About Dave

Dave directed the Arizona Center for Philosophy of Freedom, then housed in the College of Social & Behavioral Sciences, from its founding in 2010 until 2019. Following the Center's 5-year review in 2019, the Center was promoted to the status of University Center at the recommendation of the external review committee. It is now housed in the Office of Research, Innovation, and Impact. 

See Dave's cv in the "About Dave" drop down. His work has been reprinted 107 times in 16 languages. 

Dave aspires to pick up where the Scottish Enlightenment left off, treating Ethics as a subject that begins and ends with observation: specifically, observation of the human condition and of what tends to improve it. Today's moral theories often focus on questions of what to do, whereas David Hume and Adam Smith were more focused on what works—that is, what has a history of leading people to live in ways that make their communities better off with them than without them.