My research is mainly in the philosophy of language and in ethics. I also have many vested interests in topics across epistemology, logic, and early modern philosophy. 

Below you will see information about my background and experience in teaching. 

Much of my recent work is on generics, deontic modals, supererogation, moral principles, empathy, and moral epistemology. You can read more about this, as well as some recent news, below.

I recently completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews where I was a member of the Arché Philosophical Research Centre for Logic, Language, Metaphysics, and Epistemology.

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Recent News, Events, & Updates

  • Recent Talk

    Colloquium talk at University of St. Thomas on 'Supererogation and the Structure of the Normative Domain'. October 2019.

  • Arché Anniversary Conference

    Hosted the Arché 20th Anniversary Conference in St Andrews 19-21 June 2019. Member of the organizing committee. See here for more details!

  • PhD Defense

    Thesis: Generics, Modality, and Morality. (2019)

  • University-Wide Teaching Award

    Students' Association Teaching Award 2019. Awarded to only one graduate student at the University of St Andrews across all departments. A press release is available here.

  • Comments at the Pacific APA

    Delivered response to Jen Foster (USC) in philosophy of language colloquium at the Pacific APA in Vancouver. April 2019.

  • Recent Talk

    Delivered talk on normative generics and context-sensitivity at the Friday Seminar, University of St Andrews. February 2019.

Research

Published

Generics and Weak Necessity (Inquiry, 2018)

Abstract: A prevailing thought is that generics have a covert modal operator at logical form. I claim that if this is right, the covert generic modality is a weak necessity modal. In this paper, I provide evidence for this claim and I sketch a theory. In particular, I will show that there are some important distributional parallels between generics and sentences with overt weak necessity modals: both sorts of sentences share behavior in nonmonotonic reasoning environments and also lack genuine epistemic readings. Acknowledging these parallels and the connection here is in the service of both our understanding of genericity and of weak necessity. Finally, I propose an understanding of generics as involving a covert weak necessity modal and argue that this is a promising path to pursue in relation to different issues related to the interpretation of generics. 

Current Projects

Moral Principles

  • Provides support for the thesis that moral principles are best understood as generic generalizations. 
  • Argues that this supports a particularist model of moral reasoning. 

Deontic Modality

  • This paper investigates the diversity of the core normative modal notions, especially the question of how some of these notions are binary while others are scalar. 
  • I discuss, in particular, the concept of supererogation, and how this relates to and fits in with the core normative modal notions. 

Generic Generalizations

  • This paper examines the context-sensitivity of generics and builds from previous work in 'Generics and Weak Necessity.'

Epistemology of Normativity

  • I develop a counterfactual theory of the epistemology of normative modality and argue that our justification in general normative propositions lie in judgments of conditionals of normalcy. 
  • In doing so, this paper links together the topic of the role of imagination in ethics with recent work in modal epistemology. 

Empathy and Moral Knowledge

  • Recent work in philosophy and psychology has contested the value of empathy in moral philosophy by arguing that empathy is a biased and unreliable source of knowledge. 
  • This paper articulates one positive epistemological role of empathy, namely that it enables us to alter, modify, and add to what we regard as areas of moral concern. 

Teaching

Summary

  • Tutor (i.e. teaching assistant) for many philosophy courses at St Andrews covering core material from early modern philosophy, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political philosophy, logic, metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of mind.

  • ​Lecturer for a course I designed on 'Philosophy of Empathy' which was on the relationship between empathy and issues across social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. 
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  • Designed and delivered guest lectures for undergraduate courses in philosophy of mind and logic. Also designed lecture series on philosophical skills such as argumentation, essay writing, and formal methods in philosophy (including logic, set theory, and probability theory). 

Awards

Students' Association Teaching Award (2019) 

  • In 2019, I received a university-wide teaching award given to only one graduate teaching assistant across all departments. See here for a press release.  
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PhD Teaching Prize (2017)

  • In 2017, I won a department-wide competition to develop and teach my own honours seminar. The award is based upon the submission of the original design of a course for advanced undergraduate students and was judged by a committee of faculty members. I was subsequently given the opportunity to be lecturer on a course I designed on empathy which covered a range of issues in social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of action. 
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Best Tutor in Philosophy (2014) 

  • In 2014, I received the award of Best Tutor in Philosophy while teaching a first-year introduction to epistemology and logic. This is a student-run award and I was selected on the basis of receiving the best overall feedback and highest score of 7.95/8 on independent student evaluation forms.
Picture
With Kevin Scharp, Caroline Touborg, & Ryan Nefdt in St Andrews, June 2019. Photo by Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa.
Arché Philosophical Research Centre, University of St Andrews, 17-19 College Street, St Andrews, KY16 9AL
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​ravithakral@icloud.com