The executive, associate, and advisory editors and all of the editorial board members of one of the most influential journals in moral and political philosophy, Philosophy & Public Affairs, have resigned en masse. According to their statement (below), crucial aims of scholarly journals are “not well-served by commercial publishing.” Philosophy & Public Affairs is published by Wiley, the sixth largest publishing corporation in the world by revenue (over $2 billion annually). The outgoing editors and editorial board members will be launching a new diamond open-access journal to be published by Open Library of Humanities (OLH), and will be occupying at the new journal the same positions they held at Philosophy & Public Affairs. (Current editor-in-chief of Philosophy & Public Affairs, Anna Stilz, is not among the statement’s signatories. In answer to an inquiry about that, she replied, “I cannot comment on this at this time.” That said, it is worth noting that Stilz has been publicly critical of Wiley in the past—see, for example, the updates on this post.) Readers may recall the similar resignation last year of the editorial team at the Journal of Political Philosophy, another Wiley journal, and that team’s creation of Political Philosophy, also a diamond open-access journal published by OLH. At least 11 Wiley journals have seen mass editorial resignations since 2018, according to Retraction Watch. The as-of-yet-unnamed new journal will be open for submissions beginning in September. In the statement below, the editors and editorial board members announce their resignation, explain their reasons for it and for their creation of an open-access journal, and discuss issues related to submissions currently under review at Philosophy & Public Affairs. The following is a statement from the executive, associate, and advisory editors and all the members of the editorial board of Philosophy & Public Affairs. We are unanimously resigning from our editorial roles at Philosophy & Public Affairs, published by Wiley, and launching a new diamond open-access journal published by Open Library of Humanities (OLH). All of us will play the same editorial roles in the new journal and will retain the aim of publishing the best philosophical work touching on matters of public importance. We take this step because we believe that scholarly journals—including our own—serve important purposes, and that … Continue reading Editors at Philosophy & Public Affairs Resign; Will Launch New OA Journal