 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.