conception of freedom.

Keywords : principle of the best; obligation; universal harmony; piety.

        · abstract in Spanish     · text in Spanish     · Spanish ( pdf )