《道德情操论·卷三·论评判自己情感与行为的基础·三·论良心的影响与权威》第5节
When the happiness or misery of others, indeed, in no respect depends upon our conduct, when our interests are altogether separated and detached from theirs, so that there is neither connexion nor competition between them, we do not always think it so necessary to restrain, either our natural and, perhaps, improper anxiety about our own affairs, or our natural and, perhaps, equally improper indifference about those of other men. The most vulgar education teaches us to act, upon all important occasions, with some sort of impartiality between ourselves and others, and even the ordinary commerce of the world is capable of adjusting our active principles to some degree of propriety. But it is the most artificial and refined education only, it has been said, which can correct the inequalities of our passive feelings; and we must for this purpose, it has been pretended, have recourse to the severest, as well as to the profoundest philosophy. Two different sets of philosophers have attempted to teach us this hardest of all the lessons of morality. One set have laboured to increase our sensibility to the interests of others; another, to diminish that to our own. The first would have us feel for others as we naturally feel for ourselves. The second would have us feel for ourselves as we naturally feel for others. Both, perhaps, have carried their doctrines a good deal beyond the just standard of nature and propriety.
注释摘要
斯密在这一段里着手处理一个道德心理学上的棘手问题：我们的行为可以被教化规训，但我们的感受却顽固得多。他先划定了一种特定情境——当别人的苦乐与我们的行为毫无关联，彼此的利益全然分离，既无纠葛也无竞争时。在这种情境下，我们对自己事务的焦虑往往过度，对他人事务的冷漠也往往同样过度，而我们并不会觉得有必要去约束这两种情感上的偏向。 紧接着他做了一个至关重要的区分。…