Leibniz on Empathy and Sensibility to Others’ Pleasure and Pain

Abstract

This article examines Leibniz’s moral psychology, focusing on his thematisation of empathy. I argue that, although tracing along the lines of the doctrine of the universal connection of things and thus providing the ultimate metaphysical framework within which empathic relations are situated, Leibniz’s use of the terminology of sympathy does not fulfil a direct moral function. I show instead that, by drawing on impulses from diverse philosophical traditions, Leibniz articulates an alternative conception of both cognitive and affective empathy as primarily embedded in natural socio-moral inclinations to be affected by others’ pleasure and pain. Such natural inclinations toward intraspecific care and tenderness are marked by the experience of pleasure and oriented to the usefulness and the good of the species. I show that such natural instincts presuppose sensitivity to others’ pleasure and suffering and are embedded within a supra-individual structure of pleasure and participation in others’ perfections typical of the representative life of minds. This analysis fosters Leibniz’s position as a transitional figure between the Scholastic and Renaissance moral legacies, the new Hobbesian anthropology and the emerging British moral sense theories – particularly Shaftesbury’s – thus placing him in the prehistory of 18th-century sentimentalist ethics.