Abdul Ansari

Biography

Abdul Ansari is a philosopher and postdoctoral research associate. He specializes in ethics, moral psychology, and metaethics, with interests in related areas of social-political philosophy and history of ethics (especially Arabic thought).

Broadly speaking, Ansari writes about human valuing. His research explores the idea that concrete and good human relations are central to life as valuers, that they shape what it is to be good friends and people. Currently, he is developing an ethical theory of love, arguing that love is a rational response to a person when she is loved well — when the lover and loved relate to each other well, by being mutually attuned. For him, this suggests that virtuous but finite, contingent relationships are more fundamental than appreciating objective value in the world. In the near future, he plans to defend complementary theories of interpersonal respect and the foundations of value in ethics.

He is finishing his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Michigan, under the tutelage of Peter Railton, Elizabeth Anderson, Sarah Buss, and Brian Weatherson. At Michigan, he received a Rackham Merit Fellowship, and was the department’s nominee for a university-wide fellowship (in recognition of “unusually creative, ambitious, and impactful dissertation work”). Prior to all that, he finished his B.A. at the University of Houston, with highest university honors and an outstanding senior honors thesis prize. Before that, he grew up in Southwest Houston.