Peer review process

ethic@ - An international Journal for Moral Philosophy adopts a double-blind peer review process.

Submitted articles are initially pre-evaluated by the editorial team at the desk review stage, at which point originality, contribution, relevance, topicality, overall structure, compliance with editorial policies and submission guidelines are assessed, and a text similarity (plagiarism) check is conducted. Failure to meet any of these criteria results in rejection and archiving of the article. This review is an initial assessment to determine whether the text meets the journal’s guidelines and whether a full external evaluation is warranted. The average time for this first decision is approximately 30 days.

If a positive evaluation is obtained in the previous stage, the article will be forwarded to two external reviewers, not affiliated with ethic@, holding a PhD degree and with expertise in the subject of the submitted text. In case of divergence in the evaluations, a third reviewer will be appointed, and so on until a final decision is reached. Authors who have previously published in the journal may be invited to act as reviewers. Articles are evaluated using the journal’s own evaluation form.

The Editor-in-Chief, Associate Editor, or Assistant Editor responsible for the evaluation process will notify the author of “acceptance without revisions,” “mandatory revisions” (with or without a new round of peer review), or “rejection” and archiving of the article.

In cases of “mandatory revisions,” the author will have 30 days to submit to ethic@ the revised article and a response letter detailing the changes made. A reasoned justification must be provided if the reviewer suggestions are not followed. The editorial team will forward, when appropriate, the new version of the manuscript and the document containing comments and/or justifications to the reviewers in order to verify whether the revised text meets the requirements and to inform whether the article can be accepted, rejected, or still requires modifications.

If the final evaluation of the manuscript is “rejected,” the author will be notified of the reasons for the decision and the manuscript will be archived.

After acceptance for publication, the article will be forwarded for copyediting and production. Any errors identified after proof review will be the responsibility of the authors.

The journal may reject articles that contain significantly similar content (plagiarism) to other works at any stage of the editorial process in which it is identified.

The average time from submission to acceptance after peer review is 180 days, and from acceptance of the original to publication is approximately 45 days.