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I first distinguish between different forms of the buck-passing account of value and clarify my target in other respects on buck-passers' behalf. I then raise a number of problems for the different forms of the buck-passing view that I have distinguished.

I shall refer to all theories according to which time passes (including dynamic versions of presentism, ‘growing block’ theories, ‘shrinking tree’ theories, and so on) under the umbrella term ‘A-theory’, and I shall use the term ‘B-theory’ in the standard way to refer to the theory according to which time does not pass, and although events are ordered in time there is no objective present time.1 Many philosophers, both A- and B-theorists, have agreed that in experience we are, or at least seem to be, aware of time passing.

T. M. Scanlon’s buck-passing account of value (BPA) has been subjected to a barrage of criticisms. Recently, to be helpful to BPA, Roger Crisp has suggested that a number of these criticisms can be met if one makes some revisions to BPA. In this paper, I argue that if advocates of the buck-passing account accepted these revisions, they would effectively be giving up the buck-passing account as it is typically understood, that is, as an account concerned with the conceptual priority of reasons or the right vis-à-vis value or the good. I conclude by addressing some of the broader implications of my arguments for the current debate about the buck-passing account of value.

This paper aims to cast doubt upon a certain way of analysing prudential value (or good for ), namely in the manner of a ‘buck-passing’ analysis. It begins by explaining why we should be interested in analyses of good for and the nature of buck-passing analyses generally (§I). It moves on to considering and rejecting two sets of buck-passing analyses. The first are analyses that are likely to be suggested by those attracted to the idea of analysing good for in a buck-passing fashion (§II). The second are the buck-passing analyses of good for proposed by John Skorupski (§III), Henry Sidgwick (§IV), and Stephen Darwall (§V). Along the way the paper shows that Michael Smith’s and Peter Railton’s analyses of other concepts—analyses that could be (and have been) taken to be analyses of good for —are similarly unsuitable as analyses of it. The paper concludes by suggesting that the fact that none of the buck-passing accounts of good for considered here is satisfactory, coupled with an appreciation of the various problems that a buck-passing analysis of good for would have to avoid, suggests that we should be sceptical about the prospects of finding such an analysis and should look for one of a different type.

A modest proposal concerning laws, counterfactuals, and explanations - - Why be Humean? -- Suggestions from physics for deep metaphysics -- On the passing of time -- Causation, counterfactuals, and the third factor -- The whole ball of wax -- Epilogue : a remark on the method of metaphysics.

Despite some talk of ‘erotetic logic’ and ‘the logic of interrogatives’, logicians have hitherto completely overlooked the peculiar logical form of questions, also shared by interrogative clauses generally. Of relevance to an understanding of time are those interrogative clauses that are janus-like: sometimes raising a question, sometimes answering it—which can then no longer arise. Since a closed question can no longer arise, it might seem that simply the passing of time turns an open into a closed question. Instead, the passing of time itself can be understood as the closing or resolution of open questions, of the determination of what is not fixed but as yet in question.

How to repeat what never has been? Heinz Kimmerle Introduction We do not know what time is. Is it something outside us, just passing by like a car on the ...

Maudlin’s “On the Passing of Time” suggests a pairing not often found in the metaphysics of time: eternalism (i.e. that the past, present, and future are all equally real) and Absolute Becoming, the view that the passage of time brings new events into existence. Maudlin's pairing begs the question of what, given eternalism, could Absolute Becoming mean in a block universe, a question to which Maudlin does not provide a clear answer. Therefore, we consider two classic accounts of Absolute Becoming, those of C.D. Broad and Howard Stein, to determine the extent to which either may realize Maudlin's goal of a union between eternalism and Absolute Becoming. Our analysis finds Stein’s account more accommodating than Broad's to not only eternalism but also special relativity; however, there is a giant gap between the kind of Absolute Becoming that we seem to experience (and which motivates Maudlin) and Stein's Absolute Becoming. While it isn't clear what account of Absolute Becoming Maudlin has in mind, we conclude that there is no extant conception of Absolute Becoming that can answer to the experience of becoming that motivates Maudlin.