We present evidence that mainstream Anglophone philosophy is insular in the sense that participants in this academic tradition tend mostly to cite or interact with other participants in this academic tradition, while having little academic interaction with philosophers writing in other languages. Among our evidence: In a sample of articles from elite Anglophone philosophy journals, 97% of citations are citations of work originally written in English; 96% of members of editorial boards of elite Anglophone philosophy journals are housed in majority-Anglophone (...) countries; and only one of the 100 most-cited recent authors in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy spent most of his career in non-Anglophone countries writing primarily in a language other than English. In contrast, philosophy articles published in elite Chinese-language and Spanish-language journals cite from a range of linguistic traditions, as do non-English-language articles in a convenience sample of established European-language journals. We also find evidence that work in English has more influence on work in other languages than vice versa and that when non-Anglophone philosophers cite recent work outside of their own linguistic tradition it tends to be work in English. (shrink)

BackgroundThe underrepresentation of scholarly works from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in academic literature is a documented concern, attributed partly to editorial biases. This trend, prevalent across various disciplines, has been less explored in the context of medical ethics journals. This study aimed to examine the composition of editorial board members (EBM) in high-impact medical ethics journals and to evaluate the extent of international diversity within these editorial teams.MethodsThis study incorporated an analysis of 16 high-impact medical ethics journals. Information regarding (...) the EBM of these journals was systematically gathered and categorized based on the World Bank’s country income classifications. An in-depth examination of the editorial board compositions was then conducted.ResultsThe study identified 669 EBM across the selected journals. A predominant 89.84% (601) of these members were from high-income countries (HICs), with upper-middle-income countries contributing 7.47% (50) and lower-middle-income countries 2.69% (18). No EBM were associated with low-income countries. A regional breakdown indicated that North America was the most represented area, accounting for 48.88% (327), followed by Europe & Central Asia (27.50%, 184), East Asia & Pacific (13.45%, 90), Latin America & Caribbean (4.63%, 31), Sub-Saharan Africa (4.19%, 28), Middle East & North Africa (0.75%, 5), and South Asia (0.60%, 4). In total, these EBMs hailed from 46 different countries, with the United States representing the largest proportion (43.80%, 293), followed by the United Kingdom (13.15%, 88), Australia (7.92%, 53), Germany (6.73%, 45), and Canada (5.08%, 34).ConclusionsThere is a significant lack of international representation within the EBM of high-impact medical ethics journals. The majority of editors in this field are affiliated with HICs, leading to a severe underrepresentation of LMICs within the editorial boards. (shrink)

The silencing of the epistemologies, theories, principles, values, concepts and experiences of the global South constitutes a particularly egregious epistemic injustice in bioethics. Our shared responsibility to rectify that injustice should be at the top of the ethics agenda. That it is not, or only is in part, is deeply problematic and endangers the credibility of the entire field. As a first step towards reorienting the field, this paper offers a comprehensive account of epistemic justice for global health ethics. We (...) first introduce several different conceptions of justice and decolonisation in relation to knowledge, purposefully drawing on work emanating from the global South as well as the global North. We then apply those conceptions to the global health ethics context to generate a tripartite account of the layers of epistemic justice in the field: who is producing ethics knowledge; what theories and concepts are being applied to produce ethics knowledge; and whose voices are sought, recorded and used to generate ethics knowledge. These layers reflect that the field spans conceptual and empirical research. We conclude by proposing that, going forward, three avenues are key to achieve greater epistemic justice at each layer and to help decolonise global health ethics: namely, understanding the problem, dialogue and structural change. (shrink)

We identify the ways the policies of leading international bioethics journals limit the participation of researchers working in the resource-constrained settings of low- and middle-income countries in the development of the field of bioethics. Lack of access to essential scholarly resources makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for many LMIC bioethicists to learn from, meaningfully engage in, and further contribute to the global bioethics discourse. Underrepresentation of LMIC perspectives in leading journals sustains the hegemony of Western bioethics, limits the (...) presentation of diverse moral visions of life, health, and medicine, and undermines aspirations to create a truly “global” bioethics. Limited attention to this problem indicates a lack of empathy and moral imagination on the part of bioethicists in high-income countries, raises questions about the ethics of bioethics, and highlights the urgent need to find ways to remedy this social injustice. (shrink)

In the September-October 2001 issue of the Hastings Center Report, editor Gregory Kaebnick encouraged bioethicists to turn their attention toward “easily overlooked, relatively little-talked-about societal topics” such as race. In 2000 the president of the American Society for Bioethics had called for a more socially conscious bioethics. Race was risky territory, Kaebnick pointed out, but this challenge did not justify avoidance. Over the next fifteen years, the response to this editor's invitation to examine the racial dimensions of medicine in the (...) Report was limited both in quantity and in terms of the range of topics covered. All told, the bioethics community has not responded to the editor's call for bioethicists to engage with the racial dimension of medicine, and the Report has not really come through on the tacit commitment made in 2001. The lack of interest in race matters evidenced in the Report as well as the American Journal of Bioethics has also prevailed in medical humanities journals, whose few pieces on race have tended to remove race relations from our current realities in two ways: some articles locate medical racism in the American past or in colonial Africa, while others analyze the medical disorders of fictional characters. Bioethicists have not embraced the opportunity to create a sociologically and historically informed bioethics that might be applied to the lives of black Americans and their unending health crisis. (shrink)

Given that biases can distort bioethics work, it has received surprisingly little and fragmented attention compared to in other fields of research. This article provides an overview of potentially relevant biases in bioethics, such as cognitive biases, affective biases, imperatives, and moral biases. Special attention is given to moral biases, which are discussed in terms of (1) Framings, (2) Moral theory bias, (3) Analysis bias, (4) Argumentation bias, and (5) Decision bias. While the overview is not exhaustive and the taxonomy (...) by no means is absolute, it provides initial guidance with respect to assessing the relevance of various biases for specific kinds of bioethics work. One reason why we should identify and address biases in bioethics is that it can help us assess and improve the quality of bioethics work. (shrink)

Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue S1, Page S72-S78, March‐April 2022.