《道德情操论·卷二·论功劳与过失·一之三·不赞同施惠者的动机，则无从同情受惠者的感激》第2节
1. First, I say, that wherever we cannot sympathize with the affections of the agent, wherever there seems to be no propriety in the motives which influenced his conduct, we are less disposed to enter into the {66} gratitude of the person who received the benefit of his actions. A very small return seems due to that foolish and profuse generosity which confers the greatest benefits from the most trivial motives, and gives an estate to a man merely because his name and surname happen to be the same with those of the giver. Such services do not seem to demand any proportionable recompense. Our contempt for the folly of the agent hinders us from thoroughly entering into the gratitude of the person to whom the good office has been done. His benefactor seems unworthy of it. As when we place ourselves in the situation of the person obliged, we feel that we could conceive no great reverence for such a benefactor, we easily absolve him from a great deal of that submissive veneration and esteem which we should think due to a more respectable character; and provided he always treats his weak friend with kindness and humanity, we are willing to excuse him from many attentions and regards which we should demand to a worthier patron. Those princes who have heaped, with the greatest profusion, wealth, power and honours, upon their favourites, have seldom excited that degree of attachment to their persons which has often been experienced by those who were more frugal of their favours. The well-natured, but injudicious prodigality of James the First of Great Britain seems to have attached nobody to his person; and that prince, notwithstanding his social and harmless disposition, appears to have lived and died without a friend. The whole gentry and nobility of England exposed their lives and fortunes in the cause of Charles I., his more frugal and distinguishing son, notwithstanding the coldness and distant severity of his ordinary deportment.
注释摘要
斯密在这一节要处理的是一个看上去很简单、实则贯穿全书的问题：我们判断一个行为该不该得到奖赏，不仅要看结果对受惠者有多大好处，还要看施惠者的动机我们能不能认同。他用了那句看似技术性的话来开篇：如果我们无法同情行为者的情感，也就是说，我们认为他的动机不合宜，那我们就不太容易去感受受惠者的感激之情。这里的“同情”仍然是斯密意义上的想象力活动，是我们设身处地去体会…