Moral Duty and Economy in the Theodicies of Leibniz and Malebranche

Abstract

The article makes an approach to the theodicies of Leibniz and Malebranche focusing on the concepts of “moral duty” and “economy”. From here, the terms under which both philosophers understand divine freedom and the amount of good that must be derived from the rationality to which God submits when he creates the world are calibrated. The Leibnizian model will be studied in the light of the challenges posed by authors such as Hobbes and Spinoza from polarized perspectives to the disjunction between the absolute transcedence of God to his work and the subsumption of divinity to logical-metaphysical prescriptions. It is emphasized, despite Malebranche’s conceptual rigor and the economic essence that he postulates for divinity, there are elements of judgement to maintain that his model contains remmants of revealed theology and voluntarism. Ultimately, it will be assessed to what extent each of these philosophies fit the category of “theodicy”.