Dr. Rajiv Hurhangee
I am a philosopher specializing in ethics, meta-ethics, and moral psychology, with strong interests in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, 18th-20th century European philosophy, and social and political philosophy. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, where I also completed the interdisciplinary Graduate Program in Classics, Philosophy, and Ancient Science. Previously, I earned my bachelor’s degree in philosophy at the University of Chicago and studied Latin at Princeton.
My research centers on the pursuit of happiness. In my current work, I explore how we should live under conditions in which a good life is elusive or beyond reach. I investigate this question through a series of papers organized into two thematic clusters. The first, Waiting for Happiness, examines persistent and often puzzling obstacles to flourishing in modern life: dissatisfaction, alienation, and acquiescence in diminished yet alterable forms of life. The second, Trying Ethics, asks what kind of ethics can guide us under conditions that undermine the possibility of living a good life. I develop a novel form of eudaimonism—a normative approach that places the happy life at the center of ethical theory—that retains its action-guiding force even when flourishing is beyond reach; and I make the case for a distinctive form of courage that allows us to confront such conditions without despair or falsification.
In my doctoral project, I examined what might make it rational to stake our happiness on pursuits whose success is uncertain or subject to forces beyond our control—for instance, a marriage or a career in the arts or the academy. I defended the novel view that the rationality of such pursuits is vindicated neither by their value nor by our desires for them but by a distinctive form of self-relation I call self-trust. I developed an account of self-trust as trust in one’s capacity for practical judgment and demonstrated how it overcomes limitations of value-based and desire-based alternatives. In the course of doing so, I offered new models of decision-making and rational agency.
For more details, please visit my website: https://rajivhurhangee.com.