“Philosophy’s broadening impact has generated increasing interest from industries looking to partner with academic philosophers. Ties are now especially common between philosophers and technology companies producing AI products. These changes call for discipline-wide reflection on the norms of research integrity.” That is an excerpt from an open letter calling “for philosophy journals to strengthen or implement new policies requiring author disclosure of relevant industry ties and conflicts of interest (COI).” The letter was written by Cailin O’Connor (UC Irvine) and Craig Callender (UC San Diego), who explain their reasoning for it in the following guest post. “Norms surrounding conflict disclosure (financial and non-financial) are basically non-existent” in philosophy, they say, and “improved disclosure is one easy first step” we can take to “protect the integrity of our research.” Time for Philosophy’s COI Policies to Grow Up by Cailin O’Connor & Craig Callender Both of us have been working on industry mis- and dis-information in science. By the mid-twentieth century it was clear cigarettes caused lung cancer, but the tobacco industry developed a suite of techniques to influence scientific research on a range of topics, which helped protect their products for decades, allowing them to rack up profits even while millions died. Fossil fuels, agrochemicals, pharmaceuticals, sugar and many other industries use more or less the same techniques to protect a range of products, sometimes with disastrous consequences for public health. The “tobacco strategy” of influencing science often involves techniques that work within the norms of academia, and that may not tip off academics to the role they play in industry influence campaigns. Businesses need not directly fund research in order to skew the results of inquiry in their favor. For example, industry can support just those areas of inquiry that yield desired findings—for instance by emphasizing the role of social media users in the spread of misinformation, rather than platforms, or by highlighting the role exercise plays in health, rather than soda. We recently started circulating an open letter aimed at improving conflict-of-interest disclosure policies in philosophy journals. We encourage you to sign and share it. Why? It is past time for philosophy to start worrying about the tobacco strategy in our own discipline, and to take actions to protect the integrity..

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