《道德情操论·卷三·论评判自己情感与行为的基础·六·何种情形下责任感应是行为的唯一原则》第5节
It is quite otherwise with regard to the more extraordinary and important objects of self-interest. A person appears mean-spirited, who does not pursue these with some degree of earnestness for their own sake. We should despise a prince who was not anxious about conquering or defending a province. We should have little respect for a private gentleman who did not exert himself to gain an estate, or even a considerable office, when he could acquire them without either meanness or injustice. A member of parliament who shews no keenness about his own election, is abandoned by his friends, as altogether unworthy of their attachment. Even a tradesman is thought a poor-spirited fellow among his neighbours, who does not bestir himself to get what they call an extraordinary job, or some uncommon advantage. This spirit and keenness constitutes the difference between the man of enterprise and the man of dull regularity. Those great objects of self-interest, of which the loss or acquisition quite changes the rank of the person, are the objects of the passion properly called ambition; a passion, which when it keeps within the bounds of prudence and justice, is always admired in the world, and has even sometimes a certain irregular greatness, which dazzles the imagination, when it passes the limits of both these virtues, and is not only unjust but extravagant. Hence the general admiration for heroes and conquerors, and even for statesmen, whose projects have been very daring and extensive though altogether devoid of justice, such as those of the Cardinals of Richlieu and of Retz. The objects of avarice and ambition differ only in their greatness. A miser is as furious about a halfpenny, as a man of ambition about the conquest of a kingdom. II. Secondly, I say, it will depend partly upon the precision and upon the exactness, or the looseness and the inaccuracy of the general rules themselves, how far our conduct ought to proceed entirely from a regard to them.
注释摘要
我们得先回到斯密在这一节里要解决的那个问题：什么时候，一个行为应当主要甚至完全出自责任感——也就是对普遍行为规则的尊重——什么时候，又该让某种具体的感情来主导。上一段他刚说完，在那些琐碎的、日常的自利事务上，一个人如果是为了事情本身的那点蝇头小利而焦虑不安，那是很掉价的。好，现在他笔锋一转，说「在那些更不寻常、更重大的自利对象上，情况就完全不同了」。 他在…