Changes to ethics journals landscape/rankings?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

It seems like the top ethics journal landscape is a bit different than it was the last time Leiter did a poll – JPP became (?) Political Philosophy, PPA is Free & Equal but then there’s the Wiley PPA with new editors. Is Ethics the best, then these old/new ones lumped together in a tier below it? Anything to say about which seems better than the others?

Good questions--these changes seem significant and I haven't seen any discussion of what people make of the new landscape.

Any specialists in ethics and/or political philosophy willing to weigh in?

Comments

[Ethicist]

I'd be curious what others have heard, but it seems like this list from Leiter isn't necessarily up to date anymore despite only being a few years old (https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2022/08/specialist-journals-that-publish-the-best-articles-in-moral-andor-political-philosophy-the-results.html)

For example, I've heard several folks say that JESP has become more prestigious than the Journal of Moral Philosophy (I have no idea why, that's just what I've heard - and it could be false!).

I also haven't heard much about Free and Equal versus the new PPA from folks - it might be too soon to tell. For example, there was a time when Hypatia was really considered a prestigious journal to publish feminist analytic philosophy in, but over the last ten years its reputation has worsened significantly. I doubt that either Free and Equal or PPA will face the same fate as Hypatia, but my guess is it will be awhile before any clear ranking establishes itself.

But I would also be very curious to hear what people think (particularly about how the Leiter ranking has changed since 2022). It would be interesting for a new survey to go out, especially given all the recent changes.

[Daniel Weltman]

I think it's too early to say for PPA with the new editors, Political Philosophy, and Free & Equal, although with the latter two it's not much of a stretch to attribute to them whatever ranking you would've given to their forerunners.

If forced at gunpoint or even just bribed with a candy bar I'd say (personally speaking) that FrEq and PP are (likely to be) just as good as their forerunners, and the new PPA I have only read one article in, and it was not a good article.

My own personal rankings put the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, and Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy up in the top tier along with Ethics. My love for CRISPP is maybe a little idiosyncratic but my impression is that my love for JESP and JMP is relatively widely shared. Utilitas is maybe also in the top tier if you ask me (and maybe if you ask others).

[Pairwise]

As with Ethicist, I have the impression--from conversations with others in practical philosophy that JESP has been steadily growing in reputation. (Anecdotally, I do see JESP papers cited more regularly than Journal of Moral Philosophy papers, but that could be a product of my specialization). Several years back, a JESP paper was among those selected for the Philosophers' Annual top ten. Say what you will about this award (if that's what it is), but something like that would plausibly enhance a journal's reputation. After all, if a journal publishes what is regarded by a number of reputable philosophers one of the best papers in the discipline, without regard to area...

It would also not surprise me if, given the prestige loss (at least, temporarily) of the new PPA and Free & Equal (old PPA)--given e.g.
uncertainty over what these journals will look like content-wise, how publishing in them will be perceived)--that the consistency in direction and quality at JESP looks very good.

[VTinUSA]

I am a value theorist, and largely in agreement with the commenters thus far. Ethics and old-PPA/F&E have been degrading for years. They no longer publish the best work. Jury’s still out on new-PPA.

The best work, rather, seems to be scattered across journals. JESP, certainly; but also JMP; JPP/Political Phil; Utilitas; Social Theory and Practice; probably others I’m forgetting. There are distinctions in there (JPP/PP and JESP are prob the best), but they are slight. (Also, some generalist journals, like AJP and PS, regularly publish excellent work in ethics)

[Feminist Ethicist]

As a feminist ethicist, I'll add two things:

1. The comment from Ethicist about Hypatia is a good indicator of how these kinds of "prestige" rankings can work for better or worse. Hypatia had a well-known (it was covered in the New York Times!) bad editorial incident nearly a decade ago that has unfortunately stuck to the journal's reputation. However, the entire editorial team has changed over since then, consists of excellent feminist scholars, and luckily because of this, people have continued to submit to the journal allowing it to publish really strong work in the field.

2. I understand why journal "prestige" is a useful heuristic for things like promotion and tenure review, but it is otherwise fairly useless for identifying scholarship that is interesting/helpful/innovative in my subfield of ethics.

[Incommensurability]

So we went from

1. Ethics
2. PPA
3. J Pol Phil

To

1. Ethics (I don't see how this can be disputed as at least the plurality opinion - it was clear no. 1 then its rivals imploded)
2. Maybe Pol Phil? F&E? New PPA? JMP? JESP? Oxford Studies in X? PPE? Utilitas?

The problem with this is, any time you're trying to make a case for a moral and political philosopher or for the area itself in an institutional context, you don't have the clear indicators you used to have. No one outside moral and political philosophy is going to accept it has eight "top" journals or whatever.

[Daniel Weltman]

@Incommensurability: I mean, yeah, this stuff is always weird. I don't think "Ethics #1" is or was as clear as you're suggesting.

That it's hard to make the case that there are lots of top journals in moral and political philosophy is not a reason to think there are not in fact lots of top journals in moral and political philosophy. I think the plurality opinion among moral and political philosophers is that there are a lot of journals with high standards that publish good stuff, where by "a lot" I mean like, 5 or 6, which does not seem like a lot to me, but I dunno.

It might be more than other subfields have, but I think ethics and political philosophy is by far the biggest chunk of philosophers working, isn't it? I think each year on this blog we get a summary of the jobs that year and a big percent of them are ethics/political philosophy, aren't they? So it would make sense if there are more good journals in subfields where there are more people writing stuff.

[Incommensurability]

@Daniel Weltman
For what it's worth, Ethics beat 2nd place (PPA) 209–65 in the 2022 Leiter poll mentioned above and 201-60 in 2018.

Beyond that, yeah, five top journals would be fine. The problem is no one agrees on the five! As this thread shows there are around ten credible candidates for top five. And that means there functionally isn't a top five (nor a top six). Contrast with generalist journals, which have a well defined top five, and you see the difficult situation moral and political philosophers are in when choosing journals and evidencing their publishing ability.

[toptwo]

In my circles, for sure Ethics and PPA were considered the two top journals—largely on a par—with the others far behind (far enough behind that they'd come after the top five generalist journals).

As for how things currently stand...hard to say.

My personal opinion was that PPA had over the recent years become increasingly idiosyncratic, overly dominated by the tastes of certain associate editors. But that might just be me.

[IMHO]

I was talking to another very successful political philosopher a few weeks ago about this. For many years Ethics and PPA were considered the top two journals in the field, in a tier of their own. With the the editors of PPA leaving to start Free and Equal (smh at the name) and new leadership at PPA, it's plausible to think that Ethics now stands alone as the top journal and in that second tier you now have PPA and F&E. Of course things can change and I'm not even sure it would make sense for Leiter to run another poll for a year or two so we can see what direction these journals go and the quality of the published work. And while I don't get the sense that JESP has the reputation anywhere near those three, maybe I don't quite have my finger on the pulse of the field and its reputational ranking is on the rise as others have suggested. But the more prestigious journals the merrier as the acceptance rates at all of these journals are still breathtakingly low.

[Tim]

I am surprised that Free and Equal isn’t inheriting the reputation of PPA. Isn’t everything the same but the name?

[Assc prof]

But the name alone surely docks their reputation, fairly or not!

[Tim]

Why “surely”? When I am on a hiring committee I don’t think I would view Free and Equal differently to how I viewed PPA… should I?

[Daniel Weltman]

@Tim: There is some discussion of the topic here:https://dailynous.com/2024/08/13/journal-created-from-the-ashes-of-ppa-gets-name-editor-in-chief/