Colin Heydt
Assistant Professor

Ph.D. Boston University , 2003. Joined the Philosophy Department at USF in 2005. His research focuses on the history of ethics, with special emphasis on problems of moral education as treated in eighteenth and nineteenth century British philosophy. Heydt is the author of Rethinking Mill's Ethics: Character and Aesthetic Education (Continuum, 2006) as well as articles published in Journal of the History of Philosophy , British Journal for the History of Philosophy , and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (where he is also an area editor).

His current work considers the claim made by philosophical writing in the Scottish Enlightenment to be therapeutic, that is, to foster moral improvement. The work pursues two objectives: 1) to identify the specific ways in which this philosophical writing purports to improve readers, and 2) to analyze how the writing contributes to that improvement. Addressing the latter issue requires attention not only to how these texts attempt to correct the beliefs of readers, but also to how genre, style, and rhetorical structure elicit effects (cognitive and volitional) from readers. Along with contributing to the continuing exploration of moral philosophy in the Scottish Enlightenment, this project addresses the broader question: How should we think about the point of moral philosophy? A careful consideration of Scottish moral philosophy shows us what follows when we commit to conceiving of philosophy as therapeutic versus as principally about pursuing truth. This enables us, in turn, to think more deeply about which different conceptualizations of moral philosophy are genuinely open to us, and why some may appear more attractive than others.

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