Ethics (journal)


Ethics is an academic journal established in 1890 as the International Journal of Ethics, renamed in 1938, and published since 1923 by the University of Chicago Press. The journal covers scholarly work in moral, political, and legal philosophy from a variety of intellectual perspectives, including social and political theory, law, and economics. Ethics publishes both theory and application of theory to contemporary moral issues, and accepts historical essays, provided they have significant implications for contemporary theory. Ethics also publishes review essays, discussion articles, and book reviews. The journal frequently publishes work from contributors outside the United States, and work that draws on more than one disciplinary approach.
Ethics is noteworthy for its well-blinded review process. Authors are not told the names of external reviewers, nor are external reviewers told the names of authors. Furthermore, editors are unable to see the authors' names when screening papers, or voting on papers put forward by handling editors.

Rankings

According to the Thomson Reuters 2017 Journal Citation Reports, the journal has an impact factor of 1.159, ranking it 19th out of 51 journals in the category "Ethics".
Scimago Journal Rank places Ethics 12th in the category of philosophy in 2016, giving it an SRJ indicator of 1.371.
Google Scholar gives Ethics an h-5 index of 20, ranking it 7th in the category of "Ethics." In the category of "Philosophy," Ethics ranks 10th. An h5-index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2012-2016 have at least h citations each.

History

Ethics is the direct continuation of the International Journal of Ethics, founded in October 1890. IJE's first volume included contributions by many leading moral philosophers, including the pragmatists John Dewey and William James, idealists Bernard Bosanquet and Josiah Royce, and the utilitarian Henry Sidgwick.
The IJE was established by the leaders of the Ethical Cultural Movement, most notably Felix Adler. The journal's first editor was S. Burns Weston, who assembled an international Editorial Committee.
From its first issue in October, 1890 IJE published articles on ethics, discussions, and book reviews. IJE also served another function, which was to report on the activities of ethical culture societies around the world. Examples include the 1891 “book review” summarizing the annual report of the Workingman’s School that was being operated by the New York Ethical Society and Jane Addam's 1898 report and commentary on her reformist social work at Hull House in Chicago.
In 1914, James Hayden Tufts became the editor of the journal, and brought on John Dewey as an associate editor. Under his leadership, the journal gradually shifted away from the Ethical Culture Movement and became a leading journal of philosophy. It was sold to the University of Chicago Press in 1923.
Thomas Vernor Smith became editor of the journal in 1932, and brought on a number of new members to the Editorial Committee, including Herbert James Paton, Ralph Barton Perry, and W.D. Ross.
Under the leadership of Brian Barry in 1979, the journal became more interdisciplinary and once again quite international, and the editorial board grew to fifty-two members. Editor Gerald Dworkin instituted a well-blinded review process in 1991. In 2017, the then editor, Henry S. Richardson, removed the remaining qualifications resulting in a review process in which none of the editors learn the authors' names until after the final decision has been reached on their submission. In 2018, Julia L Driver and Connie S. Rosati became co-editors of the journal, the first women to do so in its history.

Notable articles