I wanted to write a polemical post after reading Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa's post about corrupted editorial practices at Philosophical Studies. But after reading some of the discussion at Dailynous, I could not bring myself to engage again (recall, recall, here, and here as well as countless other posts) with the rhetoric that emanates from some journal editors, who by serving the profession (no denying that) also promote their (intellectual) friends and wish to keep their own untrammeled access to particular journal pages. After all, they just echo the recent norms of the profession; until quite recently nearly all the purportedly top philosophy journals fell well short of adopting best practices (note the plural) in academic journal editing. Many were effectively captured by some informal faction (or overlapping factions). Note that journal capture is possible without intent; all it requires is systematic bias, tacit or explicit, to creep into the practice (and the very best citation data we have suggests some such bias).*
I am not suggesting that all philosophy journals should embrace and enforce, say, conflict of interest policies, including appearance of conflict of interest policies, although in policy-relevant fields, e.g., applied ethics, philosophy of special sciences (etc.), it ought to be mandatory. (By the way, I don't recall that the latest draft of the APA's code of ethics aims to address this, but maybe I missed it.) Nor am I claiming that all journals should try to emulate best editorial practices (triple masked review, automatic software, transparent policies, etc.) to be found in other disciplines (and a few philosophy journals). I think it is fine that some philosophy journals want to promote a particular viewpoint or method (etc.). In fact, I would probably warmly welcome a journal editor that dispenses with review and basically says, "I'll publish what I find worthy, interesting, and relevant (etc.)" I also think it would be great if more editors tried out new ways of crowd-refereeing or other innovations that deviate from an idealized model developed in pre-internet age.
To be clear: we require from our editors many philosophical virtues, but we also expect good judgment. In most cases good judgment ought to include impartiality and fairness. Good judgment and impartiality/fairness can come apart. For example, once I received a glowing report and an incompetent report on a paper. The editor rejected the paper citing the split reviews. After I had submitted the paper elsewhere I wrote the editor (an esteemed older colleague) to express my surprise that the incompetent report informed his decision. (I explained why I thought it incompetent.) He wrote back agreeing that the report was below expected quality, but that given the high number of submissions at his journal, two positive reports were required to be eligible for an acceptance (and apparently R&R)--I later looked at the journal website and this was nowhere to be found there. Anyway, this editor had farmed out the scope of his good judgment while being a strict rule-follower.
Another journal I am familiar with lets PhD students do a first cut of desk rejects. (To the best of my knowledge this is not reported on the journal website last I looked.) In my opinion, and as a rule, PhD students are incapable of having a well developed good judgment, although this practice undoubtedly is a fantastic way to develop such judgment.
All of this matters because we work in a zero-sum environment with relatively small number of excellent positions Stateside and in Europe a relatively small number of people that are awarded the vast majority of the grants that can be leveraged for academic privilege. Where one publishes is a key variable in one's professional success. Most of the people who obtain such excellent positions and grants are hard working and (perhaps) insightful, that is, fully deserving--I would say that because I am, well, one of these folk. But we are also the lucky ones in a system that is akin to a rigged lottery and we have duties to prevent the rigging to continue.
*I am not saying there is never intent.
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