Andrew Youpa
Professor; Program Coordinator, and Interim Associate Provost for Academic Programs
Phone: 618.453.3161
Office: Faner, Room 3040
email: ayoupa@siu.edu
Andrew Youpa received his Ph.D. in Philosophy in 2002 from the University of California, Irvine. He joined the faculty in the Department of Philosophy at SIU as an Assistant Professor in 2003. In 2010, he received the Outstanding Faculty Member Teaching in the University Core Curriculum Award. In 2020, he earned promotion to Professor of Philosophy.
Dr. Youpa teaches courses on major works in the history of philosophy and courses on issues in contemporary ethics. His research is on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century moral philosophy, or pre-Kantian moral philosophy in the Modern period. His focus on this period stems from his interest in the historical background of contemporary moral theorizing and contemporary conceptions of morality. Dr. Youpa's book, The Ethics of Joy: Spinoza on the Empowered Life (Oxford University Press, 2020), is about Benedict (Baruch) Spinoza's moral philosophy. His conception of morality is an illuminating alternative to conceptions that are centered on what an individual deserves in terms of praise and blame, reward and punishment. For Spinoza, morality is about how to live joyfully and lovingly. The aim of the moral philosopher and of moral theorizing is to empower, not to berate.
From January 2020 to July 2022, Dr. Youpa served as Associate Dean for Student and Curricular Affairs in the College of Liberal Arts. Currently, he is serving as interim Associate Provost for Academic Programs.