虚荣:解决亚当·斯密问题的一种新进路

Vanity:An Approach to the Adam Smith Problems

德国历史学派提出的“亚当·斯密问题”争论至今,推动了学界对斯密体系准确和深入的认识。关于自爱与同情的关系以及它们在《道德情操论》和《国富论》中扮演的角色,已经达成较为明确的共识。但各种新的斯密问题仍不断从新的角度和层次提出,其中近期引起较多关注的是《道德情操论》第一版和第六版之间的关系问题。从虚荣出发的解释进路,为新旧斯密问题的解答展现了新的前景。作为自爱与同情的辩证运动的结果,虚荣不仅连接着《道德情操论》与《国富论》中改善自身境遇的动机,还是《道德情操论》第一版至第六版的神奇跳跃的起点。

The debate on the"Adam Smith Problem"raised by the German Historical School has promoted an more accurate and in-depth understanding on Smith's system.Scholars have reached a consensus on the relationship between self-love and sympathy as well as their roles in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and Wealth of Nations.However,many new Adam Smith problems appear from various new perspectives,of which the most noticeable one recently is about the relationship of the content in the first and the sixth editions of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.An interpre-tive approach starting from vanity provides a new perspective for resolving the old and new Smith Problems.As a result of the dialectical movement of self-love and sympathy,human's vanity not only forms the motivation of"bettering our condition"which connected The Theory of Moral Sen-timents and Wealth of Nations,but also serves as the starting point for the leap from the first to the sixth editions of The Theory of Moral Sentiments.