## 1. The Principle-Based Conception



The principle-based version of the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction actually predates the terminology
'agent-relative' and 'agent-neutral'. Thomas
Nagel instead uses the terms 'subjective' and
'objective' to mark a version of the principle-based
distinction in his classic *The Possibility of Altruism* (Nagel
1970). The terms 'agent-relative' and
'agent-neutral' were later introduced by Derek Parfit
(Parfit 1984) and Nagel himself then adopted Parfit's
terminology (Nagel 1986). As background to Nagel's version of
the distinction, we must first note that for Nagel, reasons are
universal, in the sense that for every token reason there corresponds
a predicate *R* which figures in a universally quantified
proposition of the following form:



> 
> Every reason is a predicate *R* such that for all persons
> *p* and events *A*, if *R* is true of *A*,
> then *p* has prima facie reason to promote *A*. (Nagel
> 1970: 47)
> 



With this conception of the universality of reasons in hand, Nagel
articulates the distinction as follows:



> 
> Formally, a subjective reason is one whose defining predicate
> *R* contains a free occurrence of the variable *p*. (The
> free-agent variable will, of course, be free only *within*
> *R*; it will be bound by the universal quantification over
> persons which governs the entire formula.) All universal reasons and
> principles expressible in terms of the basic formula either contain a
> free-agent variable or they do not. The former are subjective; the
> later will be called objective. (Nagel 1970: 91)
> 



Drawn in such formal terms, the distinction can seem alien and
difficult to grasp but the basic idea is actually not that complex. A
few examples should help illustrate Nagel's idea. Suppose that
there is reason for me to phone a friend because doing so would make
the friend happy. Now suppose that my reason is best expressed as
follows--that phoning her would make someone happy. In that case,
the fact that the person who is made happy is *my* friend is
incidental. If phoning a stranger would have generated just as much
happiness then I would have had just as much reason to call the
stranger. This in turn suggests that the principle corresponding to
this reason is of the form,



> 
> (*p*, *A*) (If *A* will make someone happy then
> *p* has reason to promote *A*)
> 



The use of 'promote' in Nagel's canonical
formulation raises some interesting issues. Nagel holds that
performing an action *A* is a trivial way of promoting
*A*, so I can promote the calling of my friend by calling her.
In one sense, Nagel builds teleology into his conception of a reason
for action. For Nagel glosses 'promotion' in such a way
that the fact that an action will produce the relevant sort of outcome
is sufficient for there being a reason to perform that action (see
Nagel 1970: 52). So every reason entails that if someone can promote
the relevant outcome (which outcomes are relevant may depend on the
agents involved if the reason is agent-relative) then it logically
follows from Nagel's gloss of reasons in terms of promotion (in
his sense) that there is reason to perform that action. In another
sense, though, Nagel does not build teleology into his conception of a
reason for action. For Nagel does not hold that causally producing (or
even instantiating) are *necessary* for there to be a reason
for the action. In his somewhat capacious sense of
'promote', it is sufficient for an action to count as
promoting an outcome if the action is such that not performing it
would bring about the non-occurrence of the relevant state of affairs
(again, see Nagel 1970: 52). So actions which are necessary but not
sufficient for a given outcome thereby count as promoting that
outcome. So all reasons are not teleological in the sense of being
reasons in virtue of their causally bringing about the relevant sort
of outcome; simply preserving the possibility of that outcome is
enough. However, all reasons are teleological in the sense that any
reason for an agent *A* to *X* does entail that if a
suitable agent (who counts as suitable depends on whether the reason
is agent-relative; if it is agent-neutral then any agent will do) can
promote *A*'s *X*-ing then there is reason for
them to do so. Reasons are for Nagel teleological in the sense that
they all entail reasons for people to perform actions in the right
circumstances in virtue of what states of affairs they would causally
bring about. This is not trivial. Some conceptions of reasons do not
have this consequence, as in the case of those conceptions which gloss
reasons for action in a way that does not advert to promotion at
 all.[1]




In any event, for Nagel, the preceding principle (and hence the
corresponding reason) is agent-neutral because the antecedent contains
no use of the free-agent variable '*p*'. The reason
is in this sense not relativized to the agent for whom it is a reason.
However, we could instead hold that the fact that it is my friend who
would be made happy is relevant to whether I have reason to call. In
that case, the principle corresponding to the reason would be of the
form,



> 
> (*p*, *A*) (If *A* will make *p*'s
> friend happy then *p* has reason to promote *A*)
> 



This principle is agent-relative because the free-agent variable
'*p*' does appear in its antecedent. Basically, if
the sufficient condition for the application of the reason predicate
(the condition given by the antecedent of the principle corresponding
to the reason) includes such a free-agent variable then the reason is
agent-relative; otherwise it is agent-neutral. It is easy enough to
see that on this conception, *ethical egoism* is an
agent-relative theory (and hence concerns agent-relative reasons)
while objective utilitarianism is an agent-neutral theory (and hence
concerns agent-neutral reasons). For egoism holds that there is reason
for a given agent to do something just in case his doing it would
promote *his* welfare. Whereas objective
*utilitarianism*, see the entry on
 consequentialism,
 (on at least one version) holds that someone ought to do something
just insofar as it promotes welfare, period (no matter whose it is).
It is also important to be clear that the principles Nagel has in mind
must be understood as the basic normative principles of a theory
rather than the theory's account of what gives those principles
their status as basic normative
 principles.[2]
 Otherwise various meta-ethical (see entry on
 metaethics)
 theories of what it is to be a reason (e.g., informed desire
accounts) might be taken to imply agent-relativity when in fact they
should be understood as neutral on this issue.



Nagel's version of the distinction is
'principle-based' in the fairly straightforward sense that
one must first look to the principle corresponding to a given reason
to determine whether it is agent-relative or agent-neutral. Nagel also
makes this clear in his later work. In *The View From Nowhere*
he holds that,



> 
> If a reason can be given a general form which does not include an
> essential reference to the person who has it, it is an
> *agent-neutral* reason...If on the other hand, the general
> form of a reason does include an essential reference to the person who
> has it then it is an *agent-relative* reason. (Nagel 1986:
> 152-153)
> 



The context makes it relatively clear Nagel's reference to the
'general form' of a reason is a universally quantified
principle corresponding to the reason of the sort he discussed in
*The Possibility of Altruism*. Derek Parfit, who is the first
one to introduce the terminology 'agent-relative' and
'agent-neutral' makes it even more clear that the
distinction is in the first instance applied to normative theories.
Having described a moral theory he calls *C*, he remarks
that,



> 
> Since *C* gives to all agents common moral aims, I shall call
> *C* *agent-neutral*. Many moral theories do not take
> this form. These theories are *agent-relative*, giving to
> different agents, different aims (Parfit 1984: 27).
> 



Parfit's conception of moral principles as giving agents (common
or separate) moral aims is itself controversial. Some moral theories
instead understand moral principles as (at least in some cases)
providing constraints on how to pursue one's ends. Parfit later
explains how his terminology, when applied to reasons, maps onto
Nagel's:



> 
> Nagel's *subjective* reasons are reasons only for the
> agent. I call these agent-relative...When I call some reason
> agent-relative, I am not claiming that this reason *cannot* be
> a reason for other agents. All that I am claiming is that it may not
> be. (Parfit 1984: 143)
> 



This is slightly confusing. First, how does Parfit's distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral theories map onto his
distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons? The
former is cast in terms of common aims while the second is cast in
terms of whether a reason for one agent must also be a reason for
anyone else. Second, how exactly does Parfit's distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons correspond to
Nagel's version of the distinction? The former is cast in terms
of whether a reason for one agent must also be a reason for anyone
else while the latter is cast in terms of the occurrence of free agent
variables in the sufficient condition for the application of the
reason predicate corresponding to the reason. These are not obviously
equivalent, yet Parfit takes his distinction to be the same as
Nagel's.



The first of these two questions is slightly easier to answer than the
second. A moral theory is agent-neutral if it gives us common aims,
but if we have common aims then whenever there is a reason for you to
promote an aim there will also be reason for me to promote that aim
(if I can). So Parfit's agent-neutral moral theories provide
agent-neutral reasons in his sense--in the sense of being such
that a reason for one agent is guaranteed to be a reason for any agent
situated to promote the end which figures in that reason. By contrast,
a moral theory is agent-relative if it does not give every agent a
common aim. However, if we do not have common aims then what is a
reason for you may be no reason whatsoever for me *even if* I
am in a position to promote the end which figures in that reason. So
Parfit's agent-relative moral theories provide agent-relative
reasons in his sense--reasons which are not such that a reason
for one agent entails a reason for any agent in a position to promote
the end which figures in that reason. So Parfit's agent-relative
moral theories concern agent-relative reasons in his sense and his
agent-neutral moral theories concern agent-neutral reasons in his
sense. So the use of the same terminology is no coincidence, and
presumably Parfit would agree that the agent-relativity of a reason is
well understood in terms of the agent-relativity of the principle
associated with that reason. Indeed, the primary reason we have
included Parfit's version of the distinction in this discussion
of the principle-based version of the distinction is the suspicion
that his distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons
is really just a corollary of his distinction between agent-relative
and agent-neutral theories. The fact that Parfit clearly thinks that
his distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons is
just the same as Nagel's distinction also suggests that
Parfit's distinction is well understood as principle-based,
since Nagel's version of the distinction is a paradigmatic
instance of a principle-based version of the distinction. The other
(closely related) reason for including Parfit's version of the
distinction here is that it also shares the chief vice of
Nagel's version. As explained below, neither Nagel's nor
Parfit's version of the distinction sits well with radical forms
of moral particularism.



What about our second question about Parfit's distinctions,
though? Why should Parfit assume his version of the distinction
between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons is the same as
Nagel's even though they are not drawn in the same way? Here it
is relevant that (in at least one sense; see above) Nagel builds
teleology into the logical form of the reason predicate, so that a
reason is always understood as a reason *to promote* something.
Given this conception of reasons, it does seem that Parfit's
conception maps fairly neatly onto Nagel's. For if a reason is
agent-relative in Nagel's sense, then whether there is a reason
for me to promote the state of affairs for which it is a reason will
depend on whether I am the agent who figures in the token reason under
consideration. An agent-relative reason to promote *A*'s
happiness will give me a reason only if I am *A* or suitably
related to *A* (e.g., there can be agent-relative reasons to
promote the welfare of *my* nearest and dearest). So reasons
which are agent-relative in Nagel's sense are agent-relative in
Parfit's sense. By contrast, if a reason is agent-neutral in
Nagel's sense then it gives any agent who can promote the state
of affairs it favors a reason to promote that state of affairs. In
Nagel's colorful phrase, agent-neutral reasons in his sense
transfer "across the gap between persons" (Nagel 1970:
79). So reasons that are agent-neutral in Nagel's sense are
agent-neutral in Parfit's sense as well. Moreover, so long as we
assume that all reasons are teleological, any reason which is
agent-relative in Parfit's sense is agent-relative in
Nagel's sense and any reason that is agent-neutral in
Parfit's sense is agent-neutral in Nagel's sense. For
plausibly the only way a reason for one person to promote *X*
could fail to also provide someone else who could promote *X* a
reason to do so would be if the reason was indexed to me in the way
Nagel's agent-relative reasons are. So long as we hold onto the
assumption that all reasons for action are teleological,
Parfit's version of the distinction and Nagel's version of
the distinction are at least extensionally equivalent in all possible
worlds in spite of their rather different formulations of the
distinction.



In different ways, both Nagel and Parfit formulate the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in terms of general
principles and the distinctions they draw do indeed seem useful and
important (more on why they are useful and important below). For a
more explicit defense of drawing the distinction in terms of general
principles (or 'rules' in their terminology), see also
McNaughton and Rawling
 1991.[3]
 However, one unfortunate consequence of these classical
principle-based ways of drawing the distinction is that they are
incompatible with radical forms of *particularism* of the sort
recently defended by Jonathan Dancy and others. There are actually
many forms of moral particularism (see Jonathan Dancy's entry on
particularism in this Encyclopedia; see also McKeever and Ridge 2005a,
2016), but particularists are united in their embrace of holism in the
theory of reasons. On a holistic conception of reasons, a
consideration which functions as a reason in one context need not
function as a reason at all in another context. For example, that my
calling my friend would give him pleasure may be a reason here, but
not a reason in another context (perhaps his pleasure would be purely
sadistic in the second case, taking pleasure in some misfortune of
mine). The atomist impulse is to build whatever is necessary for the
consideration's status as a reason into the reason itself, so
that whatever is a reason in one context is thereby guaranteed to be a
reason in any other context as well. So in the preceding example, the
atomist would insist that the second example just shows that we
mischaracterized the reason in the first case. The real reason to call
my friend in the first case is not merely that it will give him
pleasure but rather that it will give him innocent pleasure, and that
consideration is not present in the second case. Particularists argue
at some length that we should resist this atomistic impulse and stick
with the more natural characterization of the reason in the first case
and accept a holistic conception of reasons. Particularists then argue
that holism in the theory of reasons in turn supports the conclusion
that morality is not well understood in terms of principles (for
critical discussion of this move, see McKeever and Ridge 2005b).



Particularism is an interesting position and it would be a shame if
some plausible version of the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction
were not compatible with the leading ideas behind particularism.
However, it seems that both Nagel's and Parfit's versions
of the distinction do not sit well with particularism. This is most
clear in the case of Nagel. His doctrine of the universality of
reasons directly contradicts holism about reasons yet plays an
essential role in his account of what he calls the 'general
form' of a reason which in turn plays an essential role in his
version of the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction.
Parfit's distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral
theories of course presupposes that we should think about morality in
terms of normative theories, which also contradicts many forms of
particularism. Finally, Parfit's distinction between
agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons holds that a reason is
agent-neutral only if it is guaranteed to provide a reason for any
agent who can promote the end which figures in the reason (again, we
are assuming all reasons are teleological and hence always involve an
end). Particularists will reject the idea that just because something
is a reason for one agent it thereby must be a reason for any other
agent who can promote the end which figures in the reason. For on a
holistic conception of how reasons function, there may be some further
aspect of another agent's situation which cancels the force of
this consideration as a reason even though he could promote the
relevant end. If this is right then for this sort of particularism it
will follow trivially that all reasons are agent-relative and this
makes the distinction useless for their purposes. So perhaps
unsurprisingly, the principle-based version of the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction does not seem like a
promising one if we want to make sure that the distinction is useful
to particularists as well as their generalist opponents. We should
therefore consider whether either the reason-statement-based version
of the distinction or the perspective-based version of the distinction
are more likely to be available to particularists as well while still
doing roughly the same sort of important philosophical work that Nagel
and Parfit had in mind.


## 2. The Reason-Statement-Based Conception



The second version of the distinction foregoes Nagel's appeal to
the 'general form' of the reason, but instead is
formulated in terms of the reason itself. We call this the
'reason-statement-based version' of the distinction
because it holds that whether a reason is agent-relative depends on
whether a full statement of the reason itself (forget about its
"general form") involves pronominal back-reference to the
agent for whom it is a reason. Philip Pettit puts forward a
reason-statement-based version of the distinction:



> 
> An agent-relative reason is one that cannot be fully specified without
> pronominal back-reference to the person for whom it is a reason. It is
> the sort of reason provided for an agent by the observation that
> *he* promised to perform the action in prospect, or that the
> action is in *his* interest, or that it is to the advantage of
> *his* children. In each case, the motivating consideration
> involves essential reference to him or his....An agent-neutral
> reason is one that can be fully specified without such an indexical
> device. (Pettit 1987: 75)
> 



On Pettit's account, whether a reason is agent-relative depends
on whether it (the reason) can be fully stated without pronominal
back-reference to the agent for whom it is a reason. The use of
anaphoric pronouns in Pettit's version of the distinction does
not really mark much of a departure from Nagel's formulation.
For Nagel's 'free agent variables' are really
technical devices which function just like anaphoric pronouns by
referring back to the agent for whom the consideration is a reason.
The real difference between Nagel's formulation and
Pettit's is that Nagel's formulation is cast in terms of
the general form of a reason whereas Pettit's formulation is
cast in terms of a full statement of the reason itself, which need not
involve any mention of the general form of the reason. For Pettit, the
full statement of a reason need not involve a universal quantifier at
all. One of Pettit's illustrative examples of a full statement
of a reason is "that the action is in *his*
interest" and this statement involves no universal
quantification whatsoever. So Pettit's version of the
distinction, and more generally the reason-statement-based version of
the distinction, seems unlikely to offend against particularist
sensibilities.



Moreover, Pettit's distinction seems to do much the same
philosophical work as Nagel's version of the distinction. For in
both cases agent-relativity is characterized in terms of a certain
sort of back-reference to the person for whom the consideration is a
reason while agent-neutrality is in both cases characterized in terms
of the absence of such back-reference. The only difference is that for
Nagel the relevant back-reference is to be found in the general form
of the reason (which turns out to be a universally quantified
principle giving a sufficient condition for the application of the
reason predicate) whereas for Pettit the relevant back-reference is to
be found in a full statement of the reason itself. So far, it looks
like we have a kind of dominance argument for the
reason-statement-based version of the distinction. It seems likely to
do much the same work as Nagel's distinction and mirrors the
logical form of Nagel's distinction, but does so without making
the distinction unavailable to particularists.



However, the reason-statement-based version of the distinction has
problems of its own. Most significantly, this version of the
distinction seems to presuppose a particular ontology of reasons, in
which case we end up inviting particularists to the
agent-relative/agent-neutral party only by rescinding the invitations
of those who hold opposing ontological views about reasons. For
suppose I think that reasons just are facts and also hold that there
are no distinctively indexical facts. Rather, there are ordinary facts
which can be characterized in indexical terms or characterized in
non-indexical terms. So the fact that having a beer at 6:13 p.m. on
January 17, 2005 would make MR happy is identical to the fact that
having a beer now would make me happy. Here we have one fact which can
be expressed in two different ways. Given this package of ontological
views, the reason-statement-based version of the distinction looks
unhelpful. For let us suppose that the fact that having a beer now
would give me pleasure provides an agent-relative reason for me to
have the beer--a sort of egoistic reason. On the
reason-statement-based version of the distinction, the reason is
agent-relative only if a full statement of the reason *must*
involve pronominal reference to the agent for whom it is a reason.
However, if reasons just are facts (this is my ontology of reasons)
then it is simply not true that a full statement of this reason (read:
this fact) *must* involve pronominal back-reference to me. For
instead of saying that having a beer would make him happy, you could
say that my reason is that having a beer would make MR happy. On the
ontology under consideration, this seems like a full statement (what
is left out?) of the fact which is my reason to have the beer just as
much as the anaphoric pronominal statement of my reason. Indeed, given
these ontological views it is hard to see how any reason could be
agent-relative since any fact can be given a full statement without
the use of indexicals of any kind. Moreover, the problem here is not
limited to this particular ontology. Someone who holds that reasons
are true propositions or states of affairs and who also holds that
there are no irreducibly indexical propositions or states of affairs
(only indexical 'modes of presentation' of such
propositions or states of affairs) will have trouble making use of the
reason-statement version of the distinction for just this reason.



This is not to say that there are not ontologies which would provide a
framework in which the reason-statement version of the distinction
could be useful. Two ontologies spring to mind. First, those who hold
that a reason is not just a fact but a fact plus a particular mode of
presentation (a particular way of grasping the fact, as it were) might
well be able to make good use of the reason-statement-based version of
the distinction. Second, those who hold that reasons are just facts
but also hold that there really are irreducibly indexical facts can
also make sense of the reason-statement-based version of the
distinction. Still, it seems like a considerable cost that this
version of the distinction seems to exclude so many reasonable
ontological views. So whereas Nagel's principle-based version of
the distinction excludes particularists, Pettit's
reason-statement-based version of the distinction excludes those who
hold any of a wide range of ontological views about reasons. We should
see if we can do better.


## 3. The Perspective-Based Conception



The third way in which the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction
has historically been drawn is in terms of the perspectives from which
the reasons in question can be recognized as reasons. The basic idea
is to specify a suitably objective perspective and hold that
agent-neutral reasons can be appreciated as such from that perspective
while agent-relative reasons cannot. Jonathan Dancy seems to read
Nagel in this way:



> 
> Nagel holds that there are three kinds of reason. The first are
> stubbornly subjective reasons, such as those which are in play when we
> are choosing from a menu in a restaurant...But there are two
> classes of objective reasons. The first are agent-relative
> reasons...the second are agent-neutral reasons. Both are
> recognizable at some distance from here, as we shave peculiarities
> from our perspective in the move towards objectivity. The
> agent-relative ones are less objective, of course, though they can be
> recognized, and in some sense endorsed, from more objective points of
> view. However, what is recognized and endorsed is not the importance
> which the agent finds in (e.g.) his own life-time projects; this
> itself cannot be recognized from much further out. As we move away
> from the agent's own perspective, all that can be recognized is
> that he finds importance in them, which is quite a different matter.
> (Dancy 1993: 146)
> 



This reading of Nagel is to some extent invited by Nagel's use
of the metaphor of a 'view from nowhere'. Moreover, it is
true that in *The Possibility of Altruism* Nagel does argue
that agent-relative reasons (which he then called
'subjective') cannot be recognized from a certain sort of
impersonal perspective. However, this was precisely supposed to be the
conclusion of a substantive and highly controversial argument which
Nagel has since rejected (on the strength of an argument from Nicholas
Sturgeon; see Sturgeon 1974). If agent-relative reasons cannot be
appreciated from a suitably objective perspective then Nagel quite
clearly thinks that this will need to be established by argument. It
is *not* part of his definition of agent-relativity; otherwise
he could have skipped most of the argument of *The Possibility of
Altruism* as his main conclusion would have been established by
linguistic fiat. As we have seen, he instead defines agent-relativity
in terms of the general form of the reason.



Still, even if this is not what Nagel had in mind might this approach
not be philosophically useful and important? It would, after all, have
the virtue of being a distinction which is available to
particularists. For the idea of more and less objective perspectives
is not obviously incompatible with even very radical forms of
particularism. Nor does it seem to exclude a variety of ontological
views about reasons as the reason-statement-based version of the
distinction did.


 On an interesting novel version of the perspective-based approach
defended by Loschke, it can enable us to understand
agent-relative reasons as valid even if all value is agent-neutral.
This is because the perspective of the agent on the relevant
agent-neutral value matters to their reasons in a way that makes the
reason count as indexed to that agent in an important sense
(Loschke 2020). The core idea is that the strength of a reason
can be relative to an agent in virtue of that agent's
perspective, even if its status as a reason (with whatever strength it
may have) is not. Loschke calls his approach the "normative
force interpretation," it is relatively clear that it is a
version of the perspective-based approach in my sense. Loschke
puts his view in terms of the agent's perspective here, for
example: "NFI is in line with the idea that agent-relative
reasons stem from the first-person perspective of agents and that
moral theory must make room for the importance of what an agent
considers to be important and valuable in life" (Loschke
2021: 369).



However useful the distinction is, though, it is not
one which is well-suited to doing the work traditionally associated
with the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction. For a start, a
plausible litmus test for any proposed version of the distinction is
that it uncontroversially classifies egoistic reasons as
agent-relative and utilitarian reasons (to maximize happiness,
simpliciter) as agent-neutral. These are perhaps the most commonly
cited paradigms of each sort of reason, after all. Also, the
distinction is often thought to capture in a more abstract sense what
Henry Sidgwick was discussing when he spoke of a 'dualism of
practical reason' between reasons of self-interest and reasons
of general benevolence (see Sidgwick 1907).



The crucial point is that it is far from obvious that the
perspective-based distinction satisfies this litmus test.
Nagel's attempt to prove that agent-relative reasons in his
sense (including egoistic reasons) cannot be appreciated from a
suitably objective perspective is widely regarded as a failure, as are
many other attempts to refute egoism (and agent-relativism more
generally) by showing it is incompatible with some suitable objective
perspective. So perhaps egoistic reasons can, after all, be
appreciated even from an ideally objective perspective on any of a
wide range of conceptions of objectivity. Perhaps not, though; perhaps
some clever argument will still show that agent-relativity is
incompatible with some important and independent notion of
objectivity. In any event, this remains at best a very controversial
hunch rather than something which has been uncontroversially
demonstrated. This alone should give us great pause about adopting the
perspective-based approach to the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction. Egoistic reasons are paradigmatic agent-relative reasons,
and it should be trivial that they come out as such rather than a
matter of great controversy. Moreover, the same point applies not only
to egoistic reasons but to all of the typically invoked paradigms of
agent-relativity. Reasons arising out of special relations to
one's nearest and dearest are also paradigmatically
agent-relative, but it is also far from clear that they will come out
as such on the perspective-based approach. So even if we keep a single
conception of objectivity as fixed there will be great controversy
over whether seemingly paradigmatic instances of agent-relativity
really are such. This is unfortunate. The agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction should be one which is useful for *framing* these
debates at the outset (for more on this, see Dreier 1993) and not one
which we can deploy with confidence only after the debates have been
settled. However, there will also be great controversy over just what
the right conception of objectivity is as well as controversy over the
implications of any given conception thereof. This threatens to mire
the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in such controversy from
the outset as to make it virtually useless. Much better instead to
define agent-relativity and agent-neutrality in terms of the logical
form of the principle corresponding to the reason and then let it be a
matter of substantive debate whether agent-relative reasons so
understood can be appreciated from various objective perspectives.


## 4. The Principle-Based Conception Revisited



We seemed to have reached a dialectical cul de sac. The
principle-based approach draws the distinction nicely but is
inaccessible to particularists. The reason-statement-based approach to
the distinction is tenable on certain ontological views about reasons
but seems useless on a wide variety of other plausible ontological
views about reasons. Finally, the perspective-based approach threatens
to just change the subject or at least to mire the application of the
distinction down in so much controversy as to make it useless as a
tool for framing the debates which it seems so naturally suited to
frame.



Fortunately, though, the principle-based approach can actually be
understood in a way that is compatible with particularism after all,
and this is how we propose to understand the distinction (this goes
beyond the existing literature, but does so in the spirit of a
'friendly amendment' to Nagel's account). The key
move is to not build Nagel's conception of universality into the
articulation of the distinction. So one might allow that a given
consideration (or state of affairs, or feature of a situation; insert
your favored ontology of reasons here) is a reason in one case but
that very same consideration might be no reason at all (or even a
reason with the opposite valence) in another situation due to some
difference between the two situations. At least, drawing of the
distinction should not rule this out. In this way, the distinction is
compatible with the particularist's favored holistic conception
of reasons.



This very quickly leads to an awkward question, though. Nagel drew his
distinction in terms of principles which incorporated his conception
of universality. For Nagel's principles were universally
quantified generalizations which held that *whenever* an agent
can promote a certain sort of state of affairs there is reason to do
so. So a different way of understanding 'the general form of a
reason' or as one might prefer to put it, the principle
corresponding to the reason, is needed. Fortunately, there is an
alternative conception ready to hand. As Sean McKeever and Ridge argue
elsewhere (see McKeever and Ridge 2006) there is a species of hedged
moral principle which is compatible with the particularist's
holistic conception of reasons. McKeever and Ridge call these
'default principles', and they are well situated to make
Nagel's principle-based distinction available even to as hardy a
particularist as Jonathan Dancy. As background, recall that on the
holistic conception of how reasons work, what is a reason here may be
no reason at all or even a reason with the opposite valence elsewhere.
So for example, the fact that it would give a father pleasure is a
reason for his son to give him a kiss on the cheek but that very same
consideration (that it would give him pleasure) may be no reason at
all for him to watch a snuff film. Intuitively, the status of the fact
that it would give him pleasure as a reason is 'defeated'
in the latter case by the fact that the pleasure would be sadistic (or
an expression of depravity, or whatever). Holists therefore call such
facts 'defeaters'. This is also compatible with what
holists call 'enablers'--facts which are necessary
for some other fact to function as a reason. In fact, distinguishing
enablers from reasons also arguably helps block another challenge to
the distinction between agent-relative reasons and agent-neutral
reasons, namely that all reasons must make some reference to the agent
because there being a reason implies that the agent is able to perform
the action. This objection could be blocked by characterizing this
back-reference as trivial, but one might instead insist that the
agent's ability to perform the action is an enabling condition
rather than part of the reason itself; see Ronnow-Rasmussen 2009 for
an argument along these lines. In any event, with this machinery in
hand, default principles can help craft a version of the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction that everyone (or just about
everyone) can live with.



Given holism, a true and non-trivial principle about reasons must
accommodate the possibility of defeaters. This can be done in one of
two ways. First, one could try to list all of the different possible
defeaters in the antecedent and claim that none is present. However, a
hardy particularist may insist that this is a fool's game, on
the grounds that there is no saying in advance of considering all of
the indefinitely many possible contexts in which the putative reason
occurs whether we have a complete list of all possible defeaters.
After all, part of the particularist idea is that morality is far too
complex for any such principles ever to be within our ken.
Particularists allow that there may in principle be some infinitely
long generalization which lists all the defeaters, but deny that this
counts as a principle because it is not explanatory. However, there is
a second approach, and this is the approach which inspires the
proposed conception of default principles. Instead of trying to list
all of the possible defeaters and countervailing reasons one could
instead quantify over them. The proposal is most easily understood
through illustrative examples. Returning to our example of pleasure
and sadism, consider the following default principle:



(P)
For all possible agents (*p*), and all possible actions
(*x*) and all facts (*F*) If *F* is a fact to the
effect that *p*'s *x*-ing would promote pleasure
and no other feature of the situation explains why *F* is not a
reason to *x* then *F* is a reason for *p* to
*x*.


(P) is compatible with the particularist's holistic conception
of reasons. For in those cases in which the status of a fact about
pleasure as a reason is defeated by sadism (e.g.) the 'no other
feature of the situation explains why *F* is not a
reason...' clause is not satisfied. Moreover, it is hard to
see how particularists could really object to principles as modest as
(P). After all, (P) is compatible with the thesis that there are
indefinitely many possible types of reasons and indefinitely many
possible defeaters corresponding to each of those reasons. So the mere
availability of default principles does not entail that the normative
landscape could be finitely (much less manageably) codified in some
short set of axioms like Ross's list of *prima facie*
duties, for instance. Furthermore, the availability of such principles
in logical space does not in itself entail that they are presupposed
by the very possibility of moral thought and judgment. So the
availability of such principles is compatible with Dancy's
canonical formulation of particularism, according to which, "the
possibility of moral thought and judgement does not depend on the
provision of a suitable supply of moral principles" (Dancy 2004:
7).



What is the payoff of such principles in terms of the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction? Default principles allow one
to draw the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in much the same
way that Nagel drew it but *without* thereby excluding
particularists. An initial gloss of the distinction might go as
follows. A given default principle will either include a free-agent
variable in the statement of the consideration which is the reason or
not. If it does then the reason is agent-relative; if not then the
reason is agent-neutral. However, this is not quite right. For every
statement of a reason will be a statement about an action which is a
possible action for the agent for whom it is a reason. I cannot have
reason to perform an action that only someone else could perform,
after all. Since this sort of back-reference to the agent is entirely
trivial, we must explicitly add to our definition that it is not
sufficient to make a reason agent-relative. Otherwise, all reasons
will implausibly come out as agent-relative for this trivial reason.
Indeed, Derek Parfit already noticed this in his discussion,
explaining that,



> 
> Even if you and I are trying to achieve some common aim, we may be in
> different causal situations. I may have reason to act in a way that
> promotes our common aim, but you may have no such reason since you may
> be unable to act in this way. Since even agent-neutral reasons are, in
> this sense, agent-relative, this sense is irrelevant to our
> discussion. (Parfit 1984: 143)
> 



This suggests that the statement of the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction should be slightly revised. The default principle
corresponding to a given reason will either include a
*non-trivial* free-agent-variable in the statement of the
reason or not. If it does then the reason is agent-relative; otherwise
it is agent-neutral. The idea is that the use of a free-agent variable
to indicate that the action is one available to the agent for whom the
fact is a reason is trivial in the sense that it must be included in
the statement of any reason whatsoever. So the reasons associated with
the default principle (P) [see above] are agent-neutral, as the only
use of the free-agent variable 'p' is the trivial one that
indicates that *x* is a possible action of *p*'s.
By contrast, the reasons associated with the following principle would
be agent-relative:



(P\*)
For all possible agents (*p*), and all possible actions
(*x*) and all facts (*F*) If *F* is a fact to the
effect that *p*'s *x*-ing would promote
*p*'s pleasure and no other feature of the situation
explains why *F* is not a reason to *x* then *F*
is a reason for p to *x*.


Unlike (P), the statement of the reason given in (P\*) includes a
non-trivial use of a free-agent variable in its insistence that the
pleasure promoted must be *p*'s. So the reasons
associated with (P\*) come out as agent-relative. It is not hard to see
that the proposed reading of the distinction should easily pass the
litmus test given above, classifying objective utilitarian reasons as
agent-neutral (as with (P)) and egoistic reasons as agent-relative.
Moreover, it is easy to see that the proposed reading of the
distinction would sort other paradigmatic instances of
agent-relativity and agent-neutrality in an intuitively satisfying
way. Abandoning Nagel's assumption of universality in favor of
our more modest default principles seems to allow us to make good
sense of his distinction without excluding even fairly radical forms
of particularism.



However, before we rest too easily with this conclusion, we must first
address an important objection to default
 principles.[4]
 The challenge insists that they are all vacuously true simply in
virtue of their logical form. Since default principles are universally
quantified conditionals, they can be false only if they have an
instantiation in which the antecedent is true and the consequent is
false. The worry behind the vacuity objection is that the logical form
of a default principle in conjunction with some very plausible
assumptions about moral explanation entails that whenever the
consequent of a default principle is false, its antecedent will be
false as well, in which case the principle itself is vacuously true.
Consider the following inane default principle:



 LY:
 For all actions, (*x*) (If (a) *x* would be done in
a leap year and (b) no other feature of the situation explains why the
fact that *x* would be done in a leap year is not a moral
reason not to *x* and (c) the reasons in favor of *x* do
not explain why *x* is not wrong in virtue of the fact that
*x* would be done in a leap year then *x* is wrong in
virtue of the fact that *x* would be done in a leap year).


LY is clearly absurd. For an action is wrong in virtue of a given fact
or set of facts in the intended sense of 'in virtue of'
only if the fact(s) in question is (or are) moral reason(s) not to
perform the action which carry the day. Plausibly, that the fact that
an action would be done in a leap year could never itself be a moral
reason to perform the
 action.[5]
 So LY had better come out as false. The vacuity objection, however,
insists that LY turns out to be trivially true. Moreover, the
objection continues, the reason LY is true carries over to any default
principle.



LY is a universally quantified conditional ranging over possible
actions and hence is false only if it has a possible instantiation in
which its antecedent is true and its consequent is false. Presumably
its consequent is necessarily always false--no action could be
made wrong in the relevant sense by being done in a leap
year--the fact that an action is done in a leap year could never
in itself be a moral reason not to perform an action. So the crucial
issue is whether any of its instantiations also has a true antecedent.
The antecedent is itself a conjunction and hence will be true only if
both conjuncts are true. However, the objection runs, the second of
the three conjuncts [(b) above] is necessarily false or is false for
all possible actions. I am taking it as given that the leap year fact
is not a moral reason, but the objection insists on general grounds
that it is implausible to suppose that there is no explanation of its
failure to be a moral reason. Moral facts are not arbitrary, at least
in the extremely minimal sense that whenever something is or is not a
moral reason there will be *some* explanation of why this is
so. Even someone who thought that morality was a direct function of
the arbitrary will of God should admit this much, since we will on
such an account always be able to explain moral differences in terms
of differences in God's will even if we cannot go on to explain
why God willed one way rather than another. So moral differences can
always be explained. Hence clause (b) in any default principle will
always be false, which is enough to make the antecedent false and so
enough to make the conditional trivially true.



An adequate understanding of why the vacuity objection is unsound
requires careful attention to a further detail. The vacuity objection
goes from the premise that every time a fact is not a moral reason
there is some explanation for its failure to be a moral reason to the
conclusion that the 'no further feature of the situation
explains...' clause of the corresponding default principle
will always be false whenever the fact in question is not a reason.
However, this inference is valid only if it is valid to go from
'there is some explanation of *p*' to 'some
feature of the situation explains *p*' and this inference
is invalid. The inference would be valid only if we were to interpret
'feature of the situation' so broadly that any possible
explanatory fact can count as a feature of the situation. This is not
at all an intuitive reading of 'feature of the situation',
nor is it the intended reading. Hence the vacuity objection is
unsound.



For present purposes, the main point is just that a feature of a
situation must be a contingent fact. Necessary facts apply equally to
all possible situations and hence are never features of any particular
situation in our sense. This is already enough to accommodate the
plausible idea that every moral fact has an explanation of some kind
while blocking the vacuity objection. For quite plausibly, the moral
facts in question will be explained by some necessary fact. For
example, the explanation of why the fact that a given action would be
done in a leap year is not a moral reason not to perform that action
might simply be that the fact that an action would be done in a leap
year could never be any kind of reason for action. That explanation is
perhaps not the most illuminating one, but it is a kind of explanation
and it is an explanation given in terms of a necessary fact. An
alternative (and more controversial) explanation might appeal to the
putative fact that a given fact is a moral reason only if it is a fact
about how the action bears in some way on welfare or treating people
with respect. This is a very controversial explanation, but the point
is simply that if the main premise of this explanation (a kind of
pluralism involving utilitarian reasons and deontological reasons) is
true then it very plausibly is a necessary truth. Once again, the fact
in question does indeed have an explanation but it is not explained by
a feature of the situation. So there is no need to reject the
plausible suggestion that every moral fact has some explanation to
refute the vacuity objection.



More importantly, no contingent feature of the situation could
plausibly figure in an explanation of why the leap year fact is not a
moral reason in a given case. Indeed, because the leap year fact could
*never* be a reason its failure to be a reason here will in no
way depend on any of the contingent features of this case. So none of
those contingent features of the case at hand will figure in an
explanation of why that fact is not a moral reason here. If the leap
year fact were sometimes a reason then things would be very different.
For in that case the contingent features that distinguish the
situation in which it is a reason from those in which it is not a
moral reason could intelligibly figure in an explanation of why the
fact is not a moral reason here. Moreover, if asked to cite some
particular contingent feature of the situation that explains why that
fact is not a moral reason here any sane moral agent would simply be
perplexed. Hence for any default principle citing a patently absurd
candidate reason (and whose consequent is not necessarily true) there
will be possible instantiations of that principle in which the
antecedent is true and the consequent is false. This line of argument
is perfectly general, so any principle citing a putative reason in its
antecedent which could never actually be a moral reason (and whose
consequent can be false; principles with tautologous consequents will
of course be trivially true on anybody's account) will turn out
to be false. The only reason to doubt that the antecedent would
sometimes be true was the thought that the 'no feature of the
situation explains...' clause is always trivially false.
Since this rests on a failure to distinguish explanations in general
from explanations cast in terms of contingent features, it is
reasonable to conclude that default principles are not all vacuously
true simply in virtue of their logical form. So default principles can
safely be invoked to articulate the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction and thereby capture Nagel's basic idea without
making the distinction useless to radical moral particularists like
Dancy.


## 5. Related Distinctions



As will be explained in section 6, the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction is a very useful and philosophically important one.
However, as with all distinctions, its usefulness evaporates when it
is confused with other related but different distinctions. This sort
of confusion is depressingly commonplace, perhaps in virtue of an
unfortunate tendency for philosophers to use terms like
'neutral', 'objective', and
'relative' without always being completely explicit about
what those terms are supposed to mean. To guard against such
conflations, this section canvasses a number of distinctions with
which one might easily confuse the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction and explains how each differs from it. These distinctions
are divided into six groups, where the distinctions are put into the
same group insofar as they all have the same feature(s) in common with
the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction.



The first of these families of distinctions consists of those that are
like the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in that they are
drawn in terms of a relativization of the reason to the agent who has
the reason, but in a different way from the way in which the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is. Only one widely employed
distinction clearly falls into this family: Bernard Williams'
distinction between internal and external reasons. On Williams'
account, a reason for acting is internal just in case it counts as a
reason in virtue of its connection to the agent's
"motivational set" (desires, intentions, pro-attitudes,
etc.); otherwise it is external (see Williams 1981b). It is not hard
to see how this distinction might easily be confused with the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction, for one might easily suppose
that internal reasons just are agent-relative ones, while external
reasons just are agent-neutral ones. However, the distinctions are not
the same, for a reason may be external and still be agent-relative.
Suppose, for example, that we accept a default principle according to
which the fact that an agent's culture demands something is
sometimes a reason to do it. Such a reason will be agent-relative in
virtue of the use of a free-agent variable to indicate that it is the
agent's own culture which determines what reasons she has. Or
consider a default principle according to which the fact that an
action would satisfy the agent's biological needs is sometimes a
reason. Again, the relativization to the agent (here to the
agent's needs) entails that such a reason is agent-relative.
Each of the reasons grounded by either of these latter two principles
will be both agent-relative *and* external, for an agent simply
may not care about her culture's standards or her biological
needs. Hence, reasons for acting also can be both external and
agent-relative.



In a second family of distinctions, we find distinctions that are like
the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in that they are also
drawn in terms of the principles underwriting an agent's reasons
for acting, but are unlike it in that they are not drawn in terms of
their relativity to the agent who has the reasons. Two main
distinctions fall into this family: universality/non-universality and
generality/non-generality. Agent-neutrality is often confused with
universality. A reason is universal insofar as any person, *A*,
who judges that one agent, *B*, has a reason is thereby
committed to making the same judgment of anyone else, *C*, whom
they take to be in relevantly similar circumstances. So long as we
assume reasons are associated with principles, this will mean that the
principle associated with the reason will be universal in scope; that
is to say, it will be of the form, "For all *x*, if
*x* is an agent, then..." Note that this is much
weaker than Nagel's conception of universality; even default
principles employ universal quantifiers and are universal in this
sense. Universality in this thin sense is rightly taken to be a highly
uncontroversial, perhaps even trivial, feature of reasons. However, it
would of course be a mistake to infer from this that agent-neutrality
should be uncontroversial, for the concepts are quite different.
Agent-relative reasons, as well as agent-neutral reasons, can satisfy
universality in this sense. An egoist principle, for example, would
typically be understood as a universally quantified thesis according
to which for all agents *A*, if a given action maximizes
*A*'s welfare then *A* ought to perform that action.
Nor, of course, is agent-neutrality the same as universality in
Nagel's somewhat stronger sense according to which whatever is a
reason in one case must be a reason anywhere. This is obvious once it
is made explicit, but historical attempts to derive agent-neutrality
from such forms of universality encourage the conflation (see, e.g.,
Hare 1963: 112-136).



Agent-neutrality is also easily confused with generality, where a
reason is general just in case the principle that underwrites it
contains no proper nouns or "rigidly designating"
descriptions (see Kripke 1972). Like universality, generality is a
function of the principles underwriting the agent's reasons.
Upon reflection, though, it should be clear that the
general/non-general distinction simply cuts across the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction; agent-relative reasons could
be either general or non-general, as could agent-neutral ones. For
example, "The fact that God commands *X*-ing is a reason
to *X* unless some other feature of the situation explains why
it is not," would be non-general (assuming that
'God' is a rigid designator) yet agent-neutral, whereas,
"The fact that God commands each person to do as her conscience
dictates is a reason for each person to do as her conscience dictates
unless some other feature of the situation explains why it is not a
reason" would be both non-general and agent-relative.



A third family of distinctions is like the
agent-relative/agent-neutral one in that it is drawn in terms of a
relativization to the agent for whom the consideration is a reason,
but is *not* drawn in terms of the principle underwriting the
reason. Here there are two very similar distinctions that merit
discussion. In fact these two distinctions are so similar that they
might easily be confused with one another as well as with the
agent-relative/agent-neutral one. The first of these two distinctions
is the distinction between "deliberator relative" (DR)
principles and "deliberator neutral" (DN) principles (see
Postema 1998). Unlike the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction,
the DR/DN distinction is not one that is drawn in terms of the form of
those principles themselves. Unlike agent-relativity or
agent-neutrality, deliberator relativity and deliberator neutrality
cannot simply be "read off" from an accurate statement of
the principles themselves. For the DR/DN distinction concerns not the
question of the form of the principles, but the question of the source
of their authority, or if one prefers, their "force." A
principle's having force for a given agent is then glossed as
being such that the agent must recognize the principle's
validity *to avoid counting as irrational*. With this
conception of force in play, the distinction is usefully characterized
in the following way:



> 
> A principle is DN iff it has force for every possible agent, which is
> to say all rational agents must recognize the principle's
> validity to avoid counting as irrational.
> 
> 
> A principle is DR iff (a) its force varies from one possible agent to
> the next, which is to say at least some possible rational agents might
> reject the principle's validity without thereby being
> irrational, or (b) it has force for no possible agents. This is just
> the denial of DN.
> 
> 
> 



Once the DR/DN distinction is explicitly articulated and compared with
the AR/AN distinction, it is clear that they are different
distinctions, doing different theoretical work. The distinctions
simply cut across one another. A principle might have an
agent-relative logical form, and so be agent-relative, yet have be
deliberator neutral given the source of its authority. Egoism, for
example, is an agent-relative principle, but a defender of egoism
might argue that a failure to recognize egoism's validity is
sufficient for someone to count as irrational, in which case egoism is
also deliberator neutral. 



The other distinction falling into this third family is very similar
to the DR/DN distinction. It also concerns the force, rather than the
form, of a practical principle. The DR/DN distinction is in terms of
which principles an agent must recognize as binding on her *to
avoid counting as irrational*. A slightly different distinction is
the between principles that really are binding on everyone
(BN-"binding neutral"), *even if one might not
accept their authority without thereby counting as irrational*,
and those that are not (BR-"binding relative").
Drawing the distinction may commit us to the thesis that there is a
fairly fundamental appearance/reality distinction to be drawn even
with respect to principles of practical reason, so that even an
ideally rational agent could, in principle, be mistaken at a given
point in time about which principle(s) bind her *without thereby
counting as irrational*. At any rate, it should be clear that this
distinction, like the closely aligned DR/DN distinction is quite
different from the AR/AN distinction.



A fourth family of distinctions with which the AR/AN distinction might
easily be confused is of those distinctions that are like the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction in that it is drawn in terms
of relativization, but unlike it in that it is *not* in terms
of a relativization to the agent who has the reason. There is perhaps
only one important distinction that clearly falls into this category:
what Nicholas Sturgeon has helpfully referred to as
"appraiser-relativism" (Sturgeon 1994). Though this may
not be essential to appraiser-relativism, it is worth noting that,
unlike agent-relativism, appraiser-relativism is typically presented
as a semantic thesis about terms of ordinary language (as opposed to
technical terms like 'agent-neutral'), to the effect that
the truth value of one and the same ethical or practical judgment can
vary from one appraiser to the next. On such views, my judgment that
what Hitler did was wrong could in principle be true while another
person making the very same judgment in a rather different context
(but one in which Hitler's actions, their context and
consequences are kept constant) could be false. By contrast, the
judgment that there was agent-relative reason for Hitler to perform a
given action will have a truth-value that is invariant across
different appraisers. Agent-relativism is a substantive view about
what kinds of reasons people have, and is distinct from the semantic
thesis of appraiser-relativism. Appraiser-relativism involves a
relativization to the person appraising an action, rather than a
relativization to the agent who might perform the action.



A fifth family is of distinctions that in some sense divide reasons
into categories that might usefully be thought of as the
"private" and the "non-private." In this
respect, they are intuitively similar to the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction, in that there is a
recognizable sense in which agent-relative reasons are
private--their status as reasons for an agent is irreducibly a
function of the features of *that* agent as such.
Correspondingly, agent-neutral reasons are public in the sense that
this is, by definition, not true of them. At least two other
distinctions are usefully thought of as dividing reasons into the
categories of private and non-private. However, each of these two
distinctions mark the private/non-private division in an importantly
different sense from the one in which the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction does.



The first of these two distinctions is one between reasons that are
"essentially shared," in a somewhat technical sense, and
those that are not. This distinction is perhaps the one that is most
frequently confused with the agent-relative/agent-neutral one, and the
philosophical consequences are significant. As the distinction is
typically drawn, a reason is supposed to be "essentially
shared" just in case whenever the reason is a reason for one
agent to perform an action it is equally a reason for *anyone*
to promote his performance of that action; otherwise it is not. So,
for example, if my reason to take a walk is essentially shared, it
follows that it is equally a reason for anyone to promote my taking a
walk. Put more quaintly, the question of whether reasons for acting
are essentially shared is the question of whether a reason for me must
provide everyone else with a corresponding reason to help me do as
that reason recommends, insofar as they can. It is not hard to see how
there is a sense in which this distinction divides reasons into the
public and the non-public, as essentially shared reasons, unlike those
that are not essentially shared, provide reasons for everyone who can
promote the state of affairs in which people act in accordance with
those reasons. That being "shared" has become a rather
technical notion should be apparent, since in more ordinary terms you
and I may both share a reason, that doing *X* would be pleasant
say, where each of our reasons provides no corresponding reasons for
the other.



It is also quite easy to see how this distinction might be confused
with the agent-relative/agent-neutral one. Suppose one embraces the
tempting view that all reasons for acting must be
*teleological* in form, which is to say that any principle
underwriting a reason for acting must individuate actions in terms of
the states of affairs that they promote. However, the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction itself should not be
understood as incorporating such a highly controversial assumption,
and the version of the distinction proposed in section IV as an
improvement on Nagel and Parfit therefore does not incorporate it.
Given the assumption of teleology, though, and given the rejection of
holism in the theory of reasons (which Nagel's universality
implicitly does reject) it would indeed follow that agent-neutrality
and being essentially shared are necessarily co-extensive, since any
universal (in Nagel's sense) agent-neutral principle will then
have the following form:



(A)
The fact that *p*'s *X*ing would promote
*N* [where *N* is some state of affairs which is
specified with no non-trivial use of '*p*'] is a
reason for *p* to *X*.


It follows trivially from the supposition that all practical
principles have this form that whenever one agent has reason to
promote a state of affairs that *any* agent who can promote
*N* will have reason to do so.



However, the view that all reasons for acting are teleological, while
tempting, is a substantive doctrine that one might reasonably reject.
Teleology is certainly not a trivial feature of our understanding of
practical reasons. To take just one example, T.M. Scanlon has recently
argued at some length that not all reasons are teleological and that
the assumption that they are badly distorts our conception of
practical reason (Scanlon 1998: 79-107). So it would be a
mistake to allow one's attraction to that substantive view to
lead one to conflate the distinction between the
agent-neutral/agent-relative distinction and the essentially
shared/not essentially shared distinction. For insofar as one rejects
that assumption, one can very well allow that there are reasons which
are both agent-neutral and *not* essentially shared. Consider,
for example, the following principle:



 (4)
 The fact that an action would be an instance of violently
assaulting someone is a reason not to perform it unless some other
feature of the situation explains why it is not.


The reasons generated by this principle are clearly agent-neutral, but
they are *not* essentially shared, for it simply does not
follow from this principle that I have any reason to perform actions
that would reduce the total number of violent incidents (either by
others or myself in the future). I may very well have such further
reasons, but they would be associated with a different principle, and
therefore might not be *as weighty* as the reasons associated
with the above agent-neutral principle.



On a historical note, it is perhaps no surprise that these two
distinctions are so often conflated. For we have seen that Nagel, the
original and most influential proponent of the
agent-neutral/agent-relative distinction, explicitly commits himself
to the view that all reasons are teleological in form, and is driven
by this view to conflate the two distinctions. Recall that Nagel
embraces the following teleological conception of practical
principles:



> 
> [E]very reason is a predicate *R* such that for all persons and
> events *A*, if *R* is true of *A*, then
> *p* has *prima facie* reason to promote *A*.
> (Nagel 1970: 47)
> 



Nagel thinks this position is just an unproblematic simplification on
the grounds that he treats the performance "of act *B* as
a degenerate case of promoting the occurrence of act *B*"
(Nagel 1970: 47). The reason it is *not* merely an
unproblematic simplification is that putting all practical principles
into this form robs us of the ability to say that there is
agent-neutral reason for an agent to but no reason for her to promote
*B*ing, except in the admittedly degenerate sense in which
*B*ing is a way of promoting *B*ing.



Of Nagel's critics, Christine Korsgaard has been most sensitive
to the way in which he builds teleology into his view without argument
from the very beginning. She notes, for example, that, "Nagel
treats all reasons as reasons to *promote*
something...Nagel is in danger of ending up with consequentialism
because that is where he started" (Korsgaard 1996a: 300). In
spite of this perceptive diagnosis of Nagel's error on this
front, though, Korsgaard occasionally blurs the two distinctions,
claiming that the criterion that the reason predicate not contain a
"free agent variable" is simply a more formal way of
saying that these reasons are "common property" and not
"personal property," which on her view amounts to the
thesis that they are essentially shared, as we have explicated that
thesis (see Korsgaard 1996b: 276). That a philosopher perceptive
enough to note and so accurately diagnose Nagel's mistake could
still blur the two distinctions is a testament to the depth of the
confusion about these distinctions embedded throughout the current
philosophical literature. For another instance of this mistake, see
McNaughton and Rawling 1995a as well as Dreier 1993.



A second distinction falling into this larger family of distinctions
is the distinction between reasons that are intersubjective, and those
that are not, where intersubjectivity is cashed out in terms of the
possibility of an agent's successfully communicating the force
of the reason to other agents. Korsgaard has emphasized this
distinction in a number of places and argued that all reasons for
acting must be intersubjective (e.g., Korsgaard 1996b: 131-166).
It is not hard to see how non-intersubjective reasons might plausibly
be thought of as private and intersubjective reasons might be thought
of as public; hence it is not too hard to see how that distinction
might be confused with the agent-relative/agent-neutral one given the
tendency to confuse that distinction with the private/public
distinction. Still, once intersubjectivity/non-intersubjectivity is
explicitly defined, it is relatively clear that it is different from
the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction. For the former
distinction is drawn in terms of communicability and the latter
distinction makes no reference whatsoever to communicability. Indeed,
for all that has been said so far, a reason might be intersubjective
and be either agent-relative or agent-neutral. Still, it is
surprisingly easy to run together these two distinctions. One way this
confusion might arise would happen in two stages. First, one might
confuse the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction with the
distinction between reasons that are essentially *shared* and
those that are not. Since intersubjective reasons are often
characterized as reasons "we can *share*," the
stage is set for confusing both of those two distinctions with the
further distinction between intersubjective and non-intersubjective
reasons. For it would not be that difficult to confuse shareability
with being essentially shared.



Finally, in the sixth family of distinctions, we find a distinction
that might easily be confused with the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction as a kind of historical artifact. Here we have in mind the
distinction between "reasons for an agent to do something"
and "reasons for something to happen." Without actually
confusing them himself, Nagel may have unintentionally encouraged this
conflation in remarking, for example, that, "Ethics is concerned
not only with what should happen, but also independently with what
people should or may *do*. Neutral reasons underlie the former;
but relative reasons can affect the latter" (Nagel 1986: 165).
In fact, however, it should be clear that these two distinctions are
different. The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction concerns the
form of a practical principle, whereas the other distinction concerns
whether a reason is a reason for an agent to do something or a reason
for something to happen. One way of making the separateness of these
two distinctions especially vivid is to note that someone might
embrace the former distinction and admit that there are both kinds of
reasons, but reject the very notion of a "reason for something
to happen" as resting on an obscure, confused notion of a reason
that can float free of all possible agents. This is not to say that we
should in fact reject that notion; Wilfrid Sellars argues that a
distinction of this sort is an important one (see Sellars 1968:
175-229. See also Castaneda 1975, with a discussion of
Sellars's distinction). Rather, it is simply to note that it is
not obviously misguided to reject the very concept of a reason for
something to happen, and we should leave room for someone to do this
without supposing all reasons for acting are agent-relative, for that
is simply another question. Even if I grant that all reasons must be
reasons for someone, in that a reason presupposes a possible agent, I
can still hold that the principle underlying those reasons need not
make any non-trivial, ineliminable pronominal back-reference to that
agent. Hence the two distinctions are different.



In sum, then, the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction shares a
number of features with several other distinctions, and therefore is
easily confused with those other distinctions. These other
distinctions have been broken down into six families, where those
families are divided in terms of what the distinctions in question
have in common with the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction.
Having discussed all six of these families at some length, it may be
useful to provide a concise review of the defining features of each
family:


1. Distinctions that are like the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction in that they are drawn in terms of a relativization to the
agent who has the reason, but in a different way:
*internal/external*.
2. Distinctions that are like the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction in that they are drawn in terms of the form of principles
underwriting reasons, but unlike the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction are not drawn in terms of relativization at all:
*universal/non-universal* and
*general/non-general*.
3. Distinctions that, like the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction involve relativization to the agent who has the reason,
but unlike the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction, are not drawn
in terms of the form of the principles underwriting practical reasons
but instead are drawn in terms of the source of the authority of those
principles: *deliberator-relative/deliberator-neutral* and
*bindingness-relative/

bindingness-neutral*.
4. Distinctions that are like the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction in that they involve relativization, but that are unlike
it in that the relativization is to the appraiser of the reason,
rather than to the agent who has the reason:
*appraiser-relative/appraiser-neutral*.
5. Distinctions that are like the agent-relative/agent-neutral one in
that there is a sense in which they divide reasons into private and
non-private categories, but that do so in a different sense from the
one in which the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction does so:
*intersubjective/non-intersubjective* and
*essentially-shared/not-essentially-shared*.
6. Distinctions with which the agent-relative agent-neutral
distinction might be confused primarily as a kind of historical
artifact: *reasons-for-something-to-happen/reasons-to-do*.


## 6. Why the Distinction Matters



Having formulated the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction and
seen how it differs from other important distinctions, we are now in a
position to consider why the distinction is an important one. The
distinction has played a very useful role in framing certain
interesting and important debates in normative philosophy.



For a start, the distinction helps frame a challenge to the
traditional assumption that what separates so-called consequentialists
and deontologists is that the former but not the latter are committed
to the idea that all reasons for action are teleological. A
deontological restriction forbids a certain sort of action (e.g.,
stealing) even when stealing here is the only way to prevent even more
stealing in the long run. Consequentialists charge that such a
restriction must be irrational, on the grounds that if stealing is
forbidden then it must be bad but if it is bad then surely less
stealing is better than more. The deontologist can respond in one of
two ways. First, they could hold that deontological restrictions
correspond to non-teleological reasons. The reason not to steal, on
this account, is not that stealing is bad in the sense that it should
be minimized but rather simply that stealing is forbidden no matter
what the consequences (this is admittedly a stark form of deontology,
but there are less stern versions as well). This is indeed one way of
understanding the divide between consequentialists and deontologists,
but the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction, and in particular
the idea of agent-relative reasons, brings to the fore an alternative
conception. For arguably, we could instead understand deontological
restrictions as corresponding to a species of reasons which are
teleological after all so long as those reasons are agent-relative. If
my reason not to steal is that I should minimize my stealing then the
fact that my stealing here would prevent five other people from
committing similar acts of theft does nothing to suggest that I ought
to steal. To really have any chance of working, the reasons will
probably need to be temporally relative as well as agent-relative. For
otherwise the reason corresponding to a deontological restriction will
give me reason to steal now if this is the only way to prevent me from
stealing even more
 later.[6]
 If the reasons in play are agent-relative then perhaps the
deontologist can do more to defuse the consequentialist's charge
of paradox, though other problems now arise. The deontologist now can
look overly self-indulgent, so obsessed with the purity of her own
soul that she will not sacrifice her integrity for the greater good
(see Ridge 2001a). Another worry is that reasons which are both
agent-relative and temporally relative are not really teleological
after all in any interesting sense. For the only way to promote an
action *right now* is simply by performing it. The broader and
more standard conception of promoting an action by causing it simply
has no foothold here, and if it did then the proposal would not
correspond exactly with deontological intuitions. In spite of these
worries, many philosophers have characterized the reasons
corresponding to deontological restrictions as agent-relative. Indeed,
the characterization of deontological restrictions as agent-relative
(or agent-centered) is close to being an
 orthodoxy.[7]




If we can properly understand the reasons corresponding to
deontological restrictions as agent-relative (and temporally relative)
teleological reasons but teleological reasons all the same then in
effect we can, as James Dreier puts it, 'consequentialize'
deontology, surprisingly enough. The apparent success of deploying
agent-relativity to 'consequentialize' deontology leads
Dreier to defend the more bold hypothesis that *any* moral
theory can be represented as a form of consequentialism so long as we
are willing to allow that consequentialism comes in agent-relative as
well as agent-neutral versions. The central idea behind
consequentialism, on this way of thinking, is its teleology and
commitment to maximizing, both of which seem compatible with
agent-relativity about that which is
 maximized.[8]
 If Dreier is right about this then the agent-relative/agent-neutral
distinction may be more important than the distinction between
consequentialist theories and non-consequentialist theories.



Another advantage of the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is
that it can bring to our attention important structural differences
between what might otherwise seem like very similar normative
theories. For example, a theory which holds that our overriding reason
is always to maximize actual utility seems very similar in spirit to a
theory which instead holds that our overriding reason is always to
maximize *expected* utility. One would naturally have thought
that both of these theories are agent-neutral so long as we assume
that utility is understood in agent-neutrally (in terms of general
happiness, e.g.). However, the reference to 'expected'
utility in the second theory actually seems to entail that the reasons
corresponding to that theory are agent-relative. For presumably the
relevant expectations are the agent's, in which case we will
need to mark this with a free agent variable and that free agent
variable hardly seems
 trivial.[9]
 This is a surprising result, but there is no obvious way to block it
on the conception of agent-relativity proposed here (or on the
classical principle-based conceptions defended by Nagel, Parfit or
even on the reason-statement-based version of the distinction defended
by Pettit). This could itself be illuminating. Perhaps it suggests
that we need to draw a fundamental distinction between value and
reasons, contra T.M. Scanlon and others who see value claims as really
just indicating the presence of reasons; see Scanlon's
discussion of the 'buck-passing account in Scanlon (1998). For
such a distinction would allow us to say that while happiness is an
agent-neutral good (thereby accommodating the intuition that there is
something agent-neutral about the second theory) our reasons to
promote that good are best understood in terms of the agent's
expectations and hence agent-relative.



Nor should we forget that the first real use of the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction was Nagel's in *The
Possibility of Altruism*. There Nagel tried to prove that all
reasons must be agent-neutral on pain of a kind of practical
solipsism. Nagel eventually abandoned this argument in light of
objections from Nicholas Sturgeon (see Sturgeon 1974), but the
argument is ingenious and Nagel may have abandoned it prematurely. If
any such argument could ever be made to work then we might be able to
settle a wide range of difficult issues in normative philosophy
without simply appealing to first-order intuitions about cases which
so often seems to lead to philosophical stalemate. Moreover, if an
argument like Nagel's could be made to work then its
implications would be dramatic. Not only egoistic reasons but arguably
deontological reasons and reasons arising out of special relations to
one's nearest and dearest would stand refuted, as would what
Nagel later referred to as 'reasons of autonomy' (see
Nagel 1986: 165). Furthermore, Nagel is not the only one to have
offered abstract considerations in favor of the thesis that all
reasons are agent-neutral. For example, some of Derek Parfit's
work on personal identity is supposed to undermine the importance of
personal identity as such, and that in turn might undermine the
tenability of agent-relativity (see Parfit 1984).



The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction was also invaluable in
James Dreier's exploration of the often neglected issue of how
an expressivist might make sense of agent-relative norms (see Dreier
1996). Dreier's argument is subtle and complex, and we shall not
try to reproduce it here. The point for present purposes is that his
discussion highlights an important challenge for expressivists.
Admittedly, a more narrow version of this challenge was previously
seen by Brian Medlin (see Medlin 1957), whose work heavily influenced
Dreier. However, Medlin cast the challenge specifically in terms of
egoistic reasons and that has important dialectical implications. As
Dreier points out, Medlin's challenge applies to agent-centered
norms more generally and this wider scope matters. For we might well
be willing to abandon egoistic reasons, but if we also had to give up
on the intelligibility of deontology then the costs of expressivism
might well begin to seem too steep. Until Nagel and others drew the
agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction, it was easy enough for
philosophers like Medlin to not fully appreciate the scope and power
of their own arguments.



Finally, the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction can also provide
a useful lens through which to examine some of the arguments of
historical figures. Sidgwick's famous discussion of the
'dualism of practical reason' can now be seen as an
instance of the more general tension between agent-relative and
agent-neutral reasons. G.E. Moore's argument against ethical
egoism would, if sound, refute agent-relative conceptions more
generally (see Moore 1903: 96-105), since Moore's main
objection is not to egoism in particular but (in effect) to
agent-relative conceptions of the good more generally.



Also, there is an interesting debate about whether Kantian moral
prohibitions must be understood as agent-relative even if we allow
that all reasons are teleological (see Ridge 2009; compare Huckfeldt
2007 and Dougherty 2013). The strategy is to understand the end to be
promoted in agent-neutral terms, but also in such a way that the agent
at any given point in time can best promote that agent-neutral aim
only by acting in accord with suitable deontological rules. One key
idea behind this strategy is that the relevant end is "good
willing" understood in a broadly Kantian way, combined with a
robust theory of free will according to which one agent cannot ever
fully control the will of another. The other key idea is that the
agent-neutral teleological reasons in play are compatible with a
non-maximizing theory of right action. In particular, the idea will be
that the agent must always minimize the risk of the very worst of the
available outcomes. If the very worst of the available outcomes is
that everyone has a bad will, then one can ensure that the risk of
that outcome is zero by preserving one's own good will. Given
that one cannot in this way fully control the will of another, the
needed self/other asymmetry is preserved without agent-relativity in
the theory of reasons or value. A suitable theory of right action and
free will can do the work that would otherwise require an
agent-relative theory of reasons or value. 


## 7. Conclusion.



The agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction is extremely important to
a wide range of debates in normative philosophy. Yet the distinction
is often drawn in very different ways, with the risk that philosophers
are simply talking past one another. In this entry, different ways of
drawing the distinction have been distinguished, and the virtues of a
modified version of the principle-based approach has been defended.
The distinction so drawn is different from a wide range of other
distinctions with which it might easily be confused; these
distinctions are laid out here to help guard against such confusions.
Finally, the distinction so drawn is an important one in structuring
central debates in normative theory, such as how to understand the
divide between consequentialists and deontologists.