 Be that as it may, Reid’s deep impulse for affirming the existence of these principles is not so much to reply to traditional worries about stopping a regress of reasons as to make an anti-Humean point. (Hume, after all, also accepts the regress argument; see EAP V.vii.) According to Reid’s construal of it, the aim of Humean practical reason is not to determine the ends that we should have, but merely to ascertain how most effectively to satisfy our passions (EAP III.iii.i: 153; cf. also EAP II.ii: 54). Reid, by contrast, takes it to be evident that we can form a conception of our good on the whole and regulate our actions in accordance with it. But if we can do this, Reid contends, then Hume’s account of practical reason cannot be correct. We can reason not just about means but also ends. Moreover, if Reid is correct and it is the province of reason to form a conception of one’s good on the whole, then Hume’s more extravagant claims about reason also cannot be correct. For, if Reid is right, not only is it reason’s province to form a notion of one’s good upon the whole, it is also its role to guide action in such a way that it is conducive to one’s own good. It cannot be true, then, that it is not contrary to reason for an agent to prefer his lesser good to his greater, as Hume claimed.