ABSTRACT
Hobbes reserves the term 'guiltless' for people whose actions are just, but who aren't wholehearted in acting justly (L, ch. 15, E III 136). What the creation of the commonwealth is supposed to promote is general guiltlessness: it is too much to hope that it will make just men of individuals who are otherwise aggressive pursuers of felicity. Similarly with the other virtues.4 When people behave outwardly as the laws of nature advise, and make the just, or modest or grateful gesture, they are doing all that the laws of nature ask when the laws of nature function as laws of the commonwealth. Making the relevant gestures may not, however, be enough for compliance with the laws of nature qua laws of a God who can see into hearts, and who commands that the virtuous thing be done wholeheartedly. The laws of nature may be upheld as civil laws, binding only in foro externa, and at the same time be broken as laws binding in foro interno. When that happens, an agent sins but commits no crime (cf. L, ch. 27, E III 278-9), and it is only crimes that are punishable by civil law.
