Abstract

Leibniz was introduced to the English-speaking world in the twentieth century by Bertrand Russell’s Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz, a book that at once hailed the depth and elegance of Leibniz’s logico-metaphysical scheme and scorned his ethical theory. In the intervening years, Russell’s book has stimulated a large body of commentary, which has led to a sophisticated understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of Leibniz’s metaphysics. Predictably, Leibniz’s practical philosophy has received much less attention. With the exception of John Hostler’s Leibniz’s Moral Philosophy, there has been no book-length treatment of Leibniz’s ethics in English and only a handful of articles. In this respect, English-language scholarship has lagged behind that of the Continent, where beginning with Gaston Grua’s landmark Jurisprudence universelle et Théodicée selon Leibniz there has grown a rich body of literature that has explored in detail the character of Leibniz’s practical philosophy and its relation to the history of moral and political thought.