Neutral reasons underlie the former; but relative reasons can affect the latter" (Nagel 1986: 165).
Notice that on this definition of agent-neutrality and its correspondent definition of agent-relativity, nearness in space cannot be an ultimate ground of an agent-relative reason.
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.
She may have stronger agent-neutral reason to aid my friend, but she does not have the agent-relative reason arising from friendship that I have.
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).
An agent-relative reason is an objective reason, just as are agent neutral reasons; neither is to be confused with the subjective reasons that form the nerve of psychological explanations of human action (Nagel 1986).
An agent-relative reason is so-called because it is a reason relative to the agent whose reason it is; it need not (although it may) constitute a reason for anyone else.
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.
Table 3 Responses from the local residents associated with a sense of place in the Akuressa area of Sri Lanka Sense of place Number of respondents Born in current location 26 Generational ties 24 Close to family and relatives (benefit of current location) 1 Likes the village 1 Wants to be close to relatives (reason not to move) 1.
For others, though, the circumstances brought a small edge of comfort to the gloom: their soldiers had not been stranded on some terrifying military mission; they would have had cheery thoughts, these relatives reasoned, for most of the final hours.
Special obligations are often appealed to in arguments against consequentialism, because consequentialism is unable to accommodate agent-relative reasons and genuinely special obligations are agent-relative reasons.
