Philosophy journals have no uniform conflict-of-interest policies. A researcher can publish a paper on AI ethics while serving as a paid consultant for an AI company, and readers, and editors, would have no structured way to know.
A new open letter released July 1 by professors Cailin O’Connor (UC Irvine) and Craig Callender (UC San Diego) aims to change that. The petition, now signed by more than 150 philosophers including Brian Leiter (University of Chicago), calls on philosophy journals to adopt mandatory conflict-of-interest (COI) disclosure policies modeled on those used by journals such as Science and Nature.
“Philosophy’s conflict-of-interest policies are very far from the state of the art,” O’Connor and Callender wrote in a guest post for Daily Nous explaining the initiative. “Norms surrounding conflict disclosure, financial and non-financial, are basically nonexistent.”
Why now: the AI connection
The immediate catalyst is the growing relationship between academic philosophers and technology companies. Philosophy departments increasingly produce research on AI ethics, algorithmic fairness, and the philosophy of machine learning, areas in which companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have direct commercial interests. These companies fund research centers, employ philosophers as consultants and fellows, and support graduate programs.
“Ties are now especially common between philosophers and technology companies producing AI products,” the open letter states. “These changes call for discipline-wide reflection on the norms of research integrity.”
The concern is not unique to philosophy, researchers across the social sciences and humanities have noted the growth of corporate funding without corresponding disclosure norms. But philosophy’s status as a field with essentially no COI culture makes it particularly vulnerable. As Victor Kumar noted in his analysis on Open Questions Substack, some fear that “AI ethics has been captured by industry.”
What the petition asks for
The open letter proposes a standardized checklist for authors that asks about funding, employment, collaborations, stock ownership, investments, and other relationships relevant to their research. Both financial and non-financial conflicts would be covered, including unpaid affiliations, personal connections with employees of relevant companies, and data access arrangements.
Disclosures would be published alongside the paper, not filed away in an editorial office, mirroring the transparency standards of top scientific journals. The letter also calls for retroactive disclosures for previously published work with industry ties, and suggests that noncompliance could result in corrections or retractions.
“Because conflict-of-interest reporting is unfamiliar to many philosophers,” the Science AAAS article reports, “the letter proposes journals give authors a standardized checklist that asks about funding, employment, collaborations, and other relevant relationships.”
A discipline catching up
Medicine and the life sciences have had mandatory COI disclosure for decades. The International Committee of Medical Journal Editors provides a standard form used by thousands of journals. The Physician Payments Sunshine Act created a public database of industry payments to doctors. Top-tier science journals require detailed disclosure of both financial and non-financial interests.
Philosophy has largely remained outside this trend. While some publisher-level policies exist, Springer journals, for instance, ask for a basic conflict statement, there is no standardized form, no discipline-wide expectation, and no culture of disclosure. The open letter represents an attempt by philosophers themselves to close the gap.
“This is a new step in the right direction to limit the risks of biased studies, for the good of science,” as one observer noted.
Concerns and responses
Not everyone in the field is entirely comfortable with the scope of the proposal. Some have argued that the disclosure requirements, particularly the request to disclose “close personal relationships with employees of relevant companies”, cast too wide a net. Others question retroactivity: having a norm today applied to work published before that norm existed. The direction of bias has also been questioned: most academic philosophers are actively critical of AI companies, and professional incentives in the field tend to reward skepticism of corporate influence, not the reverse.
The petition’s organizers acknowledge these concerns but argue that transparency is a prerequisite for addressing them. “The goal is not to suggest that industry ties are inherently corrupting,” they wrote. “The goal is to give readers the information they need to evaluate the work for themselves.”
The full open letter is available as a Google Form, and the organizers are still collecting signatures.
Sources
- O’Connor, C. & Callender, C. “Open Letter: Mandatory Conflict of Interest Disclosures in Philosophy Journals.” Daily Nous (July 6, 2026). https://dailynous.com/
- “Philosophers call for their journals to require conflict of interest disclosures.” Science AAAS (July 6, 2026). https://www.science.org/content/article/philosophers-call-their-journals-require-conflict-interest-disclosures
- Kumar, V. “Philosophy’s Alignment Problem.” Open Questions Substack (July 2, 2026). https://openquestions.substack.com/
- Open letter petition form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf9TjX10ol44FrXR0dc1azlyzlbQqwiSL6R7DAUAFxhZ03cFg/viewform