A Universal Rule of Law for a Pluralist World Order

Abstract

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was committed to the idea of a universal rule of 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 in his view more successful in being the moral and responsible political ruler that the law required. Leibniz’s universal rule of law is an ideal for a pluralist world. China and Europe were different yet equal and they needed 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 internalized through a rational practice of self-cultivation and self-perfection, a rule of law as justice guides and constrains acts towards the perfection of the individual self as well as towards the realization of ‘the empire of reason’, ie a world order based on a universal rule of natural law and justice.