Many interpreters use Hobbes’s endorsement of “ought implies can” to justify treating Hobbes’s motivational psychology as an external constraint on his normative theory. These interpreters assume that, for Hobbes, something is “possible” for a person to do only if they can be motivated to do it, and so Hobbes’s psychological theory constrains what obligations people have. I argue this assumption about what is “possible” is false and so these arguments are unsound. Looking to Hobbes’s exchange with Bramhall on free will, I argue that the sense of “possible” relevant for “ought implies can” in Hobbes’s philosophy only concerns an agent’s capacity to do something if they decide to do it. Whether a person can be motivated to do something, then, does not determine if it is possible for them. Consequently, Hobbes’s motivational psychology cannot determine what our obligations are by invoking the principle that “ought implies can.”

许多解释者使用霍布斯对“应该意味着可以”的认可来证明将霍布斯的动机心理学视为对其规范理论的外部约束。这些解释者假设，对于霍布斯来说，只有当一个人有动机去做某事时，他们才“可能”去做某事，因此霍布斯的心理学理论限制了人们的义务。我认为这种关于“可能”的假设是错误的，因此这些论点是不合理的。着眼于霍布斯与布拉姆霍尔关于自由意志的交流，我认为霍布斯哲学中与“应该意味着可以”相关的“可能”意义只涉及代理人在决定做某事时做某事的能力。那么，一个人是否可以有动力去做某事，并不能决定他们是否有可能做到。最后，