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Specialist journals that publish the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy: the results

Brian Leiter

So with 329 votes, here are the results to our latest poll.  I'll note that a late surge by Economics & Philosophy and Politics, Philosophy & Economics made me wonder whether the PPE folks didn't rally their troops, but perhaps this is just indicative of the increasing popularity of PPE work.  In any case, look at the vote tallies, not just the ordinal rank (e.g., #6-8 are essentially tied).  (The results here, I should note, were not that different than the results of the pairwise comparison poll from last week.)  You can see the 2018 poll results here.

1. Ethics  (Condorcet winner: wins contests with all other choices)
2. Philosophy & Public Affairs  loses to Ethics by 209–65
3. Journal of Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 245–23, loses to Philosophy & Public Affairs by 220–51
4. Journal of Moral Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 267–9, loses to Journal of Political Philosophy by 129–126
5. Utilitas  loses to Ethics by 251–13, loses to Journal of Moral Philosophy by 135–128
6. Economics & Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 227–12, loses to Utilitas by 116–111
7. Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 249–20, loses to Economics & Philosophy by 119–118
8. Politics, Philosophy & Economics  loses to Ethics by 235–12, loses to Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy by 121–120
9. Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics  loses to Ethics by 245–6, loses to Politics, Philosophy & Economics by 144–79
10. Oxford Studies in Metaethics  loses to Ethics by 228–7, loses to Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics by 124–81
11. Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 225–11, loses to Oxford Studies in Metaethics by 122–80
12. The Journal of Ethics  loses to Ethics by 217–6, loses to Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy by 146–46
13. Ethical Theory & Moral Practice  loses to Ethics by 263–8, loses to The Journal of Ethics by 102–100
14. Social Theory & Practice  loses to Ethics by 211–9, loses to Ethical Theory & Moral Practice by 114–97
15. Journal of Applied Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 255–6, loses to Social Theory & Practice by 110–101
16. Social Philosophy & Policy  loses to Ethics by 170–9, loses to Journal of Applied Philosophy by 89–78
17. Journal of Social Philosophy  loses to Ethics by 180–6, loses to Social Philosophy & Policy by 70–66
18. Political Theory  loses to Ethics by 162–8, loses to Journal of Social Philosophy by 88–57
19. Journal of Value Inquiry  loses to Ethics by 208–6, loses to Political Theory by 73–68
20. European Journal of Political Theory  loses to Ethics by 146–8, loses to Journal of Value Inquiry by 67–64

Res Publica and Public Affairs Quarterly were runners-up for the top 20.  Constructive reader comments welcome.  If you're going to criticize any particular journal, you'll have to do so with your full name and a valid email address (the latter will not appear).

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14 responses to “Specialist journals that publish the best articles in moral and/or political philosophy: the results”

  1. Early career moral philosopher

    Thanks for this, Brian.

    I followed the poll results quite closely during the three days and my observations are the following:

    1) Ethics and PPA always dominated

    2) During the first two days the JPP, JMP and JESP were pretty close in 3, 4, and 5 place (with always a slight advantage of the JPP, and the JMP and JESP fighting for the 4th position)

    3) During the 3rd day, many votes went to Utilitas. But more surprisingly perhaps, Economics & Phil. and Phil. P. E, took a massive, massive jump.

    I find rankings helpful (particularly as a early career philosopher trying to decide where to send my work). But can we rely on online polls considering how easy is to rally votes and engage in other forms of cheating (VPNs, etc.,)?

    Reply
  2. Brian Leiter

    That's useful and fits my impressions as well. Note, though, that the big change from 2018 is the stronger showing for E&P and PPE; all the others performed similarly four years ago. Condorcet is very hard to game, and it can't be utilized from a private network, and it prohibits repeat votes from the same ISP address. What people can do is rally their friends and colleagues to vote, which isn't exactly "cheating" but can distort the results. All online polls should be taken with a big grain of salt, of course.

    Reply
  3. Matt Lister

    It seems like a pretty reasonable ranking, though I think it's clearly the case that the European Journal of Political Theory is, these days, better than Political Theory and some others it's ranked below. I also would have liked to see the Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy ("CRISPP") included. I think it's one of the more interesting journals publishing political philosophy (and related topics) these days. I probably wouldn't have ranked it top ten (though maybe low top ten) but certainly well in the top 20. (I should note I published a paper in that journal several years ago, but mostly I think that the current editor, Richard Bellamy, is doing a really good job on it.) I am sort of surprised to see Economics and Philosophy do quite so well. I like it a lot, but a fair amount of what it publishes is only marginally "moral and political philosophy" as opposed to philosophy of social sciences.

    Reply
  4. Steve C

    I find this quite useful – and remarkable how stable it has been over the past ten years. It would also be worthwhile to see a ranking for philosophy of law / jurisprudence journals, or even to hear your own personal rankings.

    Reply
  5. Another early career moral philosopher

    I appreciate the concern of Early career moral philosopher, but I think it's somewhat mitigated by the fact that the precise ordinal position matter fairly little (as Brian already indicated some journals are virtually tied). If we group journals together which are similarly popular (similar to how the PGR groups) the concerns about rallying votes are less salient. Here is a rough grouping of the journals in the poll. I started a new group whenever the vote in favor of the higher ranked journal wasn't close.

    Group 1 (1). Ethics
    Group 2 (2). Philosophy & Public Affairs.
    Group 3 (3-8). Journal of Political Philosophy; Journal of Moral Philosophy; Utilitas; Economics & Philosophy; Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy; Politics, Philosophy & Economics.
    Group 4 (9-11). Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics; Oxford Studies in Metaethics; Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy.
    Group 5 (12-17). Journal of Ethics; Ethical Theory & Moral Practice; Social Theory & Practice; Journal of Applied Philosophy; Social Philosophy & Policy; Journal of Social Philosophy
    Group 6 (18-22). Political Theory; Journal of Value Inquiry; European Journal of Political Theory; Res Publica; Public Affairs Quarterly

    In the bigger picture the precise ranking of JPP/JMP/JESP versus Utilitas/E&P/PPE matters less, they are all in the same group. Perhaps they wouldn't be if less people working in PPE-style traditions and topics had voted. But then it's also the case that for work in that tradition or on those topics Utilitas/E&P/PPE are great journals.

    Reply
  6. Thom Brooks

    After about a year as managing editor of the International Journal of Philosophical Studies as a graduate student in Philosophy at UCD (and my thanks again to Dermot Moran for that opportunity), I had the idea for launching the Journal of Moral Philosophy. I signed the contract in 2003 while a PhD student in Philosophy at Sheffield and the JMP launched the following year at the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association conference taking place at the University of Kent at Canterbury. While I faced various critics who said a PhD student could never make a success of an international philosophy journal, I have always been immensely grateful for the support I've been lucky to receive from Brian, Martha Nussbaum and others (including the late Joseph Raz) on the editorial board and many more friends then and now. Nothing would have happened without it.

    While I stepped down from founding editor to associate editor ahead of becoming Dean at Durham Law School (and Matthew Liao now does a better job than I ever did as editor ever since – in fact, we first met at the JMP's launch!), I have been immensely proud of what the JMP has become and every time I see rankings like this it is very special to me – not least given the time and effort to get this off the ground. So, a huge thanks to all colleagues for another terrific show of support for a project very dear to my heart. Know this means something to the editors and founders, not only prospective authors. Thank you very much.

    Reply
  7. Eugene

    I wonder if it might be better next time to create separate rankings for moral philosophy and political philosophy. There's very little content overlap between, e.g., Oxford Studies in Metaethics and Economics & Philosophy. Indeed, I don't think there's even any social overlap between some of these networks of philosophers. I do metaethics and I've never even heard of Politics, Philosophy & Economics until this poll.

    Reply
  8. Anon

    I agree. I do work in political philosophy and have never read anything in some of these high-ranking journals. So, the ranking ends up boiling down to a matter of taste/which groups voted. PPE and Oxford Studies in Metaethics are not doing the same thing at different levels of quality, but doing entirely different things. I would be curious to see a political philosophy only ranking.

    Reply
  9. Brian Leiter

    I'm not sure there are enough journals, or enough informed readers, to make a poll sensible. Legal Theory, Law & Philosophy, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, and Canadian Journal of Law & Jurisprudence are pretty clearly the four major ones. Ratio Juris, Jurisprudence, Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy, and Criminal law & Philosophy are also notable, but probably a notch below the first four. Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, which I co-edit with Leslie Green, solicits articles, and does not take submissions.

    Reply
  10. political philosopher/ethicist

    As someone who publishes in political science and philosophy, I'm struck by how much the perceived prestige of journals diverges from citation metrics in philosophy compared to political science. In political science, the most highly regarded journals also tend to be the most cited – American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, Journal of Politics, and for the subfield of political theory journals like Political Theory and the European Journal of Political Theory. For the list above, I believe the Journal of Applied Philosophy has the best citation metrics according to Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=top_venues&hl=en&venue=qgJBn17uJx4J.2022&vq=soc_ethics), but comes in at 15th. I certainly don't think the quality of scholarship can be reduced to citation metrics, which can be impacted by different citation practices even between subfields. But I do wonder whether notions of journal prestige sometimes lag what people are actually reading and citing in philosophy.

    Reply
  11. Cautious political philosopher

    Thanks for this, useful as always. I see four fairly unsurprising take-homes:

    1. Roughly Rawlsian circles still dominate political philosophy.

    2. The new "woke" crowd is hot on their heels, at the expense of previously well-respected libertarian-friendly outlets.

    3. American-based journals dominate (a feature of your readership?)

    4. Philosophers will always rank middling philosophy journals above the best political theory journals.

    Reply
  12. Skeptical

    On #2, sorry, it's true that some of these journals publish more libertarian stuff, but where the heck does wokeness figure in to the rankings?

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  13. New Era?

    Now that it’s been a couple of years since the splintering of JPP and PPA to Political Philosophy and Free & Equal, it’d be interesting to see how the new journals compare to the originals.

    Reply
    1. Agreed

      Second this; seems about time for a new round of temperature check.

      Reply

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