Abstract

Holton, we acknowledge, has given a good counter-example to a theory, and that theory is interesting and worth refuting. The theory we have in mind is like Smith's, but is more reductionist in spirit. It is a theory that ties value to Reason and to processes of reasoning, or inference - not to the recognition of reasons and acting on reasons. Such a theory overestimates the importance of logic, truth, inference, and thinking things through for yourself independently of any ideas about where you might end up. Now it might well be thought that any Kantian theory of value would need to be tied to just such a conception of Reason. But while the theory behind The Moral Problem is Kantian in some very salient respects, the survival of Smith's analysis of value in the face of Holton's argument is very instructive. It teaches us a memorable moral: that a Kantian theory like Smith' s does not need to be tied - even loosely - to an overly intellectualised, logocentric conception of Reason.