Moral Metaphilosophy: The Study of Moral Violations in, Against, and Through Philosophy

Abstract

Metaphilosophy is often understood as an inquiry into the nature, goals, and methods of philosophy and is sometimes construed as an epistemology of philosophy. Moral questions concerning philosophical practice, however, are no less important and constitute a distinctive field that may be called ‘moral philosophy of philosophy’ or ‘moral metaphilosophy’. This article maps the field by identifying, addressing, and classifying various forms of moral transgressions in, against, and through philosophy. Hermeneutical rational injustices include the devaluation, discrediting, misrepresentation, and non-objective critique within philosophical discourse. Violations within academic philosophical practice encompass such phenomena as intellectual theft; gatekeeping; academic cliques; scholarly neglect; discrimination and favoritism; prestige bias, excellence bias, and other forms of bias oriented toward perceived institutional, professional, evaluative, or symbolic “topness”; unfair peer review; problematic evaluation criteria and rankings; abuses of power; unjust distributions of resources; and the inversion of virtues into vices. External injustices and transgressions concern the public discrediting of philosophy, violence against philosophers, the problematic relation between philosophy and politics, and the impact of extra-academic vices on philosophy. Bringing these issues to light, thereby underscoring the importance of moral metaphilosophy, can help protect philosophers from various forms of harm inflicted by themselves, colleagues, institutions, and other actors across academic and non-academic contexts, thereby rendering philosophical practice fairer and more worthwhile.

1. Introduction

Metaphilosophy has largely been regarded as a theoretical discipline, sometimes as an “epistemology of philosophy” ([1], p. 52; [2], p. 218) that investigates “the nature of philosophical questions and the methods (to be) adopted in answering them” ([3], p. 4; cf. [4,5,6,7]). Relevant questions include “What is philosophy?”; “What are the methods of philosophy?”; “What distinguishes philosophy from other disciplines?”; “What is the relation between philosophy and its history?”; “Is there progress in philosophy?”; “How should we deal with philosophical diversity and disagreement?”; and “How can we do philosophy better?”

However, existing discussions on such topics as virtues and vices of the philosopher ([8]), prestige bias in academic philosophy ([9]), problems with peer review ([10,11,12]), and the exclusion of underrepresented groups ([13,14,15,16,17,18,19]) have long made a revision of this picture of metaphilosophy overdue. The development of metaphilosophy as a discipline since the 1960s requires a taxonomy that captures and documents this progress. At least the distinction between theoretical, practical, and historical metaphilosophy (historical answers to metaphilosophical questions) is needed to cover the major contemporary discourse formations (for a systematic taxonomy, cf. [20])1.

The aim of this article is to explore the field of moral metaphilosophy. By ‘moral metaphilosophy’ we understand a branch of practical metaphilosophy concerned with moral violations both within and beyond the institutionalized contexts of doing philosophy. Such violations include devaluation and discrediting, hermeneutical injustice, intellectual theft, scholarly neglect and silencing by academic cliques, prestige bias, excellence bias, and other forms of bias oriented toward perceived institutional, professional, evaluative, or symbolic “topness” (understood as the systematic distortion generated by treating “top” as a determinate, quasi-objective category), discrimination and favoritism related to social relationships, gender, race, age, nationality, language, affiliation, and career, non-objective peer reviews, biased evaluation criteria, misuse of rankings, political persecution, and murder on account of philosophical views. The main task of moral metaphilosophy is to raise awareness of immoral actions by and against philosophers, to encourage greater sensitivity toward them, to discuss possible solutions, and thereby to protect those who embody intellectual virtues such as honesty, epistemic and rational justice, rigorous yet perspectivally and hermeneutically sensitive inquiry, open philosophical discourse, the rational advancement of philosophy, and the pursuit of truth. Three observations motivate our goal. First, philosophers are frequently faced with immoral conduct by colleagues, as well as by academic and non-academic institutions and groups. Second, philosophers, despite their expertise in moral questions and critical thinking, are not exempt from perpetrating immoral actions, both broadly and within academia specifically. And third, given that philosophy has reflected on morality for over two millennia, it is striking that there is still no well-established discipline devoted specifically to the moral dimensions of philosophical practice and to the moral problems arising among philosophers themselves, between philosophers and academic institutions, and between philosophers and wider non-academic agents or groups. This is not to deny that some relevant discussions already exist; rather, such discussions often remain local, fragmented, implicit, unpublished, or confined to oral and written exchanges behind the scenes of philosophical practice, and are not yet systematically recognized as contributions to practical or moral metaphilosophy. Moreover, numerous important topics remain largely, and in some cases entirely, unaddressed, although they are directly relevant to the moral-metaphilosophical examination of philosophical practice.

The exploratory aim and the three observations justify the following procedure and structure of the article: Section 2 provides preliminary remarks on the types of moral violations related to the ‘philosophical practice’ (by which we understand all that is related to doing philosophy within and beyond academia)2. We distinguish between questionable behaviors, injustices, vices, and transgressions. Section 3 presents the compendium of moral violations based on concrete examples. We will organize them into three categories: hermeneutical rational injustices, moral violations in academia, and violations in the context of relations between philosophers and non-philosophical institutions and rational agents. This compendium, as we suggest in our concluding remarks, draws a map of the field of moral metaphilosophy and invites systematic engagement with the moral problems attendant on philosophical practice. Although several of the observations and analyses could also be extended to other academic disciplines, we confine our inquiry to the field with which we are most familiar, while welcoming their possible uptake by colleagues in other fields and in broader transdisciplinary dialogue. This allows us to keep the discussion focused and conceptually stringent, despite the broad range of cases included in the synopsis, while also addressing field-specific problems. Among the field-specific problems are various forms of intellectual aggression associated with attempts to secure the dominance of one’s own philosophical perspective, world view, and scholarly authority, as well as prestige, excellence, and “topness” biases that distort the field and its rational products. Their particular salience in philosophy may be partly explained by the comparatively limited empirical testability of philosophical research results, the plurality of philosophical topics and orientations, and the relatively limited availability of funding in comparison with some other disciplines. The article seeks to inform the reader without claiming completeness. Although our primary aim is to map various forms of moral violation in, against, and through philosophy and thereby to delineate the field of moral metaphilosophy, we occasionally indicate possible solutions, gesture toward further ways of addressing these problems, or point to alternative practices. We do so, first, to show that the problems identified are not simply unavoidable features of the best available (academic) world, but that alternatives remain conceivable and, where sufficient will exists, potentially implementable. Second, we do not present our analysis as value-neutral: it is guided by a normative concern for the flourishing of philosophy, which requires that moral violations be identified, critically assessed, and removed or mitigated. Third, by proposing possible solutions, including some deliberately provocative and radical ones that function as forms of critical protest, we seek to stimulate further discussion within moral metaphilosophy, research ethics, and debates on the politics and governance of academic institutions and practices. These proposals are contestable suggestions that may open fruitful directions for reflection. An Appendix A at the end of the article provides an overview of its structure.

2. Preliminary Remarks on the Types of Moral Violations in Philosophy

The questions of what a moral violation is, how it is to be identified, and what kinds of moral violations can be distinguished are independent research questions that require extensive treatment. Yet if we maintain that moral metaphilosophy is necessary because moral violations occur, we must at least provide some orientation concerning the kinds of moral violations distinguished in this article, so that certain actions in, against, and through philosophy can subsequently be identified as moral violations. In this article, they do not function as classificatory categories to be systematically applied, but as heuristic identificatory guides that explain why a given attitude, form of behavior, or act is treated as relevant in the first place. We therefore begin by briefly introducing these kinds of moral violations, before turning to the three philosophy-related domains in which they can be found and which, at the same time, provide an initial internal structuring of the field of moral metaphilosophy.

We distinguish between (1) questionable behaviors and attitudes, (2) injustices, (3) vices, and (4) transgressions. These categories and their subcategories do not necessarily belong to different paradigms, schools, or methods of moral philosophy, though they may be viewed as reflecting distinct approaches within the field. Since our aim is to describe a broad range of morally problematic cases, we employ a pluralistic set of heuristic and hermeneutical tools.

Ad (1). Questionable behaviors and attitudes are phenomena that may be morally objectionable in themselves or may lead to immoral actions. For example, a belittling attitude toward the work of fellow philosophers should already be identified as questionable and morally problematic. In view of philosophical diversity and disagreement, philosophers may legitimately apply different criteria of relevance and devote comparable intellectual effort to different questions. Such work should therefore be valued, or at least treated neutrally, rather than belittled. This becomes especially clear when such an attitude, rooted in vices and insufficient reflection on philosophical perspectivity, produces various forms of aggression and concrete harm.

Ad (2). Injustices are phenomena in which a person, group, or object is denied the treatment that is appropriate and due to it under the most demanding epistemic standards. Depending on the domain concerned, one may speak of social, academic, institutional, political, or other forms of injustice. For our purposes, the most important case is what we call ‘rational injustice’, a notion related to, but more specific than, epistemic injustice. The term ‘epistemic injustice’ ([22], p. 7) can be used to characterize actions that harm a rational agent who does philosophy in their capacity as a subject of knowledge and in their capacity essential to human value. This notion is well-suited to addressing moral violations related to race, gender, or moral advancement in a society (e.g., a general public understanding of sexual harassment that improves the detection and assessment of such incidents, as in Fricker’s example for hermeneutical epistemic injustice)3. However, when it comes specifically to rational philosophical activities and interactions between philosophers, the term ‘rational injustice’ or ‘interdiscursive injustice’ (cf. [24,25,26], pp. 242–243 and 297–299) may sometimes be more appropriate or conceptually accommodating4. ‘Rational’ refers both to an agent’s capacity to be an independent, thinking, cognizing, and deciding member of a philosophical communication community and to rationality as a desideratum of discourse. ‘Injustice’ in this context is the violation of both the right of a rational agent to be treated as an equal member of a discourse and of the principles of rational conversation. This right and these principles are violated when a member of a communication community is not regarded foremost in their capacity as a rational agent and when discussants ignore such rational standards as equal treatment of participants, the power of argument, understanding before judging, consistency, etc. This marks an important difference from standard conceptions of epistemic injustice. Hermeneutical injustice, for example, is not understood here in the broader sense of an injustice concerning social experience, as in discussions of hermeneutical epistemic injustice, but more narrowly as an injustice within the shared discursive framework that governs rational inquiries and products. It occurs where the rational standards required for rational discourse, mutual understanding, and the just treatment of rational agents and their inquiries and products are not upheld. The notion of rational injustice is by no means limited to hermeneutical problems. By ‘rational justice’ we generally understand (1) the ideal of fair and equal treatment of members of rational discourses; (2) compliance with basic rules and rational standards of a communication community; (3) prevention, detection, and sanctioning of violations of the rights of discourse participants, especially via acts of discrimination, undervaluation, and exclusion; and (4) a systemic or structural realization of this ideal. The phenomena of rational justice or rational injustice are often repetitive and systemic (or ‘structural’). It is therefore important to consider both the individual cases as well as the persistent structures that generate rational injustice.

Ad (3). By ‘vices’ we understand non-academic vices that can give rise to morally problematic behaviors, attitudes, and moral violations in, against, and through philosophy, as well as ‘epistemic vices’ and ‘scholarly vices’, i.e., character traits that complicate or obstruct the acquisition, preservation, or sharing of knowledge (cf. [8]; [27], p. 23; [28]). Although the catalogue of epistemic and scholarly virtues and vices constantly undergoes changes, and there is a natural dialectic in which virtues themselves can turn into vices (Section 3.2.6), a major part of this list is solid enough to stand the test of time. For example, the Platonic ideal that philosophers must pursue truth above all else, dedicating themselves to wisdom and resisting the temptations of wealth and power ([29], pp. 484a–487a) as well as Descartes’ emphasis on the virtues of methodological doubt and intellectual humility, according to which philosophers must systematically question their beliefs to attain true knowledge ([30], Part II), are still attractive to many philosophers. They are often reflected in institutional guidelines and commonly assumed in research practices; however, their formal recognition does not ensure their actual observance by administrators and colleagues. Among the notable contemporary accounts of philosophical virtues is Rescher’s concept of metaphilosophical tolerance ([7], p. 177), which functions both as a specific virtue of the metaphilosopher and a condition for epistemic progress in philosophy. To do metaphilosophy, a philosopher has to step back from their first-order philosophical theories and commitments to understand and recognize alternative positions as available options. Furthermore, overcoming theoretical aporias in philosophy requires a tolerant attitude towards dissenting solutions: solving philosophical problems “is always a matter of tradeoffs, of negotiation, of giving up a bit of this in order to retain a bit of that” (ibid., p. 52).

Ad (4). By ‘moral transgressions’ we understand obvious cases of immoral actions, such as stealing, sexually assaulting, or killing. Examples include the theft of others’ philosophical work and proposals to advance a colleague’s philosophical career in exchange for sexual favors.

We distinguish between three interconnected categories of moral violations related to the philosophical practice. Although they do not permit sharp distinctions—for instance, hermeneutical problems also arise in relation to peer review—they nevertheless help to organize the issues more clearly by relating them to the relevant domains:

(1)

Hermeneutical rational injustices are related to the understanding of theories, programs, positions, values, motives, and missions of philosophers by other philosophers. Moral issues arise not from accidental misinterpretation, but when a philosopher deliberately belittles and trivializes another’s rational work, denies its value, or appropriates ideas from another philosopher.

(2)

Moral violations in academia concern such institutionalized practices and phenomena as ‘gatekeeping’, peer review, evaluation criteria, selection of candidates, collegial relationships, teaching, and affiliations.

(3)

A further category of immoral actions focuses on the relations between philosophers and non-philosophical institutions, rational agents, and dimensions. Immoral acts, for which it is merely coincidental and irrelevant that they are done by a philosopher or against a philosopher, do not belong to the field of the moral philosophy of philosophy and are part of the general moral philosophy.

3. A Compendium of Questionable Behaviors, Injustices, Vices, and Transgressions

3.1. Hermeneutical Rational Injustices and Intellectual Aggression

3.1.1. Devaluation and Discrediting in Philosophical Discourse

One of the most commonly experienced but underexplored questionable and immoral forms of conduct is the devaluation of intellectual work or the discrediting of its originators. Many established and early-career scholars—often echoing their mentors—exhibit this behavior with little regard for its moral significance. Philosophers whose work, thoughts, or methods are being devalued often do not recognize that they are experiencing a moral violation. This could be an example of hermeneutical epistemic injustice in Fricker’s (cf., e.g., [22], pp. 149–151) sense: as long as the category of devaluation and discrediting in philosophical discourse is not recognized and investigated as a moral problem and there is no social moral advancement in this regard, it will be dismissed both by agents and their victims. In the context of rational injustice, the devaluation of a colleague’s work and the discrediting of their scholarly standing, despite their hard work and contributions to the field, constitute a violation of the rational standards of the scholarly communication community. Rational injustice is hermeneutical when the just treatment of another rational agent presupposes an adequate understanding of their thought and of the criteria by which its relevance is to be assessed, but the violating agent either fails to attain such understanding or assumes an attitude that makes it impossible and encourages others to do likewise.

To gain a clearer understanding of how devaluation and discrediting unfold in practice, considering concrete examples can be helpful. In our view, the statements “I hate and despise Hegel. I have Hegel […] disgust. […] In my opinion, Hegel belongs completely to the past. In Hegel I see nothing promising, nothing appealing for the present and future world” ([31], pp. 81 and 83, our translation) have several morally relevant dimensions and implications. The passage exemplifies a rhetorically contemptuous mode of dismissal that, when voiced in a scholarly venue, can function as a form of devaluation and discrediting within philosophical discourse, can contribute to epistemic and psychological harms, and can set the tone for subsequent debates. Expressions of hatred and contempt are often considered harmless unless directed at publicly recognized protected groups. Yet this does not entail that these expressions are morally neutral. For example, a social media post stating ‘I hate and despise modern art’ would not ordinarily give rise to legal consequences or removal under platform policies. Nevertheless, it constitutes an indirect attack on those who create and appreciate modern art, potentially resulting in psychological, epistemic, reputational, material, or even physical harm. The quoted statements deny value to Hegel’s writings and, indirectly, to the work of contemporary Hegel scholars and students. A more intellectually aggressive devaluation comes from his contemporary Schopenhauer—its severity becomes even more apparent if one replaces ‘Hegel’ with a contemporary philosopher’s name—or with one’s own5:

By now Schelling was followed by a philosophical ministerial creature, namely Hegel, who, for political purposes, and through a blunder at that, was dubbed a great philosopher from above, a platitudinous, dull, loathsome-repulsive, ignorant charlatan, who, with unprecedented impudence, scribbled together folly and nonsense that was trumpeted by his venal followers as immortal wisdom and accepted as such by dunces, whereby such a complete chorus of admiration arose as had never before been heard. The extended spiritual effect procured by force for this person has resulted in the intellectual ruin of a whole educated generation.

([32], p. 89)

Various forms of intellectual aggression—by which we understand a shift toward destructive attitudes as well as deleterious consequences grounded in the absolutization of one’s favored intellectual values (e.g., concerning standpoint, content, and form)—such as disregard and disrespect for others’ intellectual labor (and ad hominem attacks on their person) are a recurring phenomenon in philosophy. This is evident in statements that lack balance and do not merely express a rigorous judgment, but demand the outright abandonment or radical redirection of a colleague’s work on the basis of a hermeneutical failure—for instance, a failure to understand the colleague’s thought, motives, and the value of their work or contribution. Examples from academic contexts include the following:

“The book as a whole seems to me a mistake”;

([33], p. 161)

“What you do is politics, not philosophy”—said with regard to a standard argument-based academic publication, with the apparent aim of devaluing a different school of thought;

“You invite me to write an article on this topic? It would either result in mere trivialities or require a full monograph! You better abandon your editorial project”—said in response to a kind invitation to contribute to a volume with the standard scholarly aim of providing an overview for colleagues and students;

“You should change your thought style. You are too direct and intense in your approach, which, in my view, is a typically German trait”—said with regard to a relatively unobtrusive character trait, in order to discredit the intensity of the person’s thinking, and based on nationality bias;

(cf. Section 3.2.3)

“You call this a ‘Center’? It’s just a website that lists two people who published a book!”—said with regard to an initiative, whose current preparatory work consists of building a network and editing an ambitious volume;

“They present the piece as an article co-authored with a well-known colleague, whereas it is in fact merely an interview published in a Russian journal”—said about a discussion article, with the aim of discrediting the younger author’s contribution through misrepresentation as well as prestige and nationality bias;

(cf. Section 3.2.3)

“The project is unconvincing because it does not cite X and does not ask the question that seems most relevant to me”—said of a fully developed project description in a case where the criticism fails to engage with the project’s internal aims, central theoretical framework, and relevant background tradition, substituting instead an external expectation of what the project should have addressed.

In our view, these examples, when considered in their respective contexts, constitute clear cases of devaluation and discrediting as forms of hermeneutical rational injustice. The judgments rest on various hermeneutical shortcomings which are not recognized as such by the evaluating agent, but are instead fallaciously attributed to the evaluated person, group, or object—unless they are motivated by the more deliberate aim of harming a colleague or combating rivals (cf. Section 3.2.2). Devaluation or discrediting should not be conflated with legitimate criticism, nor hidden under the guise of supposedly critical expert discourse. For, in the context of interactions between peers, devaluation and discrediting rest on either destructive attitudes and feelings or hermeneutical failures, biases, and the arbitrary replacement of a rational agent’s own demands, guiding conceptions, and ideals by context-external expectations, preferences, and preconceptions imposed by the critic. By contrast, reasonable expert criticism is grounded in hermeneutical effort. Such effort is manifested, for example, when criticism is offered selectively, only where it is genuinely necessary and/or has in fact been invited, on the basis of an adequate understanding of the colleague and their work, and in a constructive manner that does not deny value to rationally relevant products, activities, or persons on unjustified grounds.

The examples given, as well as comparable cases, can be traced back to various forms of vices: character traits or habits that obstruct essential hermeneutic acts and, consequently, hinder mutual understanding and support. Repeated exposure to hermeneutical intellectual harm may also lead to self-sabotage: the shortcomings of others may be internalized as justified criticisms, thereby undermining motivation and eventually leading to the abandonment of a relevant research or editorial project, or even to withdrawal from academia. Knowledge and training in hermeneutical methods and principles—such as reflecting on perspectivity or adopting the colleague’s point of view to understand their individual mental perspective, commitments, demands, and intellectual (e.g., research- or project-related) goals (cf. [4,26])—as well as psychological self-reflection can help to eliminate hermeneutical intellectual vices and intellectual aggression6.

3.1.2. Appropriation, Misrepresentation, and Non-Objective Critique

One might argue that the rhetorical means used to prevail in polemic per fas et nefas lie beyond good and evil. However, certain duties arise from the nature and purpose of philosophical discourse. Philosophy, at its core, is a rational discipline aimed at understanding and knowledge—and this ideal is not honored if one makes no effort to understand one another and to treat each other with respect. For example, false representations of positions, imputing intentions or topics that were neither expressed nor intended, as well as—in certain cases—refusals to engage with or understand a text, are not morally unproblematic. This becomes even more important in the context of peer reviews and evaluations (cf. Section 3.2.4 and Section 3.2.5), on which the academic careers and well-being of scholars often depend.

Given that philosophy is complex and varied—with respect to types of rationality, knowledge and research profiles, subject matters, and goals—it is necessary to accept a certain margin of tolerance for misunderstandings. Misunderstandings are acceptable if there is clear evidence of a serious attempt at understanding. They can be corrected or made fruitful for readers in further discussion. The margin of tolerance is often articulated in terms of unintentional misunderstanding versus intentional misrepresentation, and a well-balanced intuition is required to make a fair judgment about whether something is merely a misunderstanding or a misrepresentation. For example, Kant tolerates some of Garve’s misunderstandings:

These objections are therefore nothing but misunderstandings (for I do not care to take them as misrepresentations), and their possibility would have to be astonishing, did not the human propensity to follow one’s accustomed course of thought even in appraising the thoughts of others, and thus to carry the former over into the latter, adequately explain such a phenomenon.

([34], p. 283)

At the same time, he is intolerant of Garve’s/Feder’s review, which misrepresents and trivializes the essential content of the Critique of Pure Reason:

[the reviewer, our addition] begins and also ends by saying: “this work is a system of transcendental (or, as he construes it, higher) idealism.” At the sight of this line I quickly perceived what sort of review would issue thence.

([35], p. 161)

Moral problems also arise in debates on how to read and interpret texts. For example, the devaluation of alternative views held by fellow experts is a common phenomenon in philosophy:

As I am familiar with the work of the reviewer […], most of the points mentioned did not surprise me. I was, however, taken aback by the, let us say, unhelpful manner in which they were raised. Schönecker’s criticisms concern largely not ‘blunders’, ‘misinterpretations’ or ‘factual mistakes’ […] but—besides the occasional misunderstanding on his part—matters of philosophical disagreement that might have been of interest to readers of the Kantian Review if set out in an informative, civilized and disinterested fashion.

([36], p. 171)

As Rorty aptly notes, the talk of ‘mistakes’, ‘howlers’, and ‘blunders’ in philosophy is a “lapse into the scholastic habit of winning easy victories […]. [F]ruitful philosophical controversy is possible only when both sides have the patience to investigate their opponents’ criteria of relevance” ([37], pp. 317–318). The understanding of, and care for, the philosophical thoughts of others is not only a matter of cognitive acts; the practical dimension becomes apparent when one considers the causal effects of different hermeneutical attitudes and abilities on philosophical discourse. Transversality ([25]), tolerance ([7], p. 177), and reflected perspectivism ([4,26,38])—that is, constant reflection on the perspectival character of one’s own and others’ philosophical projects, standpoints, horizons, programmatic commitments, research goals, and demands—and the striving for hermeneutical rational justice have a different impact on philosophical discourse than other, less considerate attitudes. Philosophers’ striving to master and dominate thought can coexist with a legitimate desire to influence the thought of others, but it can also easily slide into extreme attempts at discursive hegemony, devaluation, non-objective critique, scholarly neglect, silencing, favoritism, nepotism, etc. (cf. Section 3.2 and Section 3.3). This potential philosophical tendency that can easily shift into intellectual aggression—and, in Stirner’s and Nietzsche’s terms (cf. [39], p. 80, [26,40]), can also manifest as the violence of thought and the unhealthy will to power—should become an early object of awareness and critical reflection, not merely as a matter of psychological literacy and self-formation, but as an integral component of philosophical training.

3.2. Moral Violations Related to Academic Practices

3.2.1. Intellectual Theft

Intellectual theft in academic philosophy can take many forms. While the most visible and institutionally sanctioned form is plagiarism, such misconduct also occurs in more informal or ‘unregistered’ academic activities—such as private conversations, peer review processes, or collaborative planning. Beyond that, this broader category includes ghostwriting, extensive text recycling, and other ways of unjustly claiming credit for another’s ideas or labor. Thus, a useful distinction can be made between obvious and hidden intellectual theft and between intentional and unintentional forms. In this article, we focus only on intentional theft and outline several forms of such misconduct.

Plagiarism remains one of the most extensively discussed and publicly recognized forms of intellectual dishonesty in philosophy. This focus is understandable: the humanities revolve around a complex set of ideas and texts as well as conceptual and textual interpretation. These are domains in which the boundaries of ‘inspiration’, ‘coincidence’, and ‘theft’ can become quite complex. Even though academic standards have evolved to better delineate acceptable use from intellectual theft, the problem still persists. The most recognizable and readily detectable form of plagiarism occurs when authors deliberately use published sources without proper attribution. These cases exemplify not only professional misconduct but also the erosion of trust between peers. They burden editorial and peer-review processes, can damage institutional, departmental, and journal reputations, and compromise the authenticity of philosophical contributions as well as the reliability of the research ecosystem.

For example, the case of Martin W. F. Stone—a former professor of philosophy at KU Leuven who plagiarized in over 40 publications (cf. [41])—had far-reaching consequences. Stone was dismissed from his university post, and multiple articles were retracted. Yet, the consequences did not end there: a 2023 study (cf. [42]) found that many of Stone’s plagiarized passages continued to be cited without correction or proper attribution, despite the retractions. Following a further plagiarism case involving Magali Roques, the editors of Vivarium. A Journal for Medieval and Early-Modern Philosophy and Intellectual Life noted:

The current affair, which extends far beyond the pages of Vivarium, raises the traditional concerns of academic plagiarism, as well as some novel considerations. As with many cases in the past, the theft of material denies the rightful author of the credit deserved and unfairly gives the pretending author an advantage in an increasingly competitive market.

([43], p. 256)7

Ideas are sometimes appropriated from unpublished materials—such as blind peer reviews, project or thesis proposals, conference presentations, seminar papers, etc. In these cases, the original author receives no public credit. Moreover, this theft is much harder to detect because it often involves unpublished or personal texts. However, scholars—often anonymously—report cases in which they later saw the same ideas that were rejected in their submissions published, presumably by one of their reviewers. Related cases involve misattributed credit in collaborative work, where senior participants and advisers claim disproportionate ownership of shared ideas. Such appropriation can occur not only in publications and discussions but also in organizational work. Consider a young scholar, well-versed in a particular topic, who agrees to help plan a conference series. Their ideas, structure, and thematic framing shape the project, but when it comes to realization, they are neither listed as a co-organizer nor acknowledged for their conceptual contribution. These scenarios are ethically serious because they represent a betrayal of professional trust and an abuse of institutional asymmetries: they take place in spaces presumed to be collegial and safe.

There is another form of intellectual theft. It involves receiving credit without having made a substantive or even any contribution. In these cases, individuals may not engage in plagiarism, but they benefit from the work of others and receive the recognition and perks without doing the corresponding work. Suppose that a senior philosopher lists research grants or project outcomes on their CV or personal websites as their own, despite having played no active role in the proposal, research, or delivery. A similar phenomenon occurs in cases of honorary or ‘guest’ authorship: when someone is included as a co-author on an academic publication without having actually participated in the research or writing process. All the listed practices distort academic merit systems, weaken the credibility of attribution, inflate the credentials of some, and create unjust barriers for others.

The development of AI systems trained on philosophers’ (alongside other scholars’, intellectuals’, and artists’) work without their consent and any acknowledgment or reward may be regarded as an extraordinarily large-scale form of uncompensated appropriation. This remains so even if AI is used on an open-access basis for the greater good. Especially in relation to philosophers’ devaluations of others’ work, hermeneutical vices, gatekeeping, academic cliques, discrimination, prestige bias, and other forms of bias, the use of a sufficiently well-trained AI in the evaluation of others’ work and academic profiles has the potential to help establish fairer academic practices. This training must be conducted by scientists who have knowledge of moral violations in, against, and through philosophy.

3.2.2. Exclusion: Gatekeeping, Academic Cliques, and Scholarly Neglect

Exclusion as a result of group formation is a common social phenomenon that can take many forms within academic philosophical practice. Systematic exclusion of individuals and groups is often referred to as ‘gatekeeping’. Gatekeeping is often exercised by small groups of scholars in key positions, e.g., journal editors (cf. [10], p. 647) and influential scholars, who are constantly invited to review articles, books, or project proposals, but also, in a broader sense, university administrators and holders of institutional positions. These groups can form far-reaching ‘academic cliques’, with members who support each other in shaping what counts as the contemporary state of the art and distribute available resources by advancing certain theories, topics, and scholars while excluding others. Moral issues arise when hardworking scholars and the results of their rational labor are overlooked or dismissed by self-sustaining academic networks and their members. This leads to a loss of academic diversity and theoretical stagnation, as important and innovative contributions and topics remain ignored and unrepresented in the public sphere of rational discourse.

That this problem may be especially pronounced in philosophy is illustrated, inter alia, by the ‘academic Great Gatsby curve’ by Sun et al. (cf. [45]). As the evaluation of 245,000 mentor-mentee pairs and their publications shows, scholars in philosophy, despite their talent or effort, have a hard time ‘breaking into’ high-impact academic circles without sponsorship from an academic mentor. A scholar’s academic success, visibility, and citation counts often depend strongly on the resources and status of their sponsor. According to De Cruz ([9]), in philosophy, like in many other academic fields, the prestige of the PhD-granting institution and academic network (including journals) constitutes the ‘social capital’, which is “protected by exclusive club memberships” (ibid., p. 271). Clique loyalty and efforts to gain membership shape hiring and citation practices, resulting in structural injustices toward underrepresented groups, the neglect of promising scholars, and the marginalization of philosophical work beyond dominant traditions.

Even if not all, at least some mechanisms and effects of academic cliques can often be detected. For example, by checking the lists of speakers at conferences and institute colloquia or the bibliographies in recent publications on a topic. The overly frequent appearance of the same names and similar topics, combined with the absence of those who have recently made new and substantive contributions to the relevant area or to the field more generally, may indicate that cliques are preferred over theoretical advancement of philosophical research and diversity. These phenomena can be further investigated, e.g., in terms of silencing (cf. [9], p. 276).

3.2.3. Discrimination and Favoritism Based on Social Relationships, Gender, Race, Age, Nationality, Language, Affiliation, and Career

Academic philosophy has begun critically examining the discriminatory structures within its own discipline. Scholars have drawn attention to the underrepresentation of women and people of color in philosophy, as well as the structural barriers that continue to marginalize them. A growing body of research provides evidence of discrimination based on such qualities as race, gender, language, and institutional affiliation (cf., e.g., [9,16,17,18,19]). Discrimination, as we understand it, often stems from or gives rise to favoritism. In philosophical practice, favoritism becomes a moral issue when individuals or groups are promoted based on qualities unrelated to academic merit, potentially undermining the discipline’s integrity and development. For example, preferences based on social relationships can result in morally questionable phenomena, such as nepotism, cronyism, mutual patronage, and cover-ups. A person with the quality ‘known to the Department of Philosophy for more than 10 years’ or ‘doctoral student of X’ may be preferred in appointments to significantly more active and stronger candidates in terms of academic merit. A philosopher can be both favored and discriminated against on grounds of age (e.g., when older applicants are informally excluded despite no age criteria in the call, or when otherwise suitable candidates are expressly excluded by age requirements, for instance, in some German calls for professorships requiring applicants to be under the age of 52). In a few cases, gender favoritism should be a warning sign to the beneficiary or the protégé. It may start with seemingly harmless special support and end with quid pro quo sexual harassment. An example is the alleged Searle’s sexual misconduct against a young philosophy student, according to the lawsuit, accompanied by the promise of an “emotional commitment to making her a public intellectual” ([46,47]).

Language may also operate as a vehicle of injustice in academic philosophy. Because English dominates as the global language of scholarship, non-native speakers are often perceived as less precise, less clear, or even less intelligent, which stems not from their ideas but from differences in language fluency and expression. This problem is especially pronounced in philosophy, as the field often lacks concrete and measurable data, making the credibility of a speaker dependent on their linguistic performance (cf. [18], pp. 3–4). Sometimes it shapes how papers are reviewed or how talks are received at conferences and becomes the reason for undervaluation or rejection for jobs or grants (ibid., p. 5). For example, a peer reviewer may reject a well-written paper whose style is grammatically correct, but somewhat less idiomatic or occasionally more cumbersome, with the remark: “The author’s writing style is complex. Perhaps the author is a native speaker of X and should consider writing in X.” However, the dominance of a language requires tolerance for variations in expression, since the effort needed to understand a text or lecture is far less than the effort required to master a foreign language.

Philosophers who hold or have held two different affiliations—one from a prestigious, well-known university and one from a lesser-known institution—can easily notice a difference in how they and their work are perceived, depending on the affiliation. Prestige bias remains an understudied phenomenon in philosophy, both theoretically and empirically. Relatedly, discrimination on the basis of nationality—whether the scholar’s nationality or that of their institutional affiliation—remains underexamined. This discrimination can be structural or individual—for example, in the form of an open declaration by a philosopher on social media stating that they will cease cooperating with any scholars from a specific state due to dissatisfaction with that state’s politics (while often simultaneously ignoring the current or potential moral or legal violations of their own state). Editors of philosophy journals and organizers of philosophy conferences may openly or covertly exclude scholars based on their nationality or institutional affiliation while simultaneously promoting anti-discrimination policies concerning race and gender. Discrimination based on nationality could constitute a form of hermeneutical epistemic injustice (see fn. 3), a phenomenon not yet sufficiently understood to play a crucial role in contemporary society’s moral codes and practices8. Many philosophers advocate the values of enlightenment, broadly understood, and critical thinking, often pursuing philosophy under poor conditions, sometimes far from home and even in dangerous locations. Against this background, reducing fellow philosophers to national or other group labels, caricatured in simplistic terms, constitutes one of the most dangerous attacks on academic philosophy from within academic philosophy itself9.

3.2.4. Peer Review, Evaluation Criteria, and Rankings

The rise in the by-now standardized system of external anonymous referees since the mid-20th century poses several challenges to authors of philosophical articles and books, editors, and reviewers. The following two quotations present the issue from the perspectives of an experienced author (A) and an experienced editor (E), illustrating only a subset of these problems.

A-perspective:

As a young academic, I went through the peer-review process many times; but I don’t recall ever getting even one genuinely helpful referee’s report. I do, however, remember many that said, in effect, “the author should refer to my [the referee’s] work on the subject,” and the stunningly unhelpful report I got from J. Phil., after nine months’ delay: “clever, but not clever enough.” […] And in the subsequent decades, though I had decided that the peer-review process was such a waste of time and spirit that I would publish only by invitation, I have had much more evidence of its failure as a quality-control mechanism.

([12], p. 5)10

E-perspective:

One striking feature of the contemporary philosophical job market is that, due to the competition for posts and the pressures of research evaluation exercises, it is virtually impossible to get a permanent academic job in philosophy unless one has published in a “top” journal. In effect, this thrusts journal editors into a new role as gatekeepers of the profession—and, hence, as predictors of long-term philosophical merit.

([49], p. 244)

Several authors argue that, given the specifics of the field of philosophy, the negative experiences of young and advanced scholars with unhelpful or rationally unjust reviews, partisanship with respect to philosophical approach ([11]), and editors’ problems with finding suitable and available referees, the peer review system should undergo serious changes. Among the suggested solutions are the abandonment of pre-publication peer review in favor of post-publication quality control ([10]) and attempts to appeal to the peer reviewer’s conscience or to prompt reviewers to reflect on their stance ([50]).

There appears to be a mismatch between the perspectives of the actors involved. The referee (Ref-perspective), who is often given no concrete instructions from the journal editors, can reject a paper for various reasons that are not necessarily related to the quality of the article. The available reviewer—quite apart from the possibility of being insufficiently experienced or informed about the topic—can tacitly base their decision on disagreement with a well-justified theory or thesis, partisanship regarding a certain approach or school, a conflict of temperament or taste, the protection of a colleague within an academic clique, and prestige bias concerning the journal/publishing house or the cited literature. Due to the lack of clear evaluation criteria and quality control over reviews11 and with authors unable to respond to rejections, many sound and factually correct articles that advance philosophical understanding remain unpublished, or they are resubmitted by their authors from journal to journal until a ‘suitable’ reviewer is found. The authors, in their turn, do not expect the reviewer’s agreement with the theory or philosophical partisanship, but a quality check and, if necessary, improvement suggestions without imposing expectations that they would not apply to themselves, devaluing, supporting a specific academic clique, or violating basic hermeneutical principles. It is also doubtful that authors want to see journal editors in the role of “predictors of long-term philosophical merit” ([49], p. 244). It is difficult, if not impossible, to predict the long-term philosophical merit of a job candidate whose entire application, including several manuscripts, is under review by a search committee. If even search committees with substantial information succumb to prestige or other biases (cf. [9]—e.g., by preselecting candidates based on the prestige of the PhD-granting institution or screening CVs for “top” journals), how can we assume that editors, who desk-reject nearly half of all submissions, are impartial12? Although the triple-blind review (the editor is blinded to the author’s name and institutional affiliation), if truly applied without exceptions, can reduce injustice, it does not solve other structural problems, such as language bias, favoritism towards schools, traditions, specific discourses, cited academic clique members, and topics (cf. [9], pp. 276–278)13.

The mismatch of perspectives becomes even more apparent if one includes the reader’s perspective (R-perspective, e.g., scholars, students, and interested non-philosophers). The current “top” 10 journals in the subject category ‘philosophy’, according to the Scimago Journal & Country Rank (September 2025), have received a total of 6093 citations in the past 3 years ([54]). However, this constitutes a very small share compared to the citations from the further 828 listed journals (e.g., “top” 50–60: 2843 citations; the list by no means covers all existing journals in the field and does not consider citations in books, handbooks, and non-registered journals). The majority of philosophical research takes place outside the “top” 10 or 20 journals, and it would be highly inappropriate and misguided to dismiss this research as second-rate. Articles published in Kant-Studien (rank 282), Nietzsche-Studien (479), Fichte-Studien (542), or in anthologies, handbooks, etc., are generally not of lower quality than articles on Kant’s, Nietzsche’s, and Fichte’s philosophies that appear in higher-ranked journals—often reviewed by the very same referees14. Carefully researched articles on the philosophies of Kant, Nietzsche, and Fichte, written by specialists in the relevant fields, do not possess less scholarly quality, argumentative originality, or philosophical value merely because they appear in non-profiled or non-“top” journals whose titles do not contain the names Kant, Nietzsche, or Fichte; nor would the same articles possess greater scholarly quality, argumentative originality, or philosophical value merely by appearing in highly profiled specialist journals. Articles in higher-ranked or established journals are not necessarily more visible or of better quality; scholars searching via PhilPapers, JSTOR, library catalogues, or other research databases can be surprised to find “top”, well-known, or highly profiled specialist journals publishing pieces that are unhelpful, ostensibly thorough yet substantively unoriginal, overly reliant on extensive and detailed rehearsals of familiar material in support of minor theses that make little, if any, substantive contribution to the field, outdated, or even reliant on sources like poorly developed Wikipedia entries. What makes an article good is not the name of the journal; rather, good articles by hardworking and dedicated researchers can, as a side effect, make any journal—including new ones—reputable.

Overall, it is, for many reasons, a virtue not to aim to publish in “top” philosophy journals. Publishing in journals outside the so-called “top” venues is often faster, and many of these journals offer free open-access publication. It often yields more constructive feedback, is not restricted to a single language or research tradition15, and helps to ensure that research is valued for its intrinsic quality. Moreover, it supports networks of colleagues engaged in active collaboration or developing journals and, more broadly, contributes to more efficient and equitable research practices as well as to a shift in the mentality of university administrations, selection committees, and those who design ranking systems and develop lists of evaluation criteria. Publishing in non-“top” journals can serve as a form of quiet or explicit protest, and in some cases even as a boycott-like refusal of prevailing prestige hierarchies. Such a protest can be undertaken both by highly visible and established philosophers, who are well-positioned to challenge these hierarchies, and by younger researchers who entered philosophy out of a commitment to its intellectual and academic values and who are willing to bear professional costs for the sake of a broader academic good. One of their tasks is then to write with even greater originality, rigor, and scholarly care, and to make deliberate publication choices—whether by refusing altogether to publish in journals treated as “top” or “prestigious”, or by deliberately alternating between publication venues with higher and lower perceived prestige, including prestige-neutral, emerging, or non-“top” journals and publishing houses—precisely in order to signal that philosophical value is not conferred by the perceived status of the publication venue. In this respect, such publication choices constitute a form of individual or collective moral activism which, no less than more familiar forms of individual and collective activism within and outside academia, may deserve recognition and respect. They may also help counteract unfair distributive and evaluative practices, thereby challenging structural forms of rational injustice, including cases in which senior academics reinforce prestige-based publication norms that were not necessarily decisive for their own appointments or career advancement.

Some funding bodies, such as the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), have committed themselves to DORA (San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, cf. [56]) or to similar principles of responsible research assessment. Yet such a commitment does not by itself guarantee implementation in review practice, compliance with these principles, or adequate quality control of reviews. For example, the DFG instructs reviewers to assess researchers’ achievements in their entirety and on the basis of substantive qualitative criteria, and not to consider quantitative metrics such as impact factors and h-indices ([57]). This is broadly in line with DORA, which states that journal-based metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor, should not be used as surrogate measures of the quality of individual research articles, an individual researcher’s contributions, or funding decisions. However, the DFG’s general reviewer guidelines do not explicitly refer to DORA and do not formulate all DORA-relevant implications with equal clarity—for example, that applicants’ work should not be assessed on the basis of the names or perceived prestige of the journals in which their articles were published. This leaves room for evaluative practices that, while not based on explicit quantitative metrics, may nevertheless conflict with the principles of responsible research assessment to which the DFG has committed itself by signing DORA.

The SNSF, however, explicitly refers to DORA, but with regard to the identity of the journal it adopts, for example in its Ambizione evaluation form for panel members and reviewers, a formulation that differs only slightly, yet not insignificantly. Thus, DORA’s second recommendation states that funding agencies should make clear that “the scientific content of a paper is much more important than […] the identity of the journal in which it was published” ([56], emphasis added), whereas the SNSF states that “the scientific content of the entire scientific output is significantly more important than […] the identity of the journal in which it was published” ([58], emphasis added). The expression “significantly more important” may of course be intended strongly, but it need not be: it is less evaluatively unequivocal than DORA’s formulation. Moreover, while DORA speaks of the “scientific content of a paper”, the SNSF shifts the formulation to “the entire scientific output”. This shift from the paper to the overall output is understandable in a funding context, but it may leave room for journal identity or related indicators to re-enter indirectly as proxies for achievement, impact, visibility, or standing. This is all the more problematic because panel members and reviewers are asked precisely to assess the applicant’s ability to achieve “high impact” and, through an unusually broad assessment of mobility—including international mobility—to assess, at least indirectly, disciplinary and international visibility. This creates the risk of inviting evaluators, once again, to look at the names of the journals in which applicants publish.

It is, in general, questionable whether visibility should serve as a criterion for evaluating a candidate’s scientific merit. Visibility often depends on factors independent of the quality or quantity of research; it may be shaped by contingent conditions, social and institutional practices, and various forms of rational injustice discussed in this article; and it may in fact be higher or lower than the data available to reviewers suggest. DORA itself points in a different direction when it emphasizes “the need to capitalize on the opportunities provided by online publication (such as relaxing unnecessary limits on the number of words, figures, and references in articles, and exploring new indicators of significance and impact)” ([56]). Philosophy, and research more generally, therefore requires not only initiatives such as DORA and CoARA to address epistemic and hermeneutical deficiencies, but also quality-control measures to ensure rationally just, transparent, and trustworthy evaluations by funding bodies. This is especially important given the problematic distribution of limited resources and the ways in which “excellence” can be used and misused in evaluation; more radical solutions may be needed here (cf. Section 3.2.5).

A common mistake in evaluation procedures is an obvious misjudgment (hermeneutical rational injustice, cf. Section 3.1), namely a form of error that can be readily corrected by applying basic critical reasoning or by consulting the original text, e.g., of the grant application and the applicant’s stated intentions. For example, the statement “The continuity between the proposed project and the applicant’s prior research prompts concerns regarding their ability to pursue substantially new avenues” can be an obvious misjudgment if the applicant has already pursued three research projects on substantially different topics within the last 3–5 years (an exceptional achievement in itself) and is now applying for a grant in yet another distinct field. Or consider a different example: The referee—apparently strongly oriented toward the history of philosophy and unfamiliar with the more than five-decade-long contemporary debate to which the project contributes—claims that the applicant does not sufficiently address historical dimensions. But historical dimensions are not central to the project’s design, and the theoretical scope, as well as space limitations in the proposal, preclude extensive treatment of them. Nevertheless, the applicant has systematically addressed historical dimensions in prior work, and the project includes the supervision of a PhD student dedicated to this area and the publication of a substantial collection of essays, almost half based on topics from the history of philosophy, as outlined in the proposal. Some referees may also assert that topics that are objectively novel are not, or even that a philosophy department already won a major project a few years ago and therefore does not merit an additional project. Obvious misjudgments, coupled with the inability to contest them during or after the evaluation, erode confidence in the reliability of funding bodies, evaluation procedures, colleagues, and academia more broadly. Similar concerns can be raised regarding inadequate evaluation criteria of funding bodies that are known to the applicant in advance. For example, the criterion that books are much less relevant than articles, or even that only books from certain publishing houses receive evaluative points.

3.2.5. Power, Recognition, and Resources in Academic Philosophy

Established scholars in philosophy and holders of mid-career or permanent academic posts can play an important role in preventing various forms of injustice, thereby creating better conditions for fair and unhindered research for the younger generation of researchers. They can serve as role models. However, they can also become sources of injustice: in their pursuit of power, recognition, and resources, they may contribute to the formation of academic cliques, favoritism, discrimination, prestige bias, excellence bias, and other forms of bias oriented toward perceived institutional, professional, evaluative, or symbolic “topness” and reinforce rational injustices. Power imbalances in philosophy can also be produced by groups. Philosophers, schools, thought and writing styles, methods, and topics can rapidly attain disciplinary ascendancy: an ordinary group dynamic, but problematic when it marginalizes underrepresented philosophical thought styles, thought collectives, and topics or mistakes consensus for truth.

A redistribution of power and resources between individuals and groups that preserves the interests and rights of the broad and diverse philosophical community must be based on perspectivism awareness and principles of rational justice and equilibrium. Reflections on topical equilibrium (cf. [53]) can be partially instructive for theorizing about distributive equilibrium. Topical equilibrium is a heuristic that enables testing (philosophical) theories and decisions. For example, a theory of concepts that claims generality, but focuses on explanation of such concepts as <cow>, <desk>, and <arthritis>, will not succeed in explaining all kinds of concepts, e.g., such as <philosophy> and <reason> (cf. ibid.); a philosophy department that will exclude relevant figures and topics will hardly match the interests of students and do well in international comparison (cf. [59]); and philosophy in general, with its manifold of relevant objects and topics, will hardly fair if more than a half of open job positions and research topics will focus on the philosophy of AI, on the philosophy of race and gender, or on conceptions and debates related to simple empirical concepts (cf. [53]), thereby putting scholars and students with other legitimate philosophical interests in serious disadvantage and risks of leaving academia16.

There is an apparent mismatch between demand and available resources, partly contingent on political and economic situations (some political circumstances that erode reason, rational inquiry, research funding, philosophy departments, and philosophy—and that can even cost prospective students their lives—are, disturbingly, uncritically endorsed by some philosophers themselves; cf. Section 3.3.2), and there are problems with the ways in which these resources are being distributed. In their study, Vaesen and Katzav have calculated how much each professor in the Netherlands, the USA, and the UK would receive if competitive government funding for a five-year project were to be equally distributed. According to their calculation, each Dutch professor would (in addition to their salary) receive a baseline grant of c. €390,000. The authors conclude that a far more egalitarian distribution of funds is possible and desirable. The study focuses on the distribution among employed scholars. What if we consider both employed and currently unemployed scholars? The EU’s MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships illustrate the need for immediate political action: while the number of applications rose from 10,360 (call 2024) to 17,066 (call 2025)—an increase of roughly 65%—the number of funded projects remained essentially flat (1696 in 2024 vs. 1610 in 2025)17. In the 2025 call, 9847 applicants received what the program calls “MSCA Seal of Excellence”: “These applicants submitted excellent proposals but did not receive funding due to an insufficient budget” ([61]). Out of 11,457 excellent projects, 1610 = 14.05% were supported and 9847 = 85.95% rejected. This raises a serious question: What are the rationally just and legitimate criteria to decide that a specific topic is more relevant and that a given proposal and candidate are more excellent than 9847 (85.95%) other proposals and applicants? Analogous to debates about the term ‘good’ in metaethics, we need sustained scrutiny of the categories “top” and “excellent”, which are increasingly uncritically overused in various contexts and thereby emptied of determinate content. We agree that a more egalitarian distribution of resources is needed, supplemented by other forms of support—for example, a basic income for active scholars currently without a position or grant, or an insurance-like scheme (publicly administered or privately organized) financed by those who currently hold positions or grants. This is already evident from the fact that, both historically and in the present, many important discoveries, inventions, ideas, and works have emerged under conditions of material precarity. Furthermore, many new ideas and methods that later proved to be true and/or significant encountered at times vehement and unfounded opposition from society, academia, and particular thought collectives. Today, however, such resistance operates behind closed doors within closed and anonymized review procedures, making it impossible to confront one’s critics publicly in polemical terms or to know against which intellectual figures, methodological commitments, or associated schools of thought one must defend one’s ideas.

Other forms of unequal distribution include the underpayment of philosophers for their intellectual labor by publishers and the discrepancy between scholarly contribution and reward. Philosophical inquiry is often propelled by philosophers’ intellectual drive and ambition. This mobilization of energy and capacities—often taking the form of time-consuming and self-sacrificial hard work—can run up against the wall erected by various forms of structural-rational and social injustice. For example, a large share of professorial positions was created and filled during the post-Second World War expansion of higher education. Yet while enrollments of new philosophy students are falling, professors’ incomes in many states increase automatically through experience-based pay steps within the applicable pay scales, whereas young scholars must double their academic labor merely to be able to compete for a position. The contribution-reward mismatch is also visible in cases such as the following: books that can be the result of five years of hard work are often devalued in philosophy evaluation schemes; articles are devalued because they do not appear in a “top” journal (regardless of the hard work and whether a “top” journal even publishes on the topic at issue, cf. Section 3.2.4); and candidates who demonstrably contribute more are sometimes not preferred on the basis of work-related merits18. There are ways to move toward closer alignment between contribution and reward once the systematicity and complexity of the problem are recognized. Alternative models could include (i) a re-evaluation of current allocation practices, including the redistribution of limited resources between senior scholars and younger, active researchers who often generate even more new ideas; (ii) a redistribution of grants and academic positions among equally qualified, research-active, and productive scholars by lowering individual remuneration so as to create opportunities for research for a larger number of scholars (including some who have been unemployed for extended periods); and (iii) evaluation and bonuses based on continuous, relevant contributions to philosophical research.

3.2.6. Scholarly and Epistemic Virtues and Vices

Scholarly and epistemic conduct (for this distinction, see, among others, [8]) can also be analyzed in virtue-theoretical terms. A list of virtues and vices may be both advantageous and disadvantageous, since what counts as a virtue or a vice may itself depend on historical background, on individually preferred aims, traditions, and research programs, as well as on particular contexts. It may further depend on extra-academic social, biological, and psychological factors, as well as on extra-academic personal vices (cf. Section 3.3.3). Care must therefore be taken that the demand for particular virtues, and the very construction of lists of virtues, do not themselves give rise to rational injustice toward oneself and others. A virtue can invert into a vice19.

A professionally appropriate outward appearance and a certain charisma may indeed be expected of philosophers (cf. [62]), since they represent their discipline and their institution, but not at the expense of individuality. Mathematically oriented virtues such as rigor, clarity, and precision (for criticism of their use in philosophy and for alternative virtues, see, among others, [63]) may be desirable, but they may also come at the cost of vitality, individuality, reflectiveness, open-mindedness, and complexity. The first proposition of Wittgenstein’s Tractatus—“The world is all that is the case”—may appear clear, but at what price? Continuous expansions of one’s philosophical horizon are no doubt necessary, yet they may also lead to overload and should, for a philosophical activity that must remain within certain limits, be pursued in a controlled manner (as Kant already observed in his lectures on logic; cf. [64], p. 284). Maximalist demands one places on oneself may result in philosophical texts never being completed. Likewise, peer reviewers’ comments may become excessive, particularly where authors have already invested the utmost intellectual effort in a manuscript. Independence is indispensable to philosophical activity, but not to such an extent that one neglects the work of others or becomes incapable of collaboration.

3.3. External Injustices and Transgressions

3.3.1. Public Discrediting of Philosophy and Violence Against Philosophers

In previous sections, we discussed the devaluation of philosophy from within. The same, however, occurs from outside—from the perspective of the wider public. Philosophy has been criticized and ridiculed, at least within the European tradition, for as long as it has existed. Consider, for example, Aristophanes’ Clouds, with its mockery of philosophical reasoning in discussions of the flea’s jump or the buzzing of the mosquito and the comic humiliation of Socrates, or Lucian of Samosata’s satire of philosophers and their methods in Philosophies for Sale. The tradition of satire and devaluation has persisted through the centuries into the present. One need only recall the recurring debates about the so-called “crisis of legitimacy” of philosophy, or countless jokes about philosophers, including contemporary internet memes, or the many dismissive remarks about philosophy voiced by public figures, scientists, and science communicators. The central issue is whether such hostility can be rationally justified and where the boundary lies between legitimate criticism and rational injustice. If transposed to other domains of scientific inquiry, would such ridicule appear equally acceptable?

For example, Hawking and Mlodinow claim: “Philosophy is dead. Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics” ([65], p. 5). Moreover, there are attempts to portray philosophy as akin to a mental disorder susceptible to therapeutic treatment (cf. [66] for these and other examples). Such attacks typically involve the denial of philosophical progress, the dismissal of its problems as pseudo-problems, and the rejection of its relevance to the “real” sciences (cf. ibid.). History records numerous instances of book burnings, exile, imprisonment, monastic confinement, forms of “social death”, and even psychological and lethal violence. In numerous instances, the measures taken against philosophers were intertwined with political motives (cf. [67] and Section 3.3.2), but they were often also reinforced and socially legitimized by communal, civic, or ecclesiastical structures (e.g., Socrates, Peter Abelard, and Bertrand Russell’s 1940 blocked appointment at City College of New York). Socrates, for example, was condemned to death by the Athenian state, officially for corrupting the youth, failing to honor the city’s gods, and introducing new divine beings. Consider also the fatal shooting of Moritz Schlick in 1936 by a former student at the University of Vienna. This act was reportedly motivated, at least in part, by Schlick’s anti-metaphysical views and was subsequently exploited by parts of the right-wing press.

These cases extend far beyond mere public criticism or polemics; they represent a direct manifestation of rational injustice. The long-standing normalization of discrediting and mockery toward philosophers and philosophy itself usually compels philosophers to defend not only their views but also themselves and the legitimacy of their discipline time and again, diverts public interest away from philosophy by default, and often transforms intellectual conflict into an act of public scrutiny and the exercise of power.

3.3.2. Philosophy and Politics

Philosophy has recurrently encountered not only public discrediting but also forms of political suppression throughout history. From antiquity to the modern era, regimes, political authorities, and communities have often silenced or punished philosophers whose views challenged prevailing norms. Hypatia of Alexandria was murdered by a religiously and politically motivated crowd. Giordano Bruno was tried by the Roman Inquisition and executed after refusing to recant views judged heretical. Spinoza was excommunicated from the Amsterdam Jewish community for his unorthodox views and lived under conditions of social exclusion, supporting himself by grinding optical lenses. In 1799, Johann Gottlieb Fichte was forced to leave his position in Jena following accusations of atheism. In authoritarian and repressive regimes, state power has frequently sought to silence dissident thinkers and instrumentalize academic discourse for ideological purposes. This was also the case in Nazi Germany, where philosophers classified as non-Aryan or critical of fascist ideology—such as Ernst Cassirer, Karl Löwith, Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer—were dismissed from universities, forced into exile, or prohibited from publishing. In the early Soviet Union, ideological conformity to Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy was strictly enforced. Philosophers who deviated were censured, imprisoned, or even executed, as in the case of Gustav Shpet. The infamous “Philosophers’ Ships” of 1922 and 1923 saw approximately 220–270 intellectuals—many of them closely engaged in philosophical work—expelled from the USSR, punished not for criminal behavior but for their intellectual nonconformity. In McCarthy-era America, suspected communist sympathizers in academia—including philosophers—were subjected to investigations, blacklisting, and loss of employment (cf. [58] and recently [59]).

These and similar cases (cf. [67]) illustrate recurring structural mechanisms through which intellectual dissent is transformed into rational injustices. Mechanisms of ideological conformity and exclusion persist in various forms even today. In various political systems, philosophers and intellectuals in general may encounter institutional or informal pressures to align with dominant narratives, with non-alignment carrying reputational, professional, or economic costs. At the same time, a subtler form of sanction is also apparent—namely, silencing—in which philosophers from politically stigmatized regions or associated with governments subject to political sanctions may be excluded from open scholarly dialogue regardless of the content of their views.

But philosophers have not only been victims of political suppression; at times, they have also been complicit in it. For example, Martin Heidegger, as rector of the University of Freiburg in 1933, publicly aligned himself with the Nazi regime and promoted the idea of the Führerprinzip. Similarly, Carl Schmitt, a political philosopher and legal theorist, openly collaborated with the Nazis and justified the purging of Jewish and liberal scholars from academia, but also fell out of favor with the regime within a few years. In the Soviet context, Mark Mitin rose to the highest academic ranks—becoming a full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences—primarily as an ideological functionary aligned with the regime, rather than on the basis of major original philosophical contributions.

Beyond overt political repression and opportunism, more localized dynamics of exclusion and sanction may arise within academia and philosophical communities. In such contexts, a form of “local morality” may emerge, which diverges from general principles of scholarly integrity and rational justice. It may take the form of norms of explicit loyalty and conformity or the silencing of certain groups or viewpoints, often in response to an atmosphere of caution or fear. As a result, philosophers may engage in self-censorship and refrain from publishing certain ideas or collaborating with colleagues, not for reasons internal to their philosophical inquiry, but because of anticipated institutional or political sanctions and expectations, thereby reinforcing an atmosphere of polarization, exclusion, and distrust within academia.

Some philosophers, under certain circumstances, regard themselves as unbound by moral responsibility for the lives of others (and indirectly for the continued existence of philosophical institutions in terms of funding)—for instance, when they uncritically circulate or even produce war propaganda, foster pro-war political sentiments, and privilege military escalation over dialogue. That such phenomena cannot be confined to a single historical period is illustrated by Georg Simmel’s ([68]) address at the outbreak of the First World War (with up to 40 million estimated casualties): war and victory figure as the sustaining affects; destruction and sacrifice play a secondary role; what matters instead is the overcoming of “mammonism” and the erasure of the individual in the name of “the idea” that is supposed to give rise to a new Germany and a new human being. Simmel, who obtained an ordinary professorship in 1914, was also one of the 3000 signatories of the Declaration of Professors in the German Reich [69,70], which praised German militarism and the unity of the German academic spirit with the German military. Other signatories included such philosophers as Hermann Cohen, Rudolf Eucken, Gottlob Frege, Edmund Husserl, Karl Jaspers, Paul Natorp, Heinrich Rickert, Ferdinand Tönnies, Moritz Schlick, Hans Vaihinger, Wilhelm Windelband, and Wilhelm Wundt:

Service in the army also makes our youth effective for all the works of peace including scholarship. For the army educates them to sacrificial faithfulness to duty and lends them the self-confidence and sense of honor of the truly free man who submits himself willingly to the whole. […] Now our army stands in battle for Germany’s freedom and thereby for all the assets of peace and morality—not just in Germany alone. Our belief is that salvation for the very culture of Europe depends on the victory that German “militarism” will gain: manly virtue, faithfulness, the will to sacrifice found in the united, free German people.

([70])

Eucken, Windelband, and Wundt, among others, replied as “representatives of German science and art” to various international critiques: “we will carry on this war to the end as a civilized nation, to whom the legacy of a Goethe, a Beethoven, and a Kant” ([71], p. 186) is sacred20. One of the reactions “Concerning the German Professors” in The New York Times was:

We have long known that all German academic and scholastic officials are the creatures of the Government, as obedient to orders as any Drill Sergeant. They seem to have sold their consciences for place. […] Charge them with the mutilation of little girls and the violation of nuns in Belgium, and they reply: Yes! but think of Kant and Hegel! It is treason to philosophy, they say, that a man who has translated Schopenhauer should condemn Germans for burning Malines and making captive women a screen for troops in battle. Kultur, it seems, has its own “higher law,” which its professors expound to the decadent nations of Europe.

([73], pp. 192, 194)

19 years later, a “Vow of Allegiance of the Professors of the German Universities and High-Schools to Adolf Hitler and the National Socialistic State” ([74]) was signed, among others, by Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Hans Lipps, Joachim Ritter, and several other philosophy professors.

Philosophers, like all other citizens, are in certain respects “captives” or “prisoners” of their state and its prevailing political regime. However, a line must be drawn between being subjected to such constraints and actively endorsing militarism and other forms of moral wrongdoing. Past and present proponents of “military solutions” among philosophers frequently articulate their positions in ready-made categories—nationality (cf. Section 3.2.3), winning and losing, “the idea”, being one with the whole, the soldier, and so forth. In doing so, they disseminate—via social media, for instance—war-propagandistic patterns of thought even when they are not deliberately engaged in war propaganda21. Such dissemination helps to conceal other, morally relevant categories: the lives of each individual person and everything that belongs to them, as well as the broader costs to society and the environment. The failure to interrogate propagandistic rhetorical devices and the circulation of war propaganda qualify, from the perspective of moral metaphilosophy, as a moral violation insofar as it inflicts diverse forms of harm on philosophy and on its social value: the general decline of educational attainment and, more specifically, the waning public interest in philosophy alongside the deinternationalization of philosophy; reputational damage to the discipline; harm to endangered colleagues; the endorsement of military expenditure alongside a lack of support for universities and for individual researchers. Indeed, even a single modern missile can cost sums that—under a just allocation of resources (cf. Section 3.2.5)—could finance the life’s work of multiple researchers or fund dozens, even hundreds, of research projects. Such propaganda and the dissemination of propagandistic patterns of thought are particularly disturbing and objectionable when they are promoted by securely employed professors of philosophy in countries (as yet) secure from forced mobilization and death in military conflict. Furthermore, it is disturbing when they direct their criticism at other governments yet remain unconditionally loyal to their own.

3.3.3. Philosophers, Non-Academic Vices, and Dangerous Ideas

Among philosophers, one sometimes encounters the prejudice that a well-groomed or athletic appearance can be a disadvantage, since it may prevent one from being taken seriously as a thinker—a prejudice that indeed can contribute to mistreatment, undervaluation, and rational or other forms of injustice. But should not physical exercise rather improve cerebral blood flow and thereby enable better philosophizing—and, by contributing to longevity and fitness in old age, a longer period of philosophizing as well? Without suggesting that outward appearance is a reliable indicator of philosophical ability, one might still ask whether various forms of self-care, physical activity, and extra-academic pursuits could contribute to a broader engagement with the world and thereby support a healthy and balanced form of philosophizing. They may also help foster a more adequate understanding of oneself and others, greater psychological maturity, more informed and adequate forms of social interaction and moral judgment, and the hermeneutical competence presupposed by hermeneutical rational justice.

That extra-academic factors, as well as bodily and psychological characteristics, have an impact on philosophical activity is obvious and regularly discussed in philosophy (considerations of this sort can be found, for example, in the works of Plato, the Pyrrhonists, Kant, Fichte, Nietzsche, Dilthey, James, and Beauvoir). Since philosophy is highly diverse, the various lifeworldly origins of philosophizing cannot be subsumed under a single normative basis. Indeed, it is often precisely disadvantages, weaknesses, certain vices, perversions, sublimations, personal and mental health problems (narcissistic injuries, depressive states, etc.), addictions, and the use of substances (for example, in Sartre, Benjamin, and James) that are regarded as productive sources from which interesting, novel, and at times objectionable or dangerous ideas emerge. However, if one accepts the premise that such factors affect philosophical activity, one must also accept that they affect the moral attitudes, judgements, and conduct of philosophers in academic contexts. The moral problems arising from such factors, then, belong to the class of problems concerning the relation between philosophy and extra-philosophical or extra-academic factors. Yet they differ from cases involving radical critiques of philosophy or the relation between philosophy and politics, where extra-philosophical factors may affect philosophy from without, while philosophy may, in turn, support, legitimize, or promote morally objectionable practices. In the present context, by contrast, the relevant factors are internal to the philosopher’s life-conduct as a human being: ways of life, life-style choices, broader existential decisions, degrees of psychological literacy and self-management, bodily characteristics, and general vices, all of which form part of the thinker’s overall personal and psychophysical constitution. These factors may bear upon the formation, deformation, or expression of the philosopher’s philosophical thought and personality, inflict various forms of harm on philosophy, colleagues, academic practices, and institutions, and, through forms of philosophizing thus shaped, impair social, epistemic, and other goods beyond the academic sphere.

Nietzsche, in particular, despite being a great critic of morality, offers reflections that may be relevant from the standpoint of moral metaphilosophy. In Ecce Homo, he recommends to all more intellectual natures complete abstinence from alcohol, sufficient walking, and an appropriate diet. In his works (cf. [40]), he calls upon philosophers to see through unhealthy forms of the will to power, and he reproaches them for paying too little attention to, for example, the biological and psychological factors that co-determine their philosophies, or for failing to discern how these factors manifest themselves in different philosophical positions. Precisely his call to engage with perspectivism (cf. [78,79], p. 354)—that is, with the phenomenon of world-distortion, whereby the world, through the nature of our “animal” consciousness, including the philosopher’s, is rendered “shallow”, “thin”, and “relatively stupid”—is in part compatible with the above investigations into rational injustice in philosophy. For devaluations, intellectual aggression, misrepresentation and unobjective critique, gatekeeping, academic theft, “topness” bias, discrimination, sexual misconduct, and support for political and military aggression can often be traced back to various (epistemic) vices, vengeful instincts, envy, addictions, insufficient care for one’s bodily condition, psychological problems, and concealed unhealthy forms of the will to power. Both Nietzsche’s reflections and moral metaphilosophy invite us to engage with these matters in depth.

4. Conclusions

If one examines closely the list of moral violations described in this article, together with the concrete examples, the veil that surrounds philosophers as critical thinkers—supposedly better informed than others about moral matters and therefore committed to acting on them—begins to fall. Philosophers may indeed teach critical thinking and ethics, yet this does not immunize them against immoral actions. This is due, in part, to a feature of human moral psychology: people may be morally conscientious in the local and familiar (for instance, in upholding communal norms, caring for the environment, or eating a vegan diet) while nonetheless endorsing something far larger and more destructive—such as reproducing and circulating war-propaganda patterns of thought online. Or conversely, they may endorse morality in the abstract and understand it at a general level while permitting themselves various minor wrongs in practice, including hermeneutically unrecognized moral wrongs embedded in their everyday practices (for instance, the devaluation of colleagues’ work, the exclusion or neglect of relevant research, or discrimination on the basis of nationality within philosophical practice). For this reason, the article has offered a manageable synopsis, since only a synoptic view can bring the full scope of these problems into view. Bringing about this “falling of the veil” is itself among the article’s goals, and it supports the legitimacy of introducing moral metaphilosophy (or a moral philosophy of philosophy) as a distinct field of inquiry. Philosophers, too, require ethics; they, too, must be instructed in critical thinking. This is precisely the task of metaphilosophy, which accompanies philosophy and yet grows beyond it—as the prefix ‘meta’, meaning with, about, and after, suggests ([4,80]). The point is nothing less than to protect philosophy itself. To protect it, moral violations in philosophical practice must be identified as such and appropriately resisted.

To clarify what counts as a moral violation, we relied in particular on the concept of rational justice. This concept rests on a premise on which many can agree: philosophy is a rational enterprise, and as such, it presupposes certain norms governing how we relate to one another. These norms partially overlap with general moral norms, but they concern, more specifically, the rational practice of philosophizing in both institutional and extra-institutional settings. As violations of these norms, we have identified and examined various forms of hermeneutical rational injustice and intellectual aggression, moral violations related to academic practices in a narrower sense, as well as external injustices and transgressions. At various points, we have either explicitly suggested possible solutions or merely gestured toward them; some of these suggestions and gestures are deliberately provocative, radical, and open to being understood as forms of critical protest. In doing so, we hope to address colleagues who share the normative commitments underlying this project and who may be willing to support their further discussion, or even to contribute to broader collective movements for the moral advancement of academia and the creation of a more just, open, and intellectually flourishing academic culture. We are aware that we have by no means captured all the problems that merit discussion within moral metaphilosophy, and even less so with regard to the broader transdisciplinary framework concerned with the moral dimensions of academic practice more generally.