When journal editors play favorites
Authors
Journal Title
Philosophical Studies
ISSN
0031-8116
Publisher
Springer
Language
English
Type
Article
This Version
VoR
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Heesen, R. (2017). When journal editors play favorites. Philosophical Studies https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0895-4
Abstract
Should editors of scientific journals practice triple-anonymous reviewing? I consider two arguments in favor. The first says that insofar as editors’ decisions are affected by information they would not have had under triple-anonymous review, an injustice is committed against certain authors. I show that even well-meaning editors would commit this wrong and I endorse this argument. The second argument says that insofar as editors’ decisions are affected by information they would not have had under triple-anonymous review, it will negatively affect the quality of published papers. I distinguish between two kinds of biases that an editor might have. I show that one of them has a positive effect on quality and the other a negative one, and that the combined effect could be either positive or negative. Thus I do not endorse the second argument in general. However, I do endorse this argument for certain fields, for which I argue that the positive effect does not apply.
Keywords
feminist philosophy of science, bias, peer review, social epistemology, formal epistemology
Sponsorship
This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant SES 1254291 and by an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust and the Isaac Newton Trust.
Funder references
Leverhulme Trust (ECF-2016-551)
Isaac Newton Trust (1608(ac))
Embargo Lift Date
2100-01-01
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-017-0895-4
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/264468
Rights
Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International, Attribution 4.0 International