Arudra Burra

About

I am an assistant professor in philosophy in the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi. My primary research interests are in moral, political, and legal philosophy on the one hand, and in Indian constitutional history on the other. My current work centres around four broad themes:

I. Colonial continuities

Legal regimes can survive great changes of the political regimes which support them. For instance, some aspects of the legal edifice of the British Raj have continued well past the end of colonial rule. Should we be troubled by this fact? What can it tell us about the nature of law and its relation to politics?

II. Individual liberty in the Indian tradition

Indian nationalism is sometimes seen as the fountainhead of Indian liberalism, but it was concerned more with questions of political self-rule and social reform than with questions of individual liberty. Where then within the landscape of Indian moral and political thought (and practice) should one look for a defence of the liberty of the individual?

Research

III. Political Thought between India and the West

It is often thought that Indian political thought must be rooted in texts or traditions which are in some sense authentically Indian. As a corollary, 'Western' political thought can be seen as speaking to the Indian condition, if at all, only at one remove.
How should we approach the study of Western political thought in the Indian context? What, indeed, is 'Indian' about Indian political thought?

IV. Moral explanation and particularity

Moral philosophy should tell us not just which acts are right and wrong, but also help explain the features in virtue of which these properties obtain. What is the nature of the moral 'because'? Must explanations of particular moral facts always refer to underlying moral principles?

Blog

I blog at Out of Context.