Diversity in Moral and Political Philosophy Journals

Diversity in Moral and Political Philosophy Journals


Alex Guerrero (U. Penn) looked at four leading journals in moral and political philosophy to see how they have been doing in terms of racial and ethnic diversity over the past decade. Some findings:

  • 0.9% of authors 1.6% of editors are racialized as black
  • 1.2% of authors and 0% of editors are Latina/Latino
  • 4.9% of authors and 4.3% of editors are Asian
  • 18.2% of authors and 10.3% of editors appear to have English as a foreign language

Guerrero notes:

This is perhaps particularly troubling given the fact that there is a common assumption that although philosophy, in general, has a serious problem in terms of the racial and ethnic diversity of the field, things are somewhat better in moral and political philosophy.  And it is particularly troubling, too, because moral and political philosophy are often viewed as areas in which both (a) what is studied and written about and (b) how one writes about and studies a subject may be influenced by one’s particular life experiences. 

He asks:

What does it say about our profession if this is what [these journals] look like, particularly given the distinctive racial/ethnic character of many of the most pressing moral and political issues?

More details about the study are posted at Discrimination and Disadvantage.

(image: detail of “Iris, Tulips, Jonquils and Crocuses” by Alma Thomas)

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nono
nono
8 years ago

Very interesting. I’d be keen to know whether ethnic minorities are more or less underrepresented in those journals than people who did not receive an undergraduate education at well-known Anglophone institutions.

RJ
RJ
8 years ago

@nono: I don’t believe much hangs on your question, but there are many many more people published in those pages who studied as undergraduates at non-well-known Anglophone institutions than there are Black, Latina/o, or Asian philosophers. In the most recent issue of *Ethics* we’ve got the following authors: Dill (Technical University Dresden), Fabre (Sorbonne), Moellendorf (St. John’s), McMahan (University of the South/Oxford), Statman (Bar Ilan), Luban (Chicago), Blum (Tel Aviv), Riley (Queen’s), D’Cruz (Yale), Kalef (Victoria). By my count that makes 7 philosophers in this issue that didn’t go to elite English-speaking undergrads. There are eight articles total published by black philosophers since 2005 in the four journals which Guerrero’s surveyed, with some of those articles attributable to the same authors.

observer
observer
8 years ago

You could have heard a pin drop. I guess we’ll have to wait for a study on gender and then try to piggyback on that.