The ethics of creation

As we saw in Chapter 5, Leibniz believes that God grounds the possibility of all things, and is responsible for turning our world from a merely possible world into the actual one. Out of all possible worlds, God chose this one to be real. Why this one? Leibniz's answer, of course, is that this is the best of all possible worlds: it offers the widest diversity of phenomena, the simplest and most elegant set of natural laws, complete justice and consummate moral perfection. This may not seem to us to be so, of course, given our limited and fragmented experience. But, Leibniz would say, if we could survey the entire scope of our world, including what goes on in the afterlife, we would see that no better world is possible.

This provides a broad target for ridicule. Indeed, the French philosopher Voltaire (1694–1778) devotes his entire novel, Candide, to ridiculing it. Voltaire introduces Dr Pangloss, a fool of a philosopher who goes to absurd lengths to try to show a divine purpose in every awful atrocity. Earthquakes, rape, murder, torture and disease – Pangloss tries to argues that all these horrors must be present for the world to be as “wonderful” as it is. The end result is sickening: for how can anyone witness the death of a child and proudly assert that all is for the best? At the same time, though, it must be remembered that Leibniz himself lived in the midst of one of Europe's bloodiest wars.