I am an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy and director of the Ethics and Public Policy Program at Clark University in Worcester, MA. 

I'm also the lead researcher for digital ethics and governance at the Jain Family Institute (JFI), a non-partisan applied research organization in New York City. 

My research spans theoretical and applied ethics, philosophy of action, and philosophy of law. I have written about moral responsibility, virtue and vice, and most recently, the ethics of artificial intelligence. 

Previously, I was a postdoctoral research fellow in philosophy at Northeastern University and a visiting lecturer in philosophy at Mount Holyoke College. 

​I completed my PhD at MIT and BPhil at the University of Pittsburgh. 

​I'm Indo-Caribbean-American.  I was born and raised in Queens, New York, by parents from the island of Trinidad, where my great grandparents were brought as indentured servants from the Indian subcontinent.

Email: arali@clarku.edu
Office Phone: +1 (508) 793-7326

 

Research

• Manifestations of Virtue
  Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics Vol. 10 (2020)
  ...argues that praiseworthy acts ought to be understood in virtue-theoretic terms even though fully praiseworthy action needn't issue from virtue.
  
  
• Encoding Race and Structural Racism: Philosophical Perspectives (with Sally Haslanger, Jerome Hodges, and Lily Hu)
  Draft
  ...argues that dominant strategies for addressing algorithmic racial discrimination presuppose an individualist conception of racism and an Aristotelian conception of fairness 
  
  
• Virtue and Excuse 
  Down for revision
  ​...explains why wrongdoings performed under duress are excused: these wrongdoings are compatible with virtue in a special sense.

 

 

Teaching

• Philosophy of Law (Spring 2022)
  ...explores the conceptual and ethical problems arising from the study and practice of law; topic include: obligations to obey the law, civil disobedience, the legitimacy of judicial review, originalism in constitutional interpretation, the relevance of purely statistical evidence, punishment, and the nature of wrongful discrimination
  
  
• Technology, Ethics, and Public Policy (Spring 2022)
  ...examines the most pressing ethical concerns relating to technology (esp. artificial intelligence) and scrutinizes public policy solutions; topics include: fairness and bias in machine learning, algorithmic transparency and explainability, threats to privacy, and risks of manipulation 
  
  
• Theories of Ethics (Fall 2021)
  ...introduces metaethics and normative ethics; topics include: metaethical realism and emotivism, metaethical relativism, theories of well-being, utilitarianism, the doctrine of double effect, Kantian ethics, moral luck, and praiseworthiness. 
  
  
• Medical Ethics (Spring 2020)
  ...explores ethical and conceptual issues arising from the practice of medicine; topics include: the permissibility of abortion and physician-assisted suicide, theories of disability, the ethics of human enhancement, the allocation of medical resources, medical paternalism, informed consent, and conscientious refusal by physicians.
  
  
• Race, Racism, and Racialized Harm (Fall 2020)
  ...investigates the concept of race and the nature of racism; topics include: eliminativism about race, social constructivist conceptions of race, cognitivism and volitionalism about racism, structural racism, and the use of racial categories in medicine, policing, and hiring. 
  
  
• Environmental Ethics (Fall 2018) 
  ...explores the ethical issues arising from our relationship to the natural environment; topics include: moral status, the value of biodiversity, intergenerational justice, individual and collective responsibilities regarding climate change, radical environmental activism, and the cost-benefit approach to environmental policy-making.
  
  
• Mind and Action (Spring 2017) 
  ...investigates the relationship between our minds, bodies, and behavior; topics include: dualism, mind-brain identity theory, behaviourism, functionalism, the causal theory of action, and practical knowledge.  
  
  
• Logical Thought (Fall 2016)
  ...serves as a comprehensive and non-formal introduction to constructing and evaluating arguments; topics include: reconstructing deductive arguments charitably, assessing the acceptability of premises, evaluating validity, and critiquing appeals to testimony and expertise.​​