《道德情操论·卷二·论功劳与过失·三之一·论这种影响的原因》第2节
But, before any thing can be the proper object of gratitude or resentment, it must not only be the cause of pleasure or pain, it must likewise be capable of feeling them. Without this other quality, those passions cannot vent themselves with any sort of satisfaction upon it. As they are excited by the causes of pleasure and pain, so their gratification consists in retaliating those sensations upon what gave occasion to them; which it is to no purpose to attempt upon what has no sensibility. Animals, therefore, are less improper objects of gratitude and resentment than animated objects. The dog that bites, the ox that gores, are both of them punished. If they have been the causes of the death of any person, neither the public, nor the relations of the slain, can be satisfied, unless they are put to death in their turn: nor is this merely for the security of the living, but, in some measure, to revenge the injury of the dead. Those animals, on the contrary, that have been remarkably serviceable to their masters, become the objects of a very lively gratitude. We are shocked at the brutality of that officer, {87} mentioned in the Turkish Spy, who stabbed the horse that had carried him across an arm of the sea, lest that animal should afterwards distinguish some other person by a similar adventure.
注释摘要
斯密在这里推进的是一层筛选。前面他已经说明，苦乐的原因是感激与愤恨这两种感情的激发对象，但这一段他追问的是：什么东西才能成为这两种感情的“恰当对象”。他的回答是，只做苦乐的原因还不够，那个对象还必须能感受苦乐。 他用了一个很日常的观察来铺垫这个道理。我们有时会朝一块绊倒自己的石头发怒，孩子会打它，暴躁的人诅咒它，可稍一反思，这种情绪就散了，因为石头什么也感…