This book presents a comprehensive examination of Gottfried Leibniz's views on the nature of agents and their actions. Julia Jorati offers a fresh look at controversial topics including Leibniz's ...doctrines of teleology, the causation of spontaneous changes within substances, divine concurrence, freedom, and contingency, and also discusses widely neglected issues such as his theories of moral responsibility, control, attributability, and compulsion. Rather than focusing exclusively on human agency, she explores the activities of non-rational substances and the differences between distinctive types of actions, showing how the will, appetitions, and teleology are key to Leibniz's discussions of agency. Her book reveals that Leibniz has a nuanced and compelling philosophy of action which has relevance for present-day discussions of agency. It will be of interest to scholars and students of early modern philosophy as well as to metaphysicians and philosophers of action.
Leibniz puts forward an intriguing argument against the moral permissibility of chattel slavery in a text from 1703. This argument has three independent layers or sub-arguments. The first is that ...slavery violates natural rights. The second is that moral laws such as the principles of equity and piety oppose slavery, or at least severely limit the permissible actions toward slaves. The third and final layer is that slavery can at most be justified if the slave is permanently incapable of conducting herself well. Yet, it is very doubtful that any actual human beings satisfy that description. This paper analyzes and evaluates Leibniz’s argument, which scholars have so far largely neglected. Even though some elements of the argument are not original to Leibniz, it is of considerable importance for the scholarship of early modern philosophy: it sheds light on Leibniz’s views not only on the moral status of slavery itself, but also on moral rights and obligations more generally.
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz endorses a version of the guise of the good thesis: he holds that whenever we do something intentionally, we do it because it seems good to us. This paper explores Leibniz's ...version of this thesis and its implications for other aspects of his system. More specifically, the paper investigates the modal status of Leibniz's thesis, the question of whether it leaves room for akrasia, or weakness of the will, and finally, the question of whether Leibniz is able to provide satisfactory explanations of truly evil actions.
Moral rationalists and sentimentalists traditionally disagree on at least two counts, namely regarding the source of moral knowledge or moral judgements and regarding the source of moral motivation. ...I will argue that even though Leibniz's moral epistemology is very much in line with that of mainstream moral rationalists, his account of moral motivation is better characterized as sentimentalist. Just like Hume, Leibniz denies that there is a necessary connection between knowing that something is right and the motivation to act accordingly. Instead, he believes that certain affections are necessary for moral motivation. On my interpretation, then, Leibniz is an externalist about judgements and motivation: he is committed to a gap between the judgement that something is morally right and the motivation to act accordingly. As a matter of fact, I will argue that there are two gaps. The first and less controversial one has to do with the fact that Leibniz reconciles his psychological egoism with ethical altruism through his account of love. The second gap between moral judgements and motivation is a more fundamental one: Leibniz denies that there are any necessary connections between beliefs and motivation, or even more generally, between perceptions and appetitions.
Leibniz holds that created substances do not causally interact with each other but that there is causal activity within each such creature. Every created substance constantly changes internally, and ...each of these changes is caused by the substance itself or by its prior states. Leibniz describes this kind of intra‐substance causation both in terms of final causation and in terms of efficient causation. How exactly this works, however, is highly controversial. I will identify what I take to be the major interpretive issues surrounding Leibniz's views on causation and examine several influential interpretations of these views. In ‘Leibniz on Causation – Part 2’ I will then take a closer look at final causation.
Leibniz is almost unique among early modern philosophers in giving final causation a central place in his metaphysical system. All changes in created substances, according to Leibniz, have final ...causes, that is, occur for the sake of some end. There is, however, no consensus among commentators about the details of Leibniz's views on final causation. The least perfect types of changes that created substances undergo are especially puzzling because those changes seem radically different from paradigmatic instances of final causation. Building on my more general discussion of efficient and final causation in ‘Leibniz on Causation – Part 1,’ I will examine and assess some of the rival interpretations of Leibniz's account of final causation.
Gottfried Leibniz
The Routledge Companion to Free Will,
2017
Book Chapter
Leibniz was obsessed with freedom. He turns to this topic again and again throughout
his long career. And what he has to say about freedom is much more resourceful and
inventive than typically ...acknowledged. While building on medieval theories-for
instance by describing freedom in terms of the relation between the agent's will and
intellect-he also adds radically new elements and even anticipates some views that are
popular today.
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