Philosophy & Public Affairs, the highly regarded philosophy journal whose future was put in doubt when all of its editors and editorial board resigned en masse this past spring to form a new journal, has a new editorial team.
The new editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs is Jason Brennan (McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University). The journal's associate editors are Christopher Freiman (Chambers College of Business, West Virginia University) and David Lefkowitz (University of Richmond).
The journal's editorial board (which Brennan expects to grow) is currently: Cristina Bicchieri (University of Pennsylvania), Emanuela Ceva (University of Geneva), Daniel Jacobson (University of Colorado), Matthew Kramer (Cambridge University), Kimberly Krawiec (University of Virginia School of Law), Jeffrey Moriarty (Bentley University), and Christopher Heath Wellman (Washington University in St. Louis).
The previous editorial team at Philosophy & Public Affairs, which is published by Wiley, resigned in May, stating that "scholarly journals -- including our own -- serve important purposes, and that these purposes are not well-served by commercial publishing." They then launched Free & Equal: a Journal of Ethics and Public Affairs, a diamond open-access journal published by Open Library of Humanities, and began accepting submissions last month.
Professor Brennan passed along the new mission statement for Philosophy & Public Affairs:
Philosophy & Public Affairs publishes the best philosophical work that engages with matters of public concern. Since 1972, Philosophy & Public Affairs has published pathbreaking scholarship that has reshaped philosophical debates for decades to come. Continuing this tradition, the journal seeks papers that are bold, daring, and risk-taking. Philosophy & Public Affairs prizes papers that seek to change paradigms over papers that make minor moves in long debates. It seeks to avoid esoteric and scholastic papers in favor of accessible and engaging papers about topics that matter to non-specialists.
The journal welcomes submissions from philosophers, legal scholars, political scientists, economists, and sociologists. It welcomes papers on problems requiring empirical or legal analysis, provided those papers also rigorously defend a normative position.
All papers submitted to Philosophy & Public Affairs are blinded to editors. Papers that pass initial inspection undergo triple-blind review. The journal values viewpoint and ideological diversity; no preference will be given to papers that affirm editors' political or moral commitments. The journal aims to provide a forum in which researchers with different perspectives can bring their distinctive methods to bear on problems that concern everyone.
The editorial staff retains complete autonomy from Wiley in determining which and how many papers to publish. Commercial considerations have no bearing on the decisions of the editorial staff. This editorial autonomy is protected by contract.
That last paragraph about editorial autonomy is of particular interest given that pressure from Wiley on journal editors to increase publication rates was an issue in the publisher's 2023 firing of Robert Goodin from the Journal of Political Philosophy, whose editorial team subsequently left to found the new journal, Political Philosophy. At the time, Anna Stilz (Berkeley), then editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs, noted similar pressure was being applied to her journal. When Wiley fired Goodin, over 1000 scholars working in political philosophy and related areas pledged to not work with or for, or submit to, the Journal of Political Philosophy. The Journal of Political Philosophy has had no editorial team for months and appears moribund.
Many people working in political philosophy and political theory expected a similar fate to befall Philosophy & Public Affairs, and will find this turn of events somewhat surprising.
I asked Professor Brennan about his motivation for taking up the position of editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs, noting that it could be seen by some as antagonistic. He said:
This move will upset some people, I presume, but I'm not trying to antagonize anyone. If I were, I would say so proudly. What I saw was an opportunity to rescue a journal in trouble. We have guaranteed autonomy, and we can now help ensure the journal returns to its original form, publishing exciting work on issues of public concern.
To me, this seems analogous to what happens at times in the guitar industry. A legacy company has internal conflicts and disputes between management, shareholders, and staff. People leave. But the brand still has value. When that happens, new people often come in, take over the brand, fix the problems, and then try make the brand even better. Often they succeed. As for the former board's new journal Free & Equal, I wish it all the best. Philosophy is a field with unusually low acceptance rates. We need more good journals of high status, not fewer. The burden young faculty face to building their careers keeps getting harder.
I know some people believe it would be better if, in the long run, all journals followed the Philosopher's Imprint [open access] model. Perhaps they're right. But in the short term, the reality remains that many of the top philosophy journals (such as Noûs and Philosophy and Phenomenological Research) are Wiley journals, while the vast majority of our top journals are with Wiley, Taylor and Francis, Brill, Elsevier, Sage, and other private entities. Anyone with a principled stance against publishing with commercial publishers will thereby have to limit themselves to just a few outlets.
The journal will be adding a new category of paper to the types it already considers: public philosophy. Brennan writes:
We are looking for short, accessible papers, which explain a difficult philosophical concept or defend an interesting philosophical claim, but which are aimed at an intelligent lay audience. While our regular articles aim to make novel moves in existing debates or create new debates, the goal of the public philosophy papers is to engage and educate the public in philosophical topics of public concern. Public philosophy papers will still be reviewed, but will face different standards.
The new editorial team at Philosophy & Public Affairs will begin considering submissions immediately. Regarding previously submitted manuscripts, Brennan says that any papers accepted for publication by the previous editorial team but not yet published will be, and papers that received "revise and resubmit" judgments from the prior editors will be treated as such by the new team. He added: "we have a different vision for the scope and priority of the journal than the previous editors. For that reason, we are willing to take a second look at any recently rejected paper."