4.3 Ethics

Twelve scatterplots showing which percentage of the articles in each journal in each year are in the category ethics. A brief summary of the data follows. In an average year in Mind, 10.7% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Mind in 2008 when it accounts for 25.4% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1907 when it accounts for 3.0% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 14.4% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society in 1965 when it accounts for 31.1% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1908 when it accounts for 1.5% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Ethics, 34.6% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Ethics in 2003 when it accounts for 61.4% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1955 when it accounts for 14.0% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Philosophical Review, 11.4% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Philosophical Review in 2003 when it accounts for 30.7% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1938 when it accounts for 2.4% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Analysis, 12.6% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Analysis in 1972 when it accounts for 31.0% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1933 when it accounts for 0.4% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Philosophy and Public Affairs, 39.3% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Philosophy and Public Affairs in 1984 when it accounts for 59.9% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 2013 when it accounts for 24.1% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Journal of Philosophy, 13.3% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Journal of Philosophy in 1986 when it accounts for 28.7% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1929 when it accounts for 2.5% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 12.3% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1995 when it accounts for 24.6% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1940 when it accounts for 1.4% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Philosophy of Science, 4.5% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Philosophy of Science in 1989 when it accounts for 8.8% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1935 when it accounts for 1.6% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in Noûs, 13.2% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in Noûs in 1979 when it accounts for 24.5% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1978 when it accounts for 2.2% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in The Philosophical Quarterly, 17.6% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in The Philosophical Quarterly in 1968 when it accounts for 31.9% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1993 when it accounts for 5.3% of the articles in the journal. In an average year in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 4.0% of the articles are in the category ethics. Ethics is most prevalent in British Journal for the Philosophy of Science in 1984 when it accounts for 8.1% of the articles in the journal. And it is least prevalent in 1958 when it accounts for 1.4% of the articles in the journal.

Figure 4.8: Proportion of each journal’s yearly publications in Ethics.

There are a lot of ethics articles in Ethics. That’s not surprising. But what’s really the story here is that the proportion of Ethics that is devoted to ethics keeps rising. The two most recently added journals, Noûs and Philosophy and Public Affairs, respectively have good and great ethics coverage, so that helps the upward trend as well. But the big story here is the consolidation of the key specialist journal. We will see this trend a few times as we move along.

Let’s look at how this is broken up into individual topics. I’m going to do a graph like this for every category, and they will all have the following restrictions.

  • The nineteenth-century is excluded, and the years start in 1901.
  • The Y-axis is capped at 0.06, i.e., 6 percent, and if there are points that are thereby excluded, I’ll list them separately in a table.

Both restrictions are motivated by the problems that affected the frequency graphs in the previous chapter. (What I’m doing here is a topic-by-topic version of the weighted frequency of articles graph.) There isn’t enough diversity in the early years, so some topics can be 10, 20, even 30 percent of the total. And there isn’t a good way to represent those numbers on a graph while also making the differences between 1 percent and 3 percent (which is what we care most about here) particularly visible. So I’ll just list separately the problematic data points.

15 scatterplots showing which percentage of the articles in all journals in each year from 1900 onwards are in the each of the topics category ethics. A brief summary of the data follows. In an average year, 0.3% of the articles are in the Frankfurt casestopic. Frankfurt cases is most prevalent in 2008 when it accounts for 1.3% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 2.3% of the articles are in the OLP ethicstopic. OLP ethics is most prevalent in 1962 when it accounts for 3.7% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.5% of the articles are in the abortion and self-defencetopic. Abortion and self-defence is most prevalent in 1985 when it accounts for 1.8% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.7% of the articles are in the decision theorytopic. Decision theory is most prevalent in 1983 when it accounts for 1.7% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.7% of the articles are in the dutiestopic. Duties is most prevalent in 1981 when it accounts for 2.9% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.4% of the articles are in the forgivenesstopic. Forgiveness is most prevalent in 1974 when it accounts for 2.0% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.3% of the articles are in the free willtopic. Free will is most prevalent in 2013 when it accounts for 0.8% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.2% of the articles are in the medical ethicstopic. Medical ethics is most prevalent in 1984 when it accounts for 1.1% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 1.5% of the articles are in the moral consciencetopic. Moral conscience is most prevalent in 1902 when it accounts for 3.8% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.4% of the articles are in the moral normstopic. Moral norms is most prevalent in 2012 when it accounts for 2.0% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.6% of the articles are in the population ethicstopic. Population ethics is most prevalent in 1998 when it accounts for 2.5% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 1.1% of the articles are in the promises and imperativestopic. Promises and imperatives is most prevalent in 1966 when it accounts for 3.2% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.9% of the articles are in the reasonstopic. Reasons is most prevalent in 2009 when it accounts for 2.7% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 1.3% of the articles are in the valuetopic. Value is most prevalent in 1945 when it accounts for 3.3% of the articles in all journals. In an average year, 0.5% of the articles are in the virtuestopic. Virtues is most prevalent in 1974 when it accounts for 1.3% of the articles in all journals.

Figure 4.9: Topics in ethics.

A quick note about the he subtopic “OLP Ethics”. The “OLP” here is for ordinary language philosophy. So this subtopic is the ethics part of ordinary language philosophy. I’m moderately confident that this really is part of ethics—it includes papers like Philippa Foot’s “Moral Beliefs”. But I’m not 100 percent sure about this, since it includes a lot of things that don’t feel exactly like ethics papers as we’d currently understand that. In general, ordinary language philosophy makes this kind of analysis hard.

Note how there are a few topics that peak one after the other: first value, then promises and imperatives, then duties, and now norms. But none of this rise and fall is visible in the overall graph, which is fairly steady. Some of these rises and falls comes from changing interests among folks in the field, but some I think comes from simply changes in fashionable terminology.