The Journal of Ethics - Special Issue Guidelines

Wim Dubbink and Noah Lemos, Editors-in-Chief.

The Journal of Ethics accepts special issues on crucial and timely themes. The decision on accepting a special issue (SI) is a joint decision by the Editors-in-Chief.

Criteria for successful requests for special issues

- The SI is on a theme of ethics and morality that is philosophically interesting
- The theme is timely
- The special editor(s) are experts on the theme and can (thus) fall back on a network of expert reviewers

Conditions

- A special issue is handled by a special issue editor, appointed by the Editors-in-Chief. The SI editor is added to the EM system. In this way the submissions to the SI can be handled through the normal (EM) submission and processing system)
- All contributions to the special issue go through a double blind review process (except the editorial by the Special Issue Editor)
- All papers are reviewed by two reviewers
- All contributions are written as self-standing papers
- All contributions are written as journal papers
- (If the special issue comes out of a conference), each paper is reviewed by at least one reviewer not partaking in the conference
- All relevant scholars are invited to participate through a call for papers that is opened for at least a month and can be placed on the journal website.

Procedure

- The prospected SI editor sends a proposal to the Editors-in-Chief, Wim Dubbink (this opens in a new tab)
- Upon acceptance, the SI editor issues a call for papers approved by Editors-in-Chief
- The SI editor has full responsibility in reviewing proposals and reviewing papers
- The editors in chief have the right to give advice to the SI editor and can also veto the work on any submission when Springer quality standards are not upheld (for example to keep looking for reviewers on a paper rejected by the original reviewers)
- All submissions go through a double blind review process
- Each submission stands in need of two review reports
- All submissions go through the EM system, as do the submission of the reviewer reports
- In the EM system, contributors must indicate upon submission that a paper is for a special issue (dropdown menu)
- The whole special issue will be reviewed by (one of the) Editors-in-Chief after acceptance by special issue editor [Springer Nature requirement]