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'Controversial ideas' journal where academics can publish under pseudonyms for fear of backlash

The phenomenon of attempting to shut down views you disagree with has become “very pronounced”, Prof McMahan says - Nick Edwards
The phenomenon of attempting to shut down views you disagree with has become “very pronounced”, Prof McMahan says - Nick Edwards

A “controversial ideas” journal where researchers can publish articles under pseudonyms will be launched next year by an Oxford University academic.  

The new journal is a response to a rise in researchers being criticised and silenced by those who disagree with them, according to Jeff McMahan, a professor of moral philosophy at Oxford.

“There is an increasing tendency that I see within academia and outside for people to try to suppress views they don’t like and treat them as wicked and unspeakable, rather than confront those views and refute them,” he said.

While controversial research has always attracted criticism, Prof McMahan told how the attack on intellectual discussion and fear of self-censorship has become more acute in recent years.

The phenomenon of attempting to shut down views you disagree with has become “very pronounced” among young people and those on the Left, he told The Daily Telegraph.  

“Occasionally the fear of reaction is from the right and other times it is from the left”, Prof McMahan said, adding that academics also fear being censured by their own university administrations too.  

He cited the example of a fellow Oxford academic, Professor Nigel Biggar, being “targeted” after he suggested that people should have “pride” about aspects of their imperialist past.

Over 50 professors, lecturers and researchers signed an open letter expressing their “firm rejection” of his views. Prof Biggar later revealed that young academics are afraid of damaging their careers if they are seen with him.

Another example he gave was when the Oxford Students For Life group invited speakers to discuss proposals to legalise abortion in Ireland.

“The members are entirely reasonable decent people, I disagree with them totally, but they tried to put on an event a year or so ago with discussion of abortion. But they were shouted down by a feminist group and unable to proceed,” Prof McMahan said.

Prof McMahan told how the attack on intellectual discussion and fear of self-censorship has become more acute in recent years 
Prof McMahan told how the attack on intellectual discussion and fear of self-censorship has become more acute in recent years

A newly formed group of over 100 academics from British universities last month raised their concerns about “the suppression of proper academic analysis and discussion of the social phenomenon of transgenderism”.

They said that members of their group have experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press, harassment, foiled plots to bring about dismissal, no-platforming, and attempts to censor academic research and publications. 

Francesca Minerva, a bio-ethicist at the University of Ghent in Belgium, approached Prof McMahan about setting up  The Journal of Controversial Ideas after she received death threats due to her academic research.

She had to seek police protection following the publication of an article she co-authored in the Journal of Medical Ethics which defended the permissibility of early infanticide in a certain range of cases.

Prof McMahan said that the new cross-disciplinary publication, which is due to launch next year, will be fully peer-reviewed in line with normal academic standards.

He said that he and Peter Singer, the prominent Australian philosopher, are assembling an editorial board that is made up of academics and people distinguished in their fields from across the political and religious spectrum.

 “The idea is to make sure the journal is not seen as in any way partisan, but to facilitate academic freedom,” he said.