 Probably the most important aspect of this rich and complex passage is the rhetorical question it raises: “what difference does it make if the welfare of the world is promoted by him or by somebody else?” If we answer “no difference”, as Śāntideva seems to wish us to, then we may thereby be committed to a strong form of what philosophers call “agent-neutrality”. In Reasons and Persons, Parfit explains this concept as follows. If a normative theory gives different agents different moral aims, then it is an agent-relative theory. So, for example, many moral theories hold that parents have a special obligation to take care of their own children; such views would give each parent the aim that his or her own children flourish, and these aims would differ from one person to the next. A theory is agent-neutral in virtue of giving all agents the very same set of moral aims. So a theory that told everyone to adopt the sole aim that all children should flourish would be an agent-neutral theory.