My research is mainly in the philosophy of language and in ethics. I also have many vested interests in topics across epistemology, logic, and related areas. I also have teaching interests in some areas in the history of philosophy. 

Below you will see information about my background and experience in teaching, including information about this semester.

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 am an Associate Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews and a member of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs. 

I did my PhD and MLitt in Philosophy at St Andrews where I was a member of the Arché Philosophical Research Centre for Logic, Language, Metaphysics, and Epistemology. I did my BA in Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin.

Feel free to get in touch. I'd love to hear from you.

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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 PhD candidate across all departments at the University of St Andrews. 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. 

Supererogation

  • This paper investigates supererogation and its relationship to the core normative modal notions. 
  • It draws implications for questions of action guidance associated with 'ought' due to the generality or particularity of claims about what we ought to do. 

Normative Generics

  • This paper argues that normative generics are diverse in various underappreciated ways and investigates how to fit them into our broader understanding of generics, including how to make sense of their various uses and possible options for challenging them.

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

Information for Fall 2020

I'll be involved with teaching for the following modules in Fall 2020: 
  • Reading Philosophy 1: Texts in Language, Logic, Mind, Epistemology, Metaphysics and Science (PY3100)
  • Reasons for Action and Belief (PY4646, with Justin Snedegar)

Office Hours: Fridays 2-4PM GMT & by appointment, on Microsoft Teams. 

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.
Department of Philosophy, University of St Andrews, Edgecliffe, The Scores, St Andrews, KY16 9AL
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​ravithakral@icloud.com