ABSTRACT
Hobbes's moral philosophy calls attention to a purpose or 'end' all rational people can agree is good, and it specifies types of behaviour that are means to that end. The end and the means are supposed to be discoverable even in the state of nature. Each pre-political person can agree to call peace 'good', for each can see that peace is a means of selfpreservation. Seeing that peace is good, each can see the good in virtuous types of behaviour - charity, equity, complaisance, forgiveness - enjoined by the laws of nature. But seeing only this much, each person is not unequivocally obliged to act virtuously, for each person must be sure it is safe to do so, and it may be dangerous if the next person is prepared to act iniquitously or in contravention of the laws of nature. The next person may be prepared to act iniquitously: in the state of nature he may think it is unsafe to act in any other way. And there is no gainsaying him. Since each man in the state of nature is entitled to preserve himself by any means he thinks suitable (L, ch. 14, E III 117; EL, Pt. 1, ch. 14, viii. 71; De Cive, ch. 1, x, E II 9), and since this entitlement may be a matter of common knowledge (De Cive, ch. 1, ix, E II 9), it is not necessarily safe to abide openly by the laws of nature. One is always obliged to try to abide by the laws, to give them due weight in one's practical deliberation, but giving them due weight may be done in private or in foro interno: one is not always obliged to abide by the laws openly, i.e. in one's actions or in foro externo.
