A Universal Rule of Law for a Pluralist World Order: Leibniz's Universal Jurisprudence and His Praise of the Chinese Ruler

Abstract

This chapter examines the idea of a universal rule of law in the work of early modern scholar Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. He developed a theory of universal justice by which he meant to keep universal moral and political structures in place while accommodating at the same time the newly emerging sovereign states. Leibniz was committed to the idea of a rule of natural law that governed sovereign powers, and he argued that European rulers should learn from Chinese moral and political philosophy and from the Chinese emperor, who was the more successful in being the moral and responsible political ruler that the law required. Leibniz’ universal jurisprudence is not a plea for universal uniformity. His universal rule of natural law and justice is an ideal for a pluralist world. In his writings on China, there is no civilizational inferiority-superiority language nor suggestions of incommensurability. China and Europe were different yet equal and they would need each other to critically assess and perfect themselves and humanity as a whole. Leibniz’s interest in Chinese moral and political thought testifies to his conviction that natural law — grounded on justice as ‘wise charity’ — is universal and that it governs the inner life of human beings, whether sovereign or subject. If internalised through a rational practice of self-cultivation and self-perfection, the international rule of law guides and constrains acts towards the perfection of the individual self as well as towards the realisation of ‘the empire of reason’, that is, a world order based on a universal rule of natural law and justice.