Abstract

The prevailing consensus among leibniz scholars is that Leibniz’s rational psychology is thoroughly egoist. To take a recent and especially prominent example, Nicholas Jolley compares Leibniz to his philosophical adversaries Hobbes and Spinoza in just this respect. He writes,Leibniz is as uncompromising as they are in maintaining that no one deliberately does anything except for the sake of his own welfare, for one seeks the good even of those whom we love for the sake of the pleasure we derive from their happiness. According to this standard reading, Leibniz argues that all acts of altruism are merely apparent; ultimately, he maintains, such acts are done for the sake of the pleasure they bring about in the agent.