Chris Heathwood (PhD, UMass, 2005) joined the CU department in 2005 and works mainly in theoretical ethics, but also has interests in metaphysics and the philosophy of religion. Most of his research has been on the topic of well-being, or of what things are of ultimate benefit and harm to us, and on various topics in metaethics. During the 2012-13 academic year, Heathwood was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at Princeton University's University Center for Human Values. He currently serves as the Philosophy Department's Director of Undergraduate Studies.
Current Research: Prof. Heathwood recently finished a paper on the nature of irreducibly normative properties, which will appear in Oxford Studies in Metaethics, volume 10. He also recently completed the entry on "Desire-Fullfillment Theory" for The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Well-Being (G. Fletcher, ed.). His long-term research project is a book manuscript defending a desire satisfaction theory of well-being. In connection with this, he is currently working on identifying the desires that are relevant to welfare, on solving the problem of remote desires, and on understanding the resonance constraint for theories of well-being. He is also thinking about the nature pleasure and pain -- in particular, arguments against the hedonic tone theory and defenses of attitude-based theories.
When he's not thinking about these topics or teaching about others, he hangs out with his two sons, Henry and Charlie, and wife, Nicki. When he's not doing that, he likes to listen to radio stories (which nowadays often means podcasts), play golf, do Bikram yoga, watch baseball (Little League as much as MLB), and play guitar. His son Henry spins a mean yo-yo. His son Charlie throws a nasty curveball. His wife Nicki does this.
For more information, see Chris Heathwood's personal website and CV.