《道德情操论·卷二·论功劳与过失·二之三·论这种天性构造的效用》第4节
As society cannot subsist unless the laws of justice are tolerably observed, as no social intercourse can take place among men who do not generally abstain from injuring one another; the consideration of this necessity, it has been thought, was the ground upon which we approved of the enforcement of the laws of justice by the punishment of those who violated them. Man, it has been said, has a natural love for society, and desires that the union of mankind should be preserved for its own sake, and though he himself was to derive no benefit from it. The orderly and flourishing state of society is agreeable to him, and he takes delight in contemplating it. Its disorder and confusion, on the {81} contrary, is the object of his aversion, and he is chagrined at whatever tends to produce it. He is sensible too that his own interest is connected with the prosperity of society, and that the happiness, perhaps the preservation of his existence, depends upon its preservation. Upon every account, therefore, he has an abhorrence at whatever can tend to destroy society, and is willing to make use of every means, which can hinder so hated and so dreadful an event. Injustice necessarily tends to destroy it. Every appearance of injustice, therefore, alarms him, and he runs (if I may say so), to stop the progress of what, if allowed to go on, would quickly put an end to every thing that is dear to him. If he cannot restrain it by gentle and fair means, he must bear it down by force and violence, and at any rate must put a stop to its further progress. Hence it is, they say, that he often approves of the enforcement of the laws of justice even by the capital punishment of those who violate them. The disturber of the public peace is hereby removed out of the world, and others are terrified by his fate from imitating his example.
注释摘要
斯密在这段文字里做了一件很特别的事：他先把自己要反对的观点，用最有力、最完整的方式复述了一遍。这个被他复述的观点认为，我们之所以赞同用惩罚来强制执行正义的法则，根源在于我们认识到了这样一个事实——社会若没有正义便无法存续。整段论证就沿着这条线索层层推进。 他首先设定了一个前提：如果人们普遍不克制彼此伤害的冲动，人与人之间任何形式的交往都将终止。从这个不可回…