David Schmidtz (; born 1955) is a Canadian-American philosopher. He is Presidential Chair of Moral Science at West Virginia University's Chambers College of Business and Economics. He is also editor-in-chief of the journal Social Philosophy & Policy. Previously, he was Kendrick Professor of Philosophy and Eller Chair of Service-Dominant Logic at the University of Arizona. While at Arizona, he founded and served as inaugural head of the Department of Political Economy and Moral Science.
Education and career
Schmidtz grew up in Humboldt, Saskatchewan, Canada. In 1983, he received his B.A. in philosophy from the University of Saskatchewan. He earned an M.A. in philosophy from the University of Arizona in 1985, and an M.A. in economics, also from the University of Arizona, in 1987. Schmidtz earned his PhD at the University of Arizona in 1988 under the direction of Allen Buchanan. He also studied with Joel Feinberg and Keith Lehrer, Holly Martin Smith, R. Mark Isaac, and Vernon Smith.
In 1988, Schmidtz took a job as an assistant professor at Yale University. He was promoted to associate professor in 1991. He left Yale in 1994, taught at Bowling Green State University, and joined the University of Arizona in 1995. He was promoted to Professor (of Philosophy, joint in Economics) in 1998.
Schmidtz taught first-year property as a visiting professor at Florida State University College of Law in 2007. In the 2014–15 academic year, he was a national Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar and John Stuart Mill Professor at Hamburg University. Schmidtz is the founding director of the Freedom Center at the University of Arizona.