同情的误导:论菲尔丁小说伦理的模糊性

The Misleading Sympathy:Ethical Ambiguity in Henry Fielding's Novels

当菲尔丁的小说以其结构的精妙、意识明确的说教赢得读者广泛认可的时候,他其实以一种更为复杂的潜结构包容了诸多矛盾、甚至是相互对立的异质成分。同情即是这样一种带有矛盾性的道德情感。一方面,同情从本质上是善的,可以催生助人善行,也是世俗意义上善良者区分于恶人的根本属性;另一方面,同情心又会遮蔽事物的本来面貌,让发生者产生不合理的推断,从而影响人物的伦理选择。菲尔丁笔下的男性主人公因同情导致的善行和道德瑕疵并存的状态显现出作者对于同情这一道德情感的矛盾态度,总体上仍反映出菲尔丁对于18世纪道德情感哲学思想的认同。

While widely acknowledged for their well-knitted structure and explicit moralizing intention, Henry Fielding＇s novels actually have a more complicated substructure which includes many contradictory or even opposing heterogeneities. Sympathy, a moral sentiment that may lead to contradictions, is such an example. On the one hand, sympathy by nature is good and, as a virtue that distinguishes the kind from the evil, can trigger moral behavior. On the other hand, however, sympathy may prevent one from seeing the truth so that he makes unreasonable speculations, thus affecting his ethical selection. The sympathy of the male protagonists in Fielding＇s novels leads to both good deeds and moral defects, the depiction of which reflects Fielding＇s ambivalence to sympathy, but meanwhile his general consent to the theory of moral sentiments in the 18 th century.