Retracting an accepted article from Philosophia?

Back in our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

I just had a paper accepted at Philosophia two days before the really icky news broke. What do I do? Should I retract it? Interested in both moral and practical reasons to retract/not retract.

Maybe-important details: I'm an early-career philosopher in a TT job at a small school.

These are very good questions. For those of you who may be unaware of what happened with Philosophia, here is the relevant background. What do you all think? 

Comments

[TT]

I, for one, would never hold your publication against you. Take that as a data point.

[ed]

I cannot imagine the argument that would support the retraction of one's own paper in this situation. The journal is bigger than this incident. And for anyone who has worked on a journal, we realize that mistakes happen. We are human, after all. Philosophia has been around a long time. If you want to do something about it - whatever the "it" is - you can be sure not to send any other papers to the journal.

[anonymous R1 faculty]

For what it's worth, I think you definitely wouldn't be judged if your publication was not on political or hot-button issues. However... I have to say that I suspect if your paper is politically charged, people will probably be more prone to thinking about how many "mistakes" the editor claims he has made (they all seem to be about certain kinds of papers), and whether your paper was also a "mistake".

[fwiw]

I agree with the posters above that I would never hold a publication in that journal against anyone.

*But*, if I were in your position, I would likely want to retract my article, for reasons related to integrity and my desire not to contribute to venues for hate and misinformation, even in (apparently) accidental cases like this one.

I don't have a tenure-track job. Take that for what it's worth.

[Eugene]

Over the last several years, Philosophia seemed to pride itself on publishing politically and ethically tendentious work, even if that work was of low quality. The journal's reputation is now firmly in the trash at least until staffing changes are made. I will continue to look at Philosophia publications with suspicion. Plenty of other people I know feel the same way. Your publication probably won't be held against you, but it is unlikely to do you many favors at this point.

I hope that I'm not violating this website's code of conduct by being so frank.

[awkwardlytimedpub]

Original poster here! Thanks, Marcus, for gathering so much good advice for me.

I'll just add that my paper does not deal, directly or indirectly, with any political (or politically-charged) issues at all. It seems like (understandably) that may make a difference here.

[Chris]

Given that your article doesn’t deal with politically charged issues, and that you’re on the tenure track - I wouldn’t withdraw. Of course if you have tons of pubs and want to retract for reasons fwiw suggests you might want to retract, then that would be fine. But if you feel like you might need it for tenure, I wouldn’t. Keep in mind that deans and such won’t likely know anything about this controversy. Tenure letter writers will read it and comment on its quality independently of the venue (if they’re responsible- which most are, I suspect.)

[Out of curiosity]

Just out of curiosity, would a line on the CV "accepted but retracted from Philosophia" look good?

[don't go there]

Out of curiousity
No it would not look good. Think of the practices it would lead to: people could list papers "retracted" that were never accepted; or people will begin campaigns of excessively policing journals, retracting papers for the smallest reason, to show their "virtue".

[Assistant Professor]

Out of Curiosity: if the OP were to withdraw their paper it wouldn't be obvious to me where to put it on a CV (it would not result in an actual publication to note on the CV until they place it elsewhere). But if they did withdraw it and then put it on a CV (and I am not endorsing either move here) then I would say "accepted but withdrawn" not "retracted" since that would imply that the journal retracted the essay, not that the author withdrew it from publication.