Abstract

In a few months’ time the Potsdam branch of the Berlin-Brandenburg Akademie der Wissenschaften will bring out the latest volume of Leibniz’s Political Writings, under the able editorship of Hartmut Rudolph. For Leibniz’s moral-political-juridical philosophy, the most important single item in A IV, 5 will be the “Praefatio” to the Codex Iuris Gentium—the work in which Leibniz first published his celebrated notion that justice is “the charity of the wise” or “universal benevolence”, not just Hobbesian sovereign-ordained law backed by fear of sanctions. In the crucial paragraph of the Codex, Leibniz insists that