Rico Vitz

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS

EDUCATION

HONORS AND AWARDS

• NEH Summer Stipend, Hume's Psychology of Religious Belief, 2008

• Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching Award (finalist), UNF, 2008-9

• Mentor TA, TA Development Program, UCR, 2004-5

• Teaching Excellence Award, UCR, 2001-2

• Graduate Student Teaching Excellence Award (nominee), Utah, 1999-2000

WORKS IN PROGRESS

• Noble, Peaceful, and Strong: Descartes and the Ethics of Belief (conditionally accepted for publication with Springer/Kluwer Academic), being revised for resubmission.

• "Doxastic Virtues as Moral Virtues in Hume's Epistemology," being revised for resubmission.

• "Lies, Captivating Lies, and Religious Belief: Hume on the Learned Elite and the Christian 'Superstition'," under review.

• "Hume on 'the Irresistible Contagion of Opinion'," invited for presentation at the Hume Society Conference (2011), in preparation.

PUBLICATIONS 

• "Descartes and the Question of Direct Doxastic Voluntarism," Journal of Philosophical Research, forthcoming.

• "Sympathy and Benevolence in Hume's Moral Psychology," Journal of the History of Philosophy 42:3 (July 2004): 261-75.

• "Hume and the Limits of Benevolence," Hume Studies 28:2 (November 2002): 271-95.

• "Doxastic Voluntarism," The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds. James Fieser and Bradley Dowden, February 2008.

• Review of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, by Daniel Dennett, Faith and Philosophy, forthcoming.

• Review of The Riddle of Hume's Treatise: Skepticism, Naturalism, and Irreligion, by Paul Russell, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, July 2008.

PRESENTATIONS (2005  - Present) 

• "Lies, Captivating Lies, and Religious Belief: Hume on the Learned Elite and the Christian 'Superstition',"
  
  
• Hume Society Conference, August 2009.
• Florida Philosophical Association, November 2008.
• Society of Christian Philosophers - Western, October 2008.
  
  
• "Motivationally/Emotionally Biased Anti-Religious Belief,"
  
  
• Society of Christian Philosophers - Midwestern, April 2009.

• "Doxastic Virtues as Moral Virtues in Hume's Epistemology,"
  
  
• American Philosophical Association - Pacific, March 2008.
• Florida Philosophical Association, November 2007.
• Hume Society Conference, August 2007.

• "Descartes and the Question of Direct Doxastic Voluntarism,"
  
  
• American Philosophical Association - Pacific, April 2007.
• Society of Christian Philosophers - Western, February 2007.

• "Hume on the Moral Assessment of People for Their Beliefs,"
  
  
• Hume and His Critics, April 2005.

• "Hume's Irreligious Philosophy'"
  
  
• Central Florida Community College, March 2009.

• "Lies, Captivating Lies, and Religious Belief: Hume on the Learned Elite and the Christian 'Superstition',"
  
  
• University of Florida, November 2008.

• Motivationally/Emotionally Biased Anti-Religious Belief,"
  
  
• Society of Orthodox Philosophy in America, February 2008.

• "Doxastic Virtues as Moral Virtues in Hume's Epistemology,"
  
  
• University of California - Irvine, February 2007.
• Society of Orthodox Philosophy in America, January 2007.

• "Meditation, Education, and Self-Deception,"
  
  
• Azusa Pacific University, May 2006.
• University of North Florida, March 2006.

• "Unmasking the Cartesian Meditator,"
  
  
• Fort Hays State University, February 2006.
• California State University - Fresno, February 2006.

• "Persons, Property, and the State: The Views of Locke, Rousseau, and Kant," Liberty Fund, February 2008.

• "F. A. Hayek’s The Constitution of Liberty," Liberty Fund, January 2008.

Commentaries

• On Gerald Gaus's "The Continuing Challenge of Hobbes to Public Reason Liberalism," Blue Cross/Blue Shield Ethics Center Symposium, November 2009.

• On Mitchell Haney's "The Value of Slow," Blue Cross/Blue Shield Ethics Center Symposium, November 2008.

COURSES TAUGHT (2006 - Present) 

• Lies and Self-Deception

• Virtues: Classic and Modern 

• Lies and Self-Deception

• Modern Philosophy

• Virtues: Classic and Modern

• Theories of Tolerance

• Reasoning and Critical Thinking

• Science and Religion - Honors

• Introduction to Philosophy

• Hume and Kant: Epistemology (3 unit)

• Modern Political Philosophy: Hobbes (3 unit)

• Medieval Religion: Maimonides' Guide (3 unit)

• Religious Epistemology (1 unit)

• Medieval Religion: Aquinas's Summa Theologica (3 unit)

• Aristotle and Hume: Ethics (3 unit)

• Aristotle East and West (1 unit)

PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES

• American Philosophical Association

• Florida Philosophical Association

• Hume Society

• Society of Christian Philosophers

• Society of Orthodox Philosophy in America
  

REFERENCES

• Janet Broughton, University of California, Berkeley

• Don Garrett, New York University

• Peter Graham, University of California, Riverside

• Paul Hoffman, University of California, Riverside

• Gary Watson, University of Southern California